 |
|
 |
calling Calvin Calvinism Canada cargo cats celebrity certainty chance change character charismatic charity chastity cheerfulness chess children China chocolate choice Christ Christianity Christmas church church and state church leaders city civilisation civil war clairvoyant class Clinton coffee colours comfort common grace communication communism compassion complaints compromise computers confession confidence conflict conformity conscience consistency conservative conspiracy contentment controversy conversation courage covenant cowardice creation creativity credulity creeds cricket criticism Cromwell cross culture curiosity customer cynicism Czechoslovakia
If God gives the call, He gives the confidence. Steve Cleary
Many are called but few get up. - Oliver Herford(1863-1935 ) In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994.
The call intended is the effectual call of the Holy
Spirit, by which the soul is renewed and translated from the
kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. The only
evidence of election is therefore vocation, and the only
evidence of vocation, is holiness of heart and life, for we
are called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our
Lord. Compare again Romans 8:29, where believers are said to
be "predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son."
To this they are effectually called. They are made like
Christ. Fellowship includes union and communion. We are
called to be partakers of Christ; partakers of his life, as
members of his body; and herefore, partakers of his
character, of his sufferings here and of his glory
hereafter.
Charles Hodge (1797-1878), An Exposition of I
Corinthians
God doesn't call people who are qualified. He calls people who are willing, and then He qualifies them. - Richard Parker
God has called me to go, and I will go. I will blaze the trail, though my grave may only become a stepping stone that younger men may follow. - C. T. Studd Leaving his wife and four daughters in England, he sailed, contrary to medical advice, for the heart of Africa in 1910, where he continued to work until his death in 1931.
We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. A.W. TOZER
When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does
not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or
a s princes, who make their subjects favourites, and
afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness
of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God's
call is founded on His decree, and His decree is immutable.
Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out his people's
sins, but not their names.
THOMAS WATSON
After the reading of Scripture, which I strenuously inculcate, and more than any other ... I recommend that the Commentaries of Calvin be read ...For I affirm that in the interpretation of the Scriptures Calvin is incomparable, and that his Commentaries are more to be valued than anything that is handed down to us in the writings of the Fathers -- so much that I concede to him a certain spirit of prophecy in which he stands distinguished above others, above most, indeed, above all. -- Jacobus Arminius
He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American independence. -- George Bancroft
Calvin's Institutes, in spite of its imperfections, is, on the whole, one of the noblest edifices ever erected by the mind of man, and one of the mightiest codes of moral law which ever guided him. -- Francois Pierre Guizot
Those who consider Calvin only as a theologian fail to recognize the breadth of his genius. The editing of our wise laws, in which have had a large share, does him as much credit as his Institutes ....So long as the love of country and liberty is not extinct among us, the memory of this great man will be held in reverence. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social. 1792
Nothing is more dangerous than a Calvinist just off his knees.. - James Luther Adams quoted by Max Stackhouse, in his preface to, Religion, Pluralism and Public Life, ed Luis E Lugo, Eeerdmans, 200O.
[The Confession of Faith] infused enduring elements into the institutions of Geneva, and made it for the modern world, the impregnable fortress of popular liberty--the fertile seed-plot of Democracy.-- George Bancroft
There is no system which equals Calvinism in intensifying, to the last degree, ideas of moral excellence and purity of character. It has always worked for liberty. There never was a system since the world began, which puts upon man such motives to holiness, or builds batteries which sweep the whole ground of sin with such horrible artillery. -- Henry Ward Beecher
I come now to our doctrine. Many people condemn it out of prejudice, without hearing or exploring it. They are to occupied with some opinion or other that totally dulls the sharp edge of their minds. I am not going to mention the insults and even criminal acts that are imputed to us in an effort to keep everyone from tasting our doctrine. Only one thing can be charged against us, that we strive to call back to their own banner (namely, the Word of God) all those who are counted as belonging to Christ but have been wandering about wretchedly. We are also bringing it about that all controversy over the worship of God is settled on the basis of his Word, so that each person may believe what is established as being from God. What of our adversaries? They are making a counterfeit church, a short shield of Ajax, so that they may hide behind its empty facade. The prophets and apostles faced the same situation when they had to deal with men who were usurping, by their wicked beliefs, the very name of the church and its highest authority. John Calvin
That God works half and man the other half is false; that God works all and man does all is true. -- John Duncan
The promulgation of Calvin's theology was one of the longest steps that mankind has taken toward personal liberty. -- John Fiske
To the Calvinists, more than to any other class of men, the political liberties of Holland, England, and America are due. -- John L. Motley
I am a five point Calvinist and all the points are sharp! -- Ian Paisley
The strength of that heretic (John Calvin) consisted in this, that money never had the slightest charm for him. If I had such servants my dominion would extend from sea to sea. -- Pope Pius IV (1559-1565)
The Calvinist has said, and said right bravely, that salvation is of grace alone; and the Arminian has said, and said most truthfully, that damnation is of man's will alone, and as the result of man's sin, and of that only. Then they have fallen out with one another. The fact is, they had each one laid hold of a truth, and if they could have put their heads together, and accepted both truths, it might have been greatly for the advantage of the Church of Christ. These two doctrines are like tram lines that you can travel on with safety and comfort, these parallel lines-ruin, of man; restoration, of God: sin, of man's will; salvation, of God's will: reprobation, of man's demerit; election, of God's free and sovereign grace: the sinner lost in hell through himself alone, the saint lifted up to heaven wholly and alone by the power and grace of God. Get those two truths thoroughly engraven upon your heart, and you will then hold comprehensively the great truths of Scripture. You will not need to crowd them into one narrow system of theology, but you will have a sort of duplicate system - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
When my spirit gets depressed, nothing will sustainit but the good old-fashioned Calvinistic doctrine. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_ Vol. 58 [1912]
I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless we preach what is nowadays called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the Gospel and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the Gospel...unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah. Nor do I think we can preach the Gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of his elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend the Gospel which allows saints to fall away after they are called. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
I must confess I never would have been saved if I could
have helped it. As long as I could, I rebelled and revolted
and struggled against God. When he would have me pray, I
would not pray. When he would have me listen to the sound of
the ministry, I would not. And when I heard, and the tear
rolled down my cheek, I wiped it away and defied him to melt
my heart. Then he gave me the effectual blow of grace, and
there was no resisting that irresistible effort. It
conquered my depraved will and made me bow myself before the
scepter of his grace.
And so it is in every case. Man revolts against his Savior,
but where God determines to save, save he will. God never
was thwarted yet in any one of his purposes. Man does resist
with all his might, but all the might of man, tremendous
though it be for sin, is not equal to the majestic might of
the Most High.--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)_New Park
Street Pulpit_ Vol. 4 [1858]
In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations --it's cold, half French, and difficult to stir. -Stuart Keate
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedar wood, and sweet white wine.Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, ironware, and cheap tin trays.
John Masefield, Cargoes
If you throw a cat out a car window, does it become kitty litter?
I love cats ... they taste like chicken
A Good Cat Is A Flat Cat-- Australian feline control agency bumper sticke
So Many Cats So Few Recipes-- bumper sticker
I can make ANY cat go "woof". All you need is some gasoline and a match! -- Russell W. Laughlin
Ahh, the soothing o' the Pipes... Whenever I find myself missing its melodious sounds, I just toss the cat in the dryer on low heat... Jordan Montgomery
It is easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. Peole like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponisible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people that it is often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.--P.J. O'Rourke
Cats are a waste of fur.-- Rita Rudner
I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance -- a sharp, vindictive glance. -- James Thurber
You can judge a society by the kind of people it celebrates. - Woody Allen
I don't feel good about taking the platform, merely on
account of my celebrity. I believe that the people I support
are in a position to make a better argument for the cause,
based on facts and their expertise, than I am on the
authority of my celebrity.
Harrison Ford (1942-____) "Bad Grades Lead to Acting Career
for Harrison Ford," by Bob Thomas, Associated Press Writer,
Aug. 1993.
A celebrity is one who is known by many people he is glad he doesn't know.-- H. L. Mencken
One can never know for sure what a deserted area looks like. George Carlin
Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything
appears to promise that it will last; but in this world
nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin. 1706-1790. Letter to M. Leroy,
1789.
Nothing in life is certain except Negative Patient Care Outcome and Revenue Enhancement.-- William Lutz, "DoubleSpeak"
It's not the bullet with my name on it that worries me. It's the one that says "To whom it may concern." - Anonymous
In order for [a] monkey to type the thirteen
letters opening Hamlet's soliloquy [-- To be or not to
be --] by chance, it would take 26 to the power of 13
trials for success. This is sixteen times as great as the
total number of seconds that have elapsed in the lifetime of
our solar system.
Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things Pseudo
science, Superstition, and Other Confusions of our Time,
1997
Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.
Most people are willing to change not because they see the light, but because they feel the heat.
Take change by the hand, or it will take you by the throat.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
Change is good. You go first.~Scott Adams
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. -- Francis Bacon
Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix. - Christina Baldwin
The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.- William Blake, (1757-1827)
With whom would the just man not sit
To help justice?
What medicine is too bitter
For the man who's dying?
What vileness should you not suffer to
Annihilate vileness?
If at last you could change the world, what
Could make you too good to do so?
Who are you?
Sink in filth
Embrace the butcher but
Change the world: it needs it!
Bertolt Brecht
Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by those involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.~ Gerald Brenan
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. - Jimmy Carter (1924-____) Speech, 20 Jan 1977; quoting his teacher, Julia Coleman.
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. --G.K. Chesterton: _Orthodoxy_
Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant. Anthony J. D'Angelo
Most women set out to change a man, and when they have
changed him they do not like him.
Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) In "The Last Word - A Treasury
of Women's Quotes," by Carolyn Warner,1992.
Change is inevitable in a progressive country. Change is constant. -- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
Change is an easy panacea. It takes character to stay in one place and be happy there. --Elizabeth Clarke Dunn
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. -- Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, 1952
Be the change you want to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi
We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing endures but change. -- Heraclitus
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.... Aldous Huxley
Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing; when we have made it the next wish is to change again... Samuel Johnson
We may dig in our heels and dare life never to change, but, all the same, it changes under our feet like sand under the feet of a sea gazer as the tide runs out. Life is forever undermining us. Life is forever washing away our castles, reminding us that they were, after all, only sand and sea water.- Erica Jong: Parachutes and Kisses
Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth. -- Joseph Joubert
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. --John F. Kennedy
If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. - Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa (1896 -1957)
The only thing constant in life is change. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. -- C.S. Lewis
Whoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times. --Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) _Discourses_ [1517]
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. -- Karl Marx Theses on Feuerbach
We know that violent measures against religion are nonsense; but this is an opinion: as socialism grows, religion will disappear. Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which education must play a part. -- Chicago Tribune Interview with Karl Marx
In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. -- John Henry Newman
To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. ---John Henry Newman, _The Development of Christian Doctrine_, 1834
There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature;the ages themselves glide by in constant movement. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
Through no amount of effort can a naturally wicked man
Be turned into an honest one.
However long you boil water,
It is impossible to make it burn like fire.
Saskya Pandita (1182-1251)Continuity does not rule out fresh approaches to fresh situations. - Dean Rusk (1909-____)
Change almost always represents improvement of the human condition.Constancy almost always represents stagnation. In any event, change is certain. There's no point in complaining about it. Natural history teaches that survival in a changing world does not depend on physical strength or on high intelligence. Survival depends on the ability to change. --Alex Sanders
Lucy: Do you think anybody ever really changes?
Linus: I've changed a lot in the last year.
Lucy:I mean for the better.--Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)
("Peanuts" comic strip)
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)_King Lear_ [1605], Act I, Scene iv, Line 371
If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living. Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean a giving up of familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, relationships that have lost their meaning. As Dostoevsky put it, 'Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.' The real fear should be of the opposite course." - Gail Sheehy
It is better to be old-fashioned and right than to be up-to-date and wrong.--- Tiorio
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. ~ Voltaire
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.-- WARD, ARTHUR
So, when a raging fever burns,
We shift from side to side by turns;
And 't is a poor relief we gain
To change the place but keep the pain.
Isaac Watts, _Hymns and Spiritual Songs_, 1707
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.--Harold Wilson
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.-- Woodrow Wilson
The only time a woman can really succeed in changing a man is when he is a baby. - Natalie Wood (1938 &endash; 1981)
Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.
A person's character and their garden both reflect the amount of weeding that was done in the growing season.
Character is not made in a crisis, it is only exhibited
Change is an easy panacea. It takes character to stay in one place and be happy there. --Elizabeth Clarke Dunn
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.--Ralph Waldo Emerson
It seems to me to be the best proof of an evangelical disposition, that persons are not angry when reproached, and have a Christian charity for those that ill deserve it. -- The Colloquies of Erasmus
Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.-- Ava Gardner , Quoted in: Roland Flamini, Ava, ch. 8 (1983)
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. ~Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Anthony Gross, Lincoln's Own Stories (1912)
Small kindnesses, small courtesies, small considerations, habitually practiced in our social intercourse, give a greater charm to the character than the display of great talents and accomplishments.-- Mary Ann Kelty
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real
thing.
Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865) in Gross _Lincoln's Own
Stories_ (1912) p. 109
Character is what you are in the dark.--Moody, Dwight L. (1827-1899 Attributed in William R. Moody _D. L. Moody_ (1930) ch. 66
Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become.- Brooke Foss Westcott
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.-- John Wooden
A friend of mine is into Charismatic Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just fall down and......ooooooooo.., that's much better...
Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while, Peter, James, and John were permitted to see Him in His glory. For that brief while they had no need of faith. The vision vanished, and the memory of it did not prevent them from all forsaking Him when He was arrested, or Peter from denying that he had ever known Him.-- W. H. Auden, A Certain World [1971]
The Fanaticism which discards the Scripture,under the pretence of resorting to immediate revelations is subversive of every principle of Christianity. For when they boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods. John Calvin
The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity. -- Benjamin Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield). 1805-1881. Speech, Nov. 25, 1864.
An erroneous principle, than which scarce any has proved
more mischievous to the present glorious work of God, is a
notion that it is God's manner in these days to guide His
saints by inspiration, or immediate revelation.... As long
as a person has a notion that he is guided by immediate
direction from heaven, it makes him incorrigible and
impregnable in all his misconduct.
Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present
Revival of Religion in New England, p.1:404
The goal of revival is conformity to the image of Christ, not imitation of animals.-- Richard F. Lovelace
Charismania is pietism gone to seed. -- Dick Lucas
He who is not a charismatic when he is young has no heart. He who is still a charismatic when he is old has no brain. --Chris Stamper
One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. -- Andrew Carnegie
No, Sir; to act from pure benevolence is not possible for
finite beings. Human benevolence is mingled with vanity,
interest, or some other motive.
Boswell: Life of Johnson
You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle. I own, indeed, there may be more virtue in giving it immediately in charity, than in spending it in luxury; though there may be a pride in that too. -- Boswell: Life of Johnson
The truth is, that luxury produces much good. Take the luxury of building in London. Does it not produce real advantage in the conveniency and elegance of accommodation, and this all from the exertion of industry? People will tell you, with a melancholy face, how many builders are in goal, not for building; for rents are not fallen. -- A man gives half a guinea for a dish of green peas. How much gardening does this occasion? how many labourers must the competition to have such things early in the market, keep in employment? You will hear it said, very gravely, 'Why was not the half-guinea, thus spent in luxury, given to the poor? To how many might it have afforded a good meal?' Alas! has it not gone to the industrious poor, whom it is better to support than the idle poor? You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labour, than when you give money merely in charity. -- Boswell: Life of Johnson
Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it. - John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1839 &endash; 1937)
Give me chastity and continence, but not yet. -- Augustine of Hippo
Serve God with gladness and cheerfulness of heart, as one that hath found the way of life, and never had cause of gladness until now. If you see your servant do all his work with groans, and tears, and lamentations, you will not think that he is well pleased with his master and his work.- Richard Baxter
The most certain sign of Wisdom is a constant cheerfulness. -- Montaigne
Any alleged Christianity which fails to express itself in cheerfulness, at some point, is clearly spurious. The Christian is cheerful, not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of the divine sovereignty, are never ultimate. ... Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), The Humor of Christ [1965]
Cheerfulness -- A state of mind free from gloom or dejection. It is the duty of every Christian, by faith in the goodness, power, and love of God, to cultivate a cheerful frame of mind, even though this may be difficult by reason of afflictions. -- J.G. Vos
As elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.--Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) on Chess
The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There's never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I'll buy some of the feminism. ~Pat Robertson
[Chess is] a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time. G. B. Shaw
The best way to keep your kids out of hot water is to put some dishes in it.
Children brighten up a home: They always forget to turn out the lights!
Your child has started growing up when he stops asking you where he came from and starts refusing to tell you where he's going.
Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.
A modest pat on the back develops character in children - if given young enough, often enough, and low enough.
Isn't it wonderful the way youngsters always brighten up the home? They never turn out the light!
Life's golden age is when the kids are too old to need baby-sitters and too young to borrow the family car.
Grandchildren are our reward for not strangling our children
In raising your children spend half as much money and twice as much time.
If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't work, use the other side of the brush and the other end if the child.
Babies are such a nice way to start people.
Shouting at your children to get cooperation is about the same as steering your car using the horn... same results.
True genetics have nothing to do with hair and eye color. It's the occurrence of such things as "Who said life was FAIR?", and "Because I SAID so!" when you promised you'd never use those words on your kids.
When wings are grown, birds and children fly away.--Chinese Proverb
Under great oaks, only mushrooms grow.-- Russian proverb
It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start their life as children.--Kingsley Amis
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. James Baldwin
Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. --John Betjeman _Summoned by Bells_
Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. Prov. 17:6
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Prov. 22:6
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 3John 4
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots ... the other, wings. --Henry Ward Beecher
I stopped believing in Santa Claus at age six when my mo ther took me to see him in a store and he asked for my autograph. -- Shirley Temple Black
If your baby is "beautiful and perfect, never cries or
fusses, sleeps on schedule and burps on demand, an angel all
the time," you're the grandma.
Theresa Bloomingdale
I have never understood, for example, how come a child can climb up on the roof, scale the TV antenna and rescue the cat--yet cannot walk down the hallway without grabbing both walls with his grubby hands for balance. Or how come a child can eat yellow snow, kiss the dog on the lips, chew gum that he found in the ashtray, put his mouth over a muddy garden house . . . and refuse to drink from a glass his brother has just used. ~ Erma Bombeck 1927-1996 , If Life is a Bowl of Cherries--What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1978)
People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one" (Leo J.Burke)
There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.--- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, employ someone to do it, or forbid your children from doing it. --Monta Crane
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children. -- Clarence Darrow
Poverty is hereditary - you get it from your children" (Phyllis Diller)
Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender. -- W. C. Fields
Your children need your presence more than your presents.--Jesse Jackson (1941- )
Kids today learn a lot about getting to the moon, but very little about getting to heaven. --David Jeremiah
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. -Franklin P. Jones
I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and
duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and
challenging as any honourable profession in the world and
one that demanded the best I could bring to it.
Rose Kennedy (1890-1995) "Words of Women Quotations for
Success," by Power Dynamics Publishing, 1997.
I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts -- spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. .. . There was only one gift he held back -- length of life.Rose Kennedy (1890-1995)
Babies:A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. Ronald Knox
Everyone who ever walked barefoot into his child's room late at night hates Legos. -- Tony Kornheiser
Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him and has a houseful of books isn't poor. -- Sam Levenson
The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.--Sam Levenson (1911 - 1980)
Remember, your basic assignment as a parent is to work yourself out of a job. --Paul Lewis
Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he is buying.-Fran Lebowitz
There are many things you can learn from children, like how many patience you have for instance (Fran Lebowitz)
A child of five would understand this. Send somebody to fetch a child of five. --Groucho Marx
If I'd realised how much fun grandchildren were, I'd have had them first!-- Faith Myers
I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home.--Robert Orben
Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them. --P.J. O'Rourke
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. --Thomas Paine
If you treat children like grown-ups, they'll probably behave just as badly as the rest of us. Beryl Pfizer
One half of the children born die before their eighth
year. This is nature's law; why try to contradict it?
Jean Jacques Rousseau, "mile, ou de l'education", 1762
There is nothynge that more dyspleaseth God,
Than from their children to spare the rod.
John Skelton. Circa 1460-1529. Magnyfycence. Line 1954.
...each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late. -- Thomas Sowell
Children are a wonderful gift . . . They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.Desmond Tutu (1931-____)"The Words of Desmond Tutu," 1984.
Kids go where there is excitement. They stay where there is love. -- Zig Ziglar
The Japanese are only lice on the body of China, but Communism is a disease of the heart. Chinese saying, c. 1940
The Chinese are only too often ready to sweep the dust of reality under the carpet of appearance." --Dennis Bloodworth, _Chinese Looking Glass_, (1967)
The people there gave us a certaine Drinke called Chaa, which is only water with akind of herbe boyled in itt. It must bee Drancke warme and is accompted wholesome.-- Peter Mundy, _Travels in Europe and Asia_, 1637
And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven't yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food? -Bill Bryson_Notes from a Small Island_, 1996:
There are four basic food groups, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles.
In the beginning, the Lord created chocolate, and He saw that it was good. Then He separated the light from the dark, and it was better.
It's not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let's face it, far more reliable than a man. --Miranda Ingram
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! --Lucy Van Pelt (in Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz)
God offers to everyone the choice between truth and repose. Take which you please--you can never have both. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our example can be our most persuasive influence for Christ. Do others imitate us because we model Him?
The closer we walk to the Shepherd, the farther we are from the wolf.
Our mind is where our pleasure is, our heart is where our treasure is, our love is where our life is, but all these, our pleasure, treasure, and life, are reposed in Jesus Christ. -- Thomas Adams
If He did not rise, but is still dead, how is it that He
routs and persecutes and overthrows the false gods, whom
unbelievers think to be alive, and the evil spirits whom
they worship? For where Christ is named, idolatry is
destroyed and the fraud of evil spirits is exposed; indeed,
no such spirit can endure that Name, but takes to flight on
sound of it. This is the work of One Who lives, not of one
dead; and, more than that, it is the work of God.
Athanasius, On the Incarnation
Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all.-- Augustine
Love always involves responsibility, and love always involves sacrifice. And we do not really love Christ unless we are prepared to face His task and to take up His Cross.... William Barclay (1907-1978)
Thank God, our Christian chance is not permanently gone from us [in world affiars]. Ecclesiastics seems for the most part to have failed, failed both man and God; but God has not failed, Jesus has not failed. The God-man still remains the only leader into cooperation whose wisdom is sufficient for a permanent, competent, and free Society. The dictators and would-be dictators will not do. They overreach themselves. Eventually they will destroy one another, and kill off most of us. But even that disaster will not eradicate the desire of men and women to lay down lives for that which is more than themselves. Men will continue to demand not the freedom from that degree of unity for which the dictatorships stand, but rather a finer, more noble, more perceptive kind of unity: a human solidarity which is not nationalistic but world-embracing, a human integration which in aim and purpose is not secularist but spiritual. What the world unwittingly is groping after is allegiance to the eternal, the compassionate, the completely integrating Christ.... Bernard Iddings Bell, Still Shine the Stars [1945]
The king is enthralled by your beauty; honour him, for he is your lord. --Ps. 45:11
Christ is the sun, and all the watches of our lives should be set by the dial of his motion.- Thomas Brooks
God has nowhere in the Scripture required any worthiness in the creature before believing in Christ.- Thomas Brooks
I am His by purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His. - Thomas Brooks
Every thing that a man leans upon but God, will be a dart that will certainly pierce his heart through and through. He who leans only upon Christ, lives the highest, choicest, safest, and sweetest life.- Thomas Brooks
The person of Christ is the object of faith. It is Christ in the promises that faith deals with. The promise is but the shell, Christ is the kernel; the promise is but the casket, Christ is the jewel in it; the promise is but the field, Christ is the treasure that is hid in that field; the promise is a ring of gold, Christ is the pearl in that ring; and upon this sparkling, shining pearl, faith delights most to look. Faith hath two hands, and with both she lays earnest and fast hold on King Jesus. Christ's beauty and glory is very taking and drawing; faith cannot see it, but it will lay hold on it. Christ is the principle object about which faith is exercised, for the obtaining of righteousness and everlasting happiness.- Thomas Brooks
The rattle without the breast will not satisfy the child; the house without the husband will not satisfy the wife; the cabinet without the jewel will not satisfy the virgin; the world without Christ will not satisfy the soul. -- Thomas Brooks
Christ is a most precious commodity, he is better than rubies or the most costly pearls; and we must part with our old gold, with our shining gold, our old sins, our most shining sins, or we must perish forever. Christ is to be sought and bought with any pains, at any price; we can not buy this gold too dear. He is a jewel more worth than a thousand worlds, as all know who have him. Get him, and get all; miss him and miss all. --THOMAS BROOKS
Christ never undertakes to heal any but he makes a certain cure, 'Those whom thou givest me I have kept, and none of them is lost' (John 17:12). Other physicians can only cure them that are sick, but Christ cures them that are dead, 'And you hat he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins' (Eph. 2:1). THOMAS BROOKS
I say, who can hear Jesus Christ speaking thus, and his heart not fall in love and league with Christ, and his soul not unite to Christ and resign to Christ, and cleave to Christ, and for ever be one with Christ, except it be such that are for ever left by Christ? Well, remember this, the more vile Christ made himself for us, the more dear he ought to be unto us. - THOMAS BROOKS
If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is 'of him' [1 Corinthians 1:30]. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects [Hebrews 2:17] that he might learn to feel our pain [cf. Hebrews 5:2]. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross [Galatians 3:13]; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.--John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia, 1960) II, xvi, 19, p. 297
... when Christ is included in the law, the sun shines forth through the midst of the clouds, so that men have light enough for their use; but when Christ is disjoined from it, there is nothing left but darkness, or a false appearance of light, that dazzles men's eyes instead of assisting them.- Calvin, commenting on 2 Corinthians 4:3
Having ingrafted us into his body, [Christ] makes us partakers, not only of all his benefits, but also himself. [Christ is not] received merely in the understanding and imagination. For the promises offer him, not so that we end up with the mere sight and knowledge of him, but that we enjoy a true communication of him. JOHN CALVIN
Shall we seek for the root of our comforts within us; what God hath done, what he is to us in Christ, is the root of our comfort. In this is stability; in us is weakness. Acts of obedience are not perfect, and therefore yield not perfect peace. Faith, as an act, yields it not, but as it carries us into him, who is our perfect rest and peace; in whom we are accounted of, and received by, the Father, even as Christ himself. This is our high calling. Rest we here, and here only.- Oliver Cromwell, Letter to Charles Fleetwood, 1652.
Out of the light that dazzles me,
Bright as the sun from pole to pole,
I thank the God I know to be,
For Christ, the conqueror of my soul.
Since His the sway of circumstance,
I would not wince nor cry aloud.
Under that rule which men call 'chance,'
My head with joy is humbly bowed.
Beyond this place of sin and tears
That life with Him! And His the aid
Despite the menace of the years,
Keeps, and shall keep me, unafraid.
I have no fear, though strait the gate.
He cleared from punishment the scroll.
Christ is the Master of my fate.
Christ is the Captain of my soul.
Dorothea Day
[Christ] feeds and gathers at once, and this gathering of souls is as sweetly refreshing and delightsome to our blessed Lord Jesus , as the plucking of the sweetest flower is to a man walking in a garden. And there is nothing more acceptable and welcome to him, than a seeking sinner....So long as our Lord Jesus has a church and ordinances in it, so he will continue to gather [his people], and he is not idle, but is still gathering; though at some times, and in some places, this may be more sensible and abundant than ordinary. - JAMES DURHAM
That peace, which has been described, and which believers enjoy, is a participation of the peace which their glorious Lord and Master himself enjoys, by virtue of the same blood by which Christ himself has entered into rest. It is in a participation of this same justification; for believers are justified with Christ. As he was justified when he rose from the dead, and as he was made free from our guilt, which had had as our surety, so believers are justified in him and through him; as being accepted of God in the same righteousness. It is the favour of the same God and heavenly Father that they enjoy peace. 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." It is in a participation of the same Spirit; for believers have the Spirit of Christ. He had the Spirit given him beyond measure, and of his fullness do they all receive, and grace for grace.-- Jonathan Edwards
Christ is like a river in another respect. A river is continually flowing, there are fresh supplies of water coming from the fountain-head continually, so that a man may live by it, and be supplied with water all his life. So Christ is an ever-flowing fountain; he is continually supplying his people, and the fountain is not spent. They who live upon Christ, may have fresh supplies from him to all eternity; they may have an increase of blessedness that is new, and new still, and which never will come to an end. JONATHAN EDWARDS
Christ is not only a remedy for your weariness and
trouble, but he will give you an abundance of the contrary,
joy and delight. They who come to Christ, do no only come to
a resting-place after they have been wandering in a
wilderness, but they come to a banqueting-house where they
may rest, and where they may feast. They may cease from
their former troubles and toils, and they may enter upon a
course of delights and spiritual joys.
JONATHAN EDWARDS
But Christ Jesus has true excellency, and so great excellency, that when they come to see it they look no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in him; it sees that till now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance; that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but that now it has found the ocean. The excellency of Christ is an object adequate to the natural cravings of the soul, and is sufficient to fill the capacity. It is an infinite excellency, such an one as the mind desires, in which it can find no bounds; and the more the mind is used to it, the more excellent it appears. Every new discovery makes this beauty appear more ravishing, and the mind sees no end; here is room enough for the mind to go deeper and deeper, and never come to the bottom. The soul is exceedingly ravished when it first looks on this beauty, and it is never weary of it. The mind never has any satiety, but Christ's excellency is always fresh and new, and tends as much to delight, after it has been seen a thousand or ten thousand years, as when it was seen the first moment. --JONATHAN EDWARDS
Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing
God on Earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for
Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He
shall give me a host of children that I may lead them
through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose
finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may
see Him, touch His garments, smile into His eyes -- ah then,
not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself.
Jim Elliot (1927-1956)
There is nothing in history to parallel the influence of Jesus Christ.--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) _Journal_ [August 25, 1843]
To interpret Christ it needs Christ in the heart. The teachings of the Spirit can be apprehended only by the same spirit that gave them forth. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Fugitive Slave Law", speech at the Tabernacle, New York City, March 4, 1854
O come! And kiss the Son, by believing in Him, and applying the benefits of this glorious transaction to yourself; and be who you will, if you kiss and embrace the Son, you shall find the glorious attributes of God kissing and embracing you, and hugging you in their arms, as a darling of heaven and a favourite in the house of God. - RALPH ERSKINE
The determining factor of my existence is no longer my past. It is Christ's past.-- Sinclair Ferguson
Christ is the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting-place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet. -JOHN FLAVEL, Christ Altogether Lovely
Love Him in all His offices. See the goodness of God in providing such a sacrifice for thee. Meat, drink, and air are not more necessary to maintain thy natural life than the death of Christ is to give and maintain thy spiritual life. Oh, then, with a deep sense of gratitude in thy heart, let thy lips say, 'Blessed be God for Jesus Christ.' John Flavel
'He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; how shall he not with him freely give us all things?' (Rom. 8:32). How is it imaginable that God should withhold, after this, spirituals or temporals, from his people? How shall he not call them effectually, justify them freely, sanctify them thoroughly, and glorify them eternally? How shall he not clothe them, feed them, protect and deliver them? Surely if he would not spare his own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever he should, after this, deny or withhold from his people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them.-- John Flavel
Do our desires after Christ lead us to effort, to use all the means of grace to accomplish His will? He is revealed in His Word; do we read it? He is preached in the gospel; do we hear it? He will be found of those who seek Him: do we seek Him? Are our desires atter Christ permanent or only a sudden fit of emotion, fear and impulse? If our hearts and our longing for union with Him are a work of grace, we will only be satisfied when we awake with His likeness. Nothing that this world affords can possibly take us from this goal. Do our desires after Christ spring from a deep sense of our need of Christ? Has conviction opened our eyes to see our misery, to feel our burden of sin, to understand our inability and to make us sensible that the remedy lies only in the Lord Jesus Christ? Bread and wine are made necessary by hunger and thirst. Christ becomes precious to those who need Him.--John Flavel
If the perfect Son of God is unattractive to you, then obviously you are an unattractive person. --John H. Gerstner, "A Primer on Free Will"
The Godhead of Christ is that which stamps value upon His sufferings and renders the whole of His obedience, in life and in death, infinitely meritorious and effectual. JOHN GILL
Your soul needs a Lover more than your floor needs carpet. --Brian Gordon
Jesus was God spelling himself out in language humanity could understand. -- S. D. Gordon
No doubt the gospel is quite free, as free as the Victoria Cross, which anyone can have who is prepared to face the risks; but it means time, and pains, and concentrating all one's energies upon a mighty project. You will not stroll into Christlikeness with your hands in your pockets, shoving the door open with a careless shoulder. This is no hobby for oneís leisure moments, taken up at intervals when we have nothing much to do, and put down and forgotten when our life grows full and interesting... It takes all one's strength, and all oneís heart, and all oneís mind, and all oneís soul, given freely and recklessly and without restraint. This is a business for adventurous spirits; others would shrink out of it. And so Christ had a way of pulling up would-be recruits with sobering and disconcerting questions, of meeting applicants ó- breathless and panting in their eagerness -- by asking them if they really thought they had the grit, the stamina, the gallantry, required. For many, He explained, begin, but quickly become cowed, and slink away, leaving a thing unfinished as a pathetic monument of their own lack of courage and of staying power. ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd [1924]
When Christ reveals Himself there is satisfaction in the
slenderest portion, and without Christ there is emptiness in
the greatest fulness.
ALEXANDER GROSSE
It is true, Christian, the debt thou owest to God must be paid in good and lawful money, but, for thy comfort, here Christ is thy paymaster.-- William Gurnall
Can Christ be in thy heart, and thou not know it? Can one king be dethroned and another crowned in thy soul, and thou hear no scuffle?-- William Gurnall
The attributes of God were visible in their fullness on the day Jesus died. God's nature poured out on Golgotha in a cosmic flood of revelation, and the world quaked. Justice was done, mercy was granted, redemption was accomplished, power was displayed, holiness was vindicated, community was reestablished, perfect wisdom was demonstrated, and love ran wild. God ripped the veil of the invisible and sang through the life, death and resurrection of his son, "Here I am. This is what I look like. Worship!"...When the world asks, "What is God like?" we should be able to say, "Look at the church." As the body of Christ, we are to be like Jesus so that we too reveal God to the world. We are called to fully manifest in our communities and lives the core competencies of God as displayed by Christ. That means we strive to do justice, show mercy, pursue holiness, speak truth, enjoy beauty, create community, maintain unity, practice wisdom, and show love. That's what Jesus did. When he left, God did not leave the world without a witness. He left us. Our purpose is to be Christ in the world and display God in his fullness through our witness as individuals and communities. As we do that we join God's unrelenting quest to be known in all of his fullness, in the glory of his complete revelation. WILLIAM R. L. HALEY
My spirit has become dry because it forgets to feed on you. -- John of the Cross (1542-1591)
God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters. --John Henry Jowett (1841-1923)
Invisible in His own nature [God] became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, He chose to come within our grasp.... Leo the Great (390?-461)
Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.-- C. S. LEWIS
Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He as God...Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was part of God, or one with God:Therewould be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outsidethe world Who made it and was infinitely different from anything else. Andwhen you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips. C. S. Lewis
God could, had He pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic sort who lets no sigh escape him. Of His great humility He chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane. Otherwise, we should have missed the great lesson that it is by his will alone that a man is good or bad, and that feelings are not, in themselves, of any importance. We should also have missed the all important help of knowing that He has faced all that the weakest of us face, has shared not only the strength of our nature but every weakness of it except sin. --Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) _Letters of C.S. Lewis_ [1966], "23 February 1947"
First, draw off your hearts, because Jesus Christ, the Head, is risen and ascended upon high, and there sits at the right hand of His Father; and if the Head is in heaven, where should the members be but where the Head is? Shall Christ our Head be in heaven, and shall our hearts, which are His members, lie groveling on the ground and panting after the dust of the earth, making all our inquiry and labor after these? 'If Christ our Head be risen, seek those things that are above, where Christ sits at God's right hand. CHRISTOPHER LOVE
Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon Yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I am not. MARTIN LUTHER
Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God. Now if it is lying on your back, you are lost; but if it is resting on Christ, you are free, and you will be saved. Now choose what you want. --Martin Luther
Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry. --Martin Luther
It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor. MARTIN LUTHER
In this life, Christ is an example, showing us how to live; in his death, he is a sacrifice, satisfying for our sins; in his resurrection, a conqueror; in his ascentions, a king; in his intercession, a high priest. - Martin Luther, 1483 - 1546
This is our great need, to be more like Christ, that His likeness may be seen in our lives; and this is just what is promised to us as we yield ourselves in full surrender to the working of His Spirit. Then, as we draw nearer to Christ, we shall be drawn nearer to His people; and in our search for unity with the members we shall be drawn closer to the Head.--G. T. Manley, Christian Unity 91;1945]
In the Scriptures there is a portrait of God, but in Christ there is God himself. A coin bears the image of Caesar, but Caesar's son is his own lively resemblance. Christ is the living Bible.-- THOMAS MANTON
I am born for God only. Christ is nearer to me than father, or mother, or sister -- a near relation, a more affectionate Friend; and I rejoice to follow Him, and to love Him. Blessed Jesus! Thou art all I want -- a forerunner to me in all I ever shall go through as a Christian, a minister, or a missionary. ... Henry Martyn (1781-1812)
For every look at self take ten looks at Christ. -- ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE
Our soul should be a mirror of Christ; we should reflect
every feature: for every grace in Christ there should be a
counterpart in us.
Robert Murray McCheyne, letter: 26 Feb 1840
In spiritual things, this world is all wintertime so long as the Saviour is away. - Robert Murray McCheyne letter FEBRUARY 9, 1839
Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign
Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man,
Anointed universal King; all power
I give thee, reign forever, and assume
Thy merits; under thee as Head Supreme
Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions I reduce:
All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide
In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell.
John Milton, Paradise Lost [3.315-22]Effulgence of my Glory, Son belov'd,
Son in whose face invisible is beheld
Visibly, what by Deity I am.
John Milton, Paradise Lost BookoBook VI, 680 - 82
Philosophers try to solve the mysteries of the universe by their empty theories. Fools! They are like children who demand the moon for a toy. Christ never hesitates. He speaks with authority. His religion is a mystery, but it subsists by its own power. He seeks, and absolutely requires, the love of men, the most difficult thing in the world to get. Alexander, Caesar and Hannibal conquered the world, but had no friends. I am perhaps the only person today who loves them. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded empires, but upon what? Force! Jesus founded His empire on love, and at this hour millions would die for Him. I myself have inspired many people such that they would die for me. But my presence was needed. Now that I am in St Helena, where are my friends? I am forgotten, soon to return to the earth, and become food for worms. But Christ is proclaimed, loved and adored, and His eternal kingdom is extending over all the earth. Is this death? I tell you, the death of Christ is the death of a God. I tell you, Jesus Christ is God. --Napoleon I
The love I bear Christ is but a faint and feeble spark, but it is an emanation from himself: He kindled it and he keeps it alive; and because it is his work, I trust many waters shall not quench it.... John Newton (1725-1807)
We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.... John Owen (1616-1683)
Beholding of the glory of Christ...Herein would I live;--herein would I die;--herein would I dwell in my thoughts and affections, to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world, unto the crucifying all things here below, until they become unto me a dead and deformed thing, no way meet for affectionate embraces. John Owen , (1616 - 1683) Complete Works I:291
Let us inquire whether we have found, or do find, this joy in our own hearts. Is the remembrance of the closing of our hearts with Christ a a song of loves unto us? Truly, if our loves be earnest and intent upon other things, we find joy and refreshment in them; but are we not dead and cold to the thoughts of this great and excellent advantage, of being espoused to Christ, as all believers are? If so, it is but a sad evidence we are truly so espoused. Alas! if a poor beggar, a deformed creature, should be taken into the espousals of a great prince, would she not be sensible of it? We are poor, deformed, woeful, sinful, polluted creatures; and for us to be taken into this relation with Jesus Christ!--where are our hearts? -- John Owen IX:467
The hearts of believers are like the needle touched by the loadstone, which cannot rest until it comes to the point whereunto, by the secret virtue of it, it is directed. For being once touched by the love of Christ, receiving therein an impression of secret ineffable virtue, they will ever be in motion, and restless, until they come unto him, and behold his glory.---J Owen, Meditations and discourses on the glory of Christ
No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who does not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight.---J Owen, Meditations and discourses on the glory of Christ
Herein, then, our present edification is principally concerned; for in this present beholding of the glory of Christ, the life and power of faith are most eminently acted. And from this exercise of faith does love unto Christ principally, if not solely, arise and spring. If, therefore, we desire to have faith in its vigor or love in its power, giving rest, complacency, and satisfaction unto our own souls, we are to seek for them in the diligent discharge of this duty; -- elsewhere they will not be found. Herein would I live; -- herein would I die; -- hereon would I dwell in my thoughts and affections, to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world, unto the crucifying all things here below, until they become unto me a dead and deformed thing, no way meet for affectionate embraces.--J Owen, Meditations and discourses on the glory of Christ
Jesus Christ is the center of everything, and the object of everything, and he that does not know Him knows nothing of nature and nothing of himself. BLAISE PASCAL
Not only do we not know God, except through Jesus Christ, we do not even know ourselves except through Jesus Christ. --Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
When this divine Redeemer appears in His garments stained with blood, the sinking soul hails His approach, the fowls of the mountains take flight, the beasts of the earth slink off to their dens, the dreary stump pushes forth its shoots, and the voice sounds forth from the inmost depths of the soul, 'This is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.' -- J.C. Philpot
The early church fought the christological battle because
it believed that the gospel itself was at stake. I fully
agree. The divinity of Jesus is not a dispensable extra that
has no significance for our salvation. On the contrary, our
salvation depends on it. We can be saved only by God
Himself.
K Runia. Christianity Today 4.1.74
I know, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moon-light and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnisheth a fair field to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping, it seeth not what." --Samuel Rutherford (in a letter of Sept 7, 1637)
Alas, we but chase feathers flying in the air, and tire our own spirits, for the froth and over-gilded clay of a dying life. One sight of what my Lord hath let me seen within this short time, is worth a world of worlds. - Samuel Rutherford letter FEBRUARY 9, 1637
Since He looked upon me my heart is not my own. He hath run away to heaven with it. Samuel Rutherford.
Brother, I may, from new experience, speak of Christ to you. Oh, if ye saw in Him what I see! A river of God's unseen joys has flowed from bank to brae over my soul since I parted with you. I wish that I wanted part, so being ye might have; that your soul might be sick of world, would seem to you then not worth a fig; time will eat you out of possession of it. - Samuel Rutherford, Letter XXVI. To JOHN GORDON OF RUSSO ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637
Setting aside the scandal caused by His Messianic claims and His reputation as a political firebrand, only two accusations of personal depravity seem to have been brought against Jesus of Nazareth. First, that He was a Sabbath-breaker. Secondly, that He was "a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners" -- or (to draw aside the veil of Elizabethan English that makes it sound so much more respectable) that He ate too heartily, drank too freely, and kept very disreputable company, including grafters of the lowest type and ladies who were no better than they should be. For nineteen and a half centuries, the Christian Churches have laboured, not without success, to remove this unfortunate impression made by their Lord and Master. They have hustled the Magdalens from the Communion-table, founded Total Abstinence Societies in the name of Him who made the water wine, and added improvements of their own, such as various bans and anathemas upon dancing and theatre-going. They have transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and, feeling that the original commandment "Thou shalt not work" was rather half-hearted, have added to it the new commandment, "Thou shalt not play." ...Dorothy L. Sayers
It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear that story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all. -- Dorothy Sayers
Not Herod, not Caiaphas, not Pilate, not Judas ever contrived to fasten upon Jesus Christ the reproach of insipidity; that final indignity was left for pious hands to inflict. To make of His story something that could neither startle, nor shock, nor terrify, nor excite, nor inspire a living soul is to crucify the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.--Dorothy Sayers
For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is - limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death - he had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game, he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience from trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile. --DOROTHY SAYERS
Of late years, the Church has not succeeded very well in preaching Christ; she has preached Jesus, which is not quite the same thing. -- Dorothy Sayers
Loyalty to organizations and movements has always tended
over time to take the place of loyalty to the person of
Christ.'
Francis Schaeffer, letter 12 Nov 1954
The primary emphasis of biblical Christianity is the teaching that the infinite-personal God is the final reality, the Creator of all else, and that an individual can come openly to the holy God upon the basis of the finished work of Christ and that alone. Nothing needs to be added to Christ's finished work, and nothing *can* be added to Christ's finished work. -- Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster
It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ -- RICHARD SIBBES
Salt, when dissolved in water, may disappear, but it does not cease to exist. We can be sure of its presence by tasting the water. Likewise, the indwelling Christ, though unseen, will be made evident to others from the love which he imparts to us." --Sadhu Sundar Singh
If Christ is an example, nobody needs him; but if he is a sacrifice, everyone does.--Fred Smith
Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus? Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of him upon whom your affection ought to be set. Some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should have your eye steadily fixed upon the cross. It is the incessant round of world, world, world; the constant din of earth, earth, earth, that takes away the soul from Christ. Oh! my friends, is it not too sadly true that we can recollect anything but Christ, and forget nothing so easy as him whom we ought to remember? While memory will preserve a poisoned weed, it suffereth the Rose of Sharon to wither. - C.H. Spurgeon
I am persuaded that all of your problems are conceived and born in the sinful belief that something or someone other than Jesus Christ can quench the thirst of our souls."--C. Samuel Storms
Grace will teach a Christian contentedly to take those potions that are wholesome, though they are not toothsome.-- GEORGE SWINNOCK
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat - and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet -
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
The Hound of Heaven -- by Francis Thompson (1859 &endash;
1907)
Behold, what manner of love is this, that Christ should be arraigned and we adorned, that the curse should be laid on His head and the crown set on ours.-THOMAS WATSON
Though we as Christians are like Christ, having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet we are unlike Him, having the remainders of the flesh. THOMAS WATSON
Christ is the most cheap physician, he takes no fee. He desires us to bring nothing to him but broken hearts; and when he has cured us he desires us to bestow nothing on him but our love. THOMAS WATSON
Christ heals with more ease than any other. Christ makes the devil go out with a word (Mark 9:25). Nay, he can cure with a look: Christ's look melted Peter into repentance; it was a healing look. If Christ doth but cast a look upon the soul he can recover it. Therefore David prays to have a look from God, 'Look Thou upon me, and be merciful unto me' (Psalm 119:132). THOMAS WATSON
Christ is the most tender-hearted physician. He hath ended his passion but not his compassion. He is not more full of skill than sympathy, 'He healed the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds' (Psalm 147:3). Every groan of the patient goes to the heart of the physician. THOMAS WATSON
Christ never fails of success. Christ never undertakes to heal any but he makes a certain cure, 'Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost,' (John 17:12). Other physicians can only cure them that are sick, but Christ cures them that are dead, 'And you hat he quickened who were dead' (Eph 2:1). Christ is a physician for the dead, of every one whom Christ cures, it may be said, 'He was dead, and is alive again' (Luke 15:32). - THOMAS WATSON
Christ is the most bountiful physician. Other patients do enrich their physicians, but here the physician doth enrich the patient. Christ elevates all his patients: he doth not only cure them but crown them (Rev. 2:10). Christ doth not only raise them from the bed, but to the throne; he gives the sick man not only health but also heaven. THOMAS WATSON
Oh, beware! Do not seek to be something! Let me be nothing, and Christ be all in all.- John Wesley
Christ is God clothed with human nature. -- Benjamin Whichcote
Recognise that peace and forgiveness do not depend on feelings of piety but on Christ and on what He has done. John White
Jesus was God and man in one person, that God and man might be happy together again. -- George Whitefield
Thomas a Kempis speaks for all the ages when he
represents Jesus as saying to him, "A wise lover regards not
so much the gift of him who loves, as the love of him who
gives. He esteems affection rather than valuables, and sets
all gifts below the Beloved. A noble-minded lover rests not
in the gift, but in Me above every gift." The sustaining
power of the Beloved Presence has through the ages made the
sickbed sweet and the graveside triumphant; transformed
broken hearts and relations; brought glory to drudgery,
poverty and old age; and turned the martyr's stake or noose
into a place of coronation.
Dallas Willard, Hearing God [1999], p.45
He clothed himself with our lowliness in order to invest us with his grandeur.--Richardson Wright
I have but one passion -- it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ. ... Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760)
I don't understand Christianity, nor do I understand electricity, but I don't intend to sit in the dark until I do!
When we look at other Christians, let's not dwell on the burned-out stumps of their former life. Instead, let's celebrate and affirm the exciting new growth in their lives.
The Christian is not one who has gone all the way with Christ. None of us has. The Christian is one who has found the right road. --Charles L. Allen (1913- )
The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these others men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after men. THOMAS ARNOLD
The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting -- it has been found demanding, and not tried.... John Baillie (1886-1960)
We may not understand how the spirit works; but the
effect of the spirit on the lives of men is there for all to
see; and the only unanswerable argument for Christianity is
a Christian life. No man can disregard a religion and a
faith and a power which is able to make bad men good...
William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John (Vol.1)
Casual Christians Become Christian Casulties.--. K. A. Barden
The essence of the Christian religion consists therein: that the creation of the Father, destroyed by sin, is again restored in the death of the Son of God and recreated by the grace of the Holy Spirit to a Kingdom of God.--Herman Bavinck
See that your chief study be about heart, that there God's image may be planted, and his interest advanced, and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out, and the love of holiness succeed; and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do good in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a Christian is about his heart. - RICHARD BAXTER
Christianity works while infidelity talks. She feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits and cheers the sick, and seeks the lost, while infidelity abuses her and babbles nonsense and profanity. "By their fruits ye shall know them."-- Henry Ward Beecher
No civilization other than that which is Christian, is worth seeking or possessing.-- Otto von Bismarck
Furthermore, [the unchristian environment] is the
place where we find out whether the Christian's meditation
has led him into the unreal, from which he awakens in terror
when he returns to the workaday world, or whether it has led
him into a real contact with God, from which he emerges
strengthened and purified. Has it transported him for a
moment into a spiritual ecstasy that vanishes when everyday
life returns, or has it lodged the Word of God so securely
and deeply in his heart that it holds and fortifies him,
impelling him to active love, toobedience, to good works?
Only the day can decide.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together
Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune. --Phillips Brooks
No true Christian is his own man. JOHN CALVIN
The Christian must be consumed with the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.... Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Christians neutralized into inactivity will be spectators of their country's free fall to collapse. -- John W. Chalfant, _Abandonment Theology_, 1996
My worth to God in public is what I am in private.--Oswald Chambers
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.
G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World, pt. 1, ch. 5,
1910
Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it has a God who knew his way out of the grave. G. K. Chesterton
At least five times, . . . with the Arian and the Albigensian, with the Humanist sceptic, after Voltaire and after Darwin, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.--G K Chesterton{The Everlasting Man, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1925, p. 254}
There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions. - G.K. Chesterton ILN, 1/13/06
These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.- G.K. Chesterton - ILN 8-11-28
As Christian feel the changing winds of political climate, the blasts against their values in the media, the exclusion of the Christian faith from educational institutions, they begin to sense the dangers of complacency and of pietistical world flight. -- Edmund P. Clowney, _The Christian and American Law_. 1998
Let any of those who renounce Christianity write fairly down in a book all the absurdities they believe instead of it, and they will find it requires more faith to reject Christianity than to embrace it.~ Charles Caleb Colton
Christophobia: the irrational fear of Christianity, and the moral system that it promotes. Usage: "You can't be serious! Anyone that thinks that way is just a 'Christophobe!' There's no point in considering what they say!"--Clayton Cramer
This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see--brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians -- and I am one of them. - Cyprian (?-258), a letter
There is no leveler like Christianity, but it levels by lifting all who receive it to the lofty table-land of a true character andof undying hope both for this world and the next.-- Jonathan Edwards
It seems to me to be the best proof of an evangelical disposition, that persons are not angry when reproached, and have a Christian charity for those that ill deserve it. ... The Colloquies of Erasmus (1466?-1536)
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Men are tending to materialism. Houses, lands, and worldly goods attract their attention, and as a mirage lure them on to death. Christianity, on the other hand leads only the natural body to death, and for the spirit, it points out a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens... Let me urge you to follow Him, not as the Nazarene, the Man of Galilee, the carpenter's son, but as the ever living spiritual person, full of love and compassion, who will stand by you in life and death and eternity.- James A. Garfield, preaching before he becamr president of the USA.
What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ - can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning. ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Mere Christianity [1952]
Jill transported to the land of Aslan is stranded in a strange forest because of pride and foolishness. She becomes extremely thirsty, finds a stream but a lion is there. The Lion bids her to come and drink. The voice was not like a man's but "deeper, wilder, and stronger" - a "sort of heavy golden voice". "May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?", said Jill. The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its mountainous bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. "Will you promise not to - do anything to me if you do come?", said Jill. "I make no promise, " said the Lion. Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. "Do you eat girls?", she said. "I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms", said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. it just said it. 'I daren't come and drink", said Jill. "Then you will die of thirst", said the Lion. "Oh dear!", said Jill coming a step nearer. "I supposed I must go and look for another stream then." "There is no other stream", said the Lion. C. S. LEWIS, Silver Chair
The whole being of any Christian is Faith and Love...Faith brings the man to God, love brings him to men. ... Martin Luther (1483-1546)
The Christian should be a conscience in his group. His presence must never be used to provide a Christian justification for evil. To stand as a co-belligerent and not an ally will be to rally the middle ground for a genuine Third Way without mediocre compromise. The Third Way will not be easy. It will be lonely. Sometimes the Christian must have the courage to stand with the establishment, speaking boldly to the radicals and pointing out the destructive and counter-productive nature of their violence. At other times, he will stand as a co-belligerent with the radicals in their outrage and just demands for redress. The Christian is a co-belligerent with either or both when either or both are right, but... fearless in his opposition to either or both when they are wrong. ... Os Guinness, The Dust of Death [1973]
The Christian's life should put his minister's sermon in print. - WILLIAM GURNALL
The only reason reason any one should believe Christianity is that it is true. Its truth rests on historical facts which do not change, truths which are open to tests norammly applied to other events or claims. It is not a matter of whether it sells or whether it works or whether it feels good or provides meaningful experiences. What Christianity teaches is the correct explanation of reality.--DICK HALVERSON
That many Roman Catholics, past and present, are true Christians, is a palpable fact. It is a fact which no man can deny without committing a great sin. It is a sin against Christ not to acknowledge as true Christians those who bear his image, and whom He recognizes as his brethren. It is a sin also against ourselves. We are not born of God unless we love the children of God. If we hate and denounce those whom Christ loves as members of his own body, what are we? It is best to be found on the side of Christ, let what will happen. It is perfectly consistent, then, for a man to denounce the papacy as the man of sin, and yet rejoice in believing, and in openly acknowledging, that there are, and ever have been, many Romanists who are the true children of God.-Charles Hodge , Systematic Theology:
To the frivolous Christianity is certainly not glad tidings, for it wishes first of all to make them serious. --Kierkegaard, _Journal_, 1847
We are living "between the times" -- the time of Christ's
resurrection and the new age of the Spirit, and the time of
fulfillment in Christ. Life in the Spirit is a pledge, a
"down-payment", on the final kingdom of shalom. In the
meantime, we are to be signs of the kingdom which is, and
which is coming.
David Kirk (1935- )
Reality, in fact, is always something you couldn't have guessed. That's one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It's a religion you couldn't have guessed. -- C.S. Lewis--The Case for Christianity
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has
risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see
everything else.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), "Is Theology Poetry?"
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. CS Lewis
I didn't go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity. -- C. S. Lewis
It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor. MARTIN LUTHER
The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations but also all of human thought. J. Gresham Machen
Jesus promised His disciples three things: that they would be entirely fearless, absurdly happy, and that they would get into trouble. --W. Russell Maltby
Likewise, it's easy to see why the left fears Christians. People who worship political power, who want government to direct (and thus control) all things, who have effectively deified the state, cannot imagine anyone feeling otherwise. Like Tolkein's Sauron, the thought that anyone would choose to destroy the ring of power is beyond them. And because that power is today so pervasive, they not only covet it, but cannot permit it's falling into the hands of men with whom they disagree. - Rod D. Martin,TOWARD A CHRISTIAN CULTURE July 2002
We who formerly delighted in fornication, but now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts, dedicated ourselves to the good and unbegotten God, who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different tribe, now since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly, to the end that they may become partakers of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all. --Justin Martyr
Enough has... been said to show that the impoverished secularised versions of Christianity which are being urged upon us for our acceptance today rest not upon a serious application of the methods of scientific scholarship nor upon a serious intuitive appreciation of the Gospels as a whole in their natural context, but upon a radical distaste for the supernatural. E. L. Mascall, The Secularisation of Christianity [1965]
The only way to keep a broken vessel full is to keep it always under the tap.--Dwight L. Moody
There is one single fact, which we may oppose to all the wit and argument of infidelity, namely that no man ever repented of being a Christian on his deathbed. ~ Hannah More (1745-1833)
Marx and Freud are the two great destroyers of Christian civilization, the first replacing the gospel of love by the gospel of hate, the other undermining the essential concept of human responsibility.--Malcom Muggeridge, My Life in Pictures, NY: William Morrow & Co., 1987, p. 94
One can find innumerable dumb things said and done by Christians in the name of Christianity, both in the past and at present&emdash;perhaps especially at present. The propensity to say and do dumb things, and even wicked things, is simply part of human nature. One can blame the Church or Christianity for such things only on the thoroughly unwarranted assumption that Christianity claims to have abolished human nature.-- Richard John Neuhaus
The greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until
quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian
centuries, . . . have all assumed that the New Testament
promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama
of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the
master-drama of our existence. To suppose that these
distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly
and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally
exposed, would seem to me untenable; and anyway I'd rather
be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with
Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr Johnson,
Blake and Dostoevsky than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, the
Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.
Malcom Muggeridge, Vintage Muggeridge, ed. Geoffrey Barlow,
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985, pp. 32-33
I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether. --Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
Few things are more striking than the change which has taken place during my own lifetime in the attitude of the intelligentsia towards the spokesmen of Christian opinion. When I was a child, bishops expressed doubts about the Resurrection, and were called courageous. When I was a girl, G. K. Chesterton professed belief in the Resurrection, and was called whimsical. When I was at college, thoughtful people expressed belief in the Resurrection "in a spiritual sense", and were called advanced; (any other kind of belief was called obsolete, and its professors were held to be simpleminded). When I was middle-aged, a number of lay persons, including some poets and writers of popular fiction, put forward rational arguments for the Resurrection, and were called courageous. Today, any lay apologist for Christianity... whose works are sold and read, is liable to be abused in no uncertain terms as a mountebank, a reactionary, a tool of the Inquisition, a spiritual snob, an intellectual bully, an escapist, an obstructionist, a psychopathic introvert, an insensitive extrovert, and an enemy of society. The charges are not always mutually compatible, but the common animus behind them is unmistakable, and its name is fear. Writers who attack these domineering Christians are called courageous.--Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957)
Evangelism is a calling, but not the first calling. Building congregations is a calling, but not the first calling. A Christian's first call is to step from the line of Cain into the line of Abel, upon the basis of the shed blood of the Lamb of God &emdash; to return to the first commandment to love God, to love the brotherhood, and then to love one's neighbor as himself.-Schaeffer, Francis A., Genesis in Time and Space_, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer, (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books) 1985.
The primary emphasis of biblical Christianity is the teaching that the infinite-personal God is the final reality, the Creator of all else, and that an individual can come openly to the holy God upon the basis of the finished work of Christ and that alone. Nothing needs to be added to Christ's finished work, and nothing *can* be added to Christ's finished work. -- Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster
Christianity is the easiest religion in the world, because it is the only religion in which God does everything; it is the hardest religion because it robs us completely of being autonomous. - Francis Shaeffer--The God Who is There
The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy of life. Christianity is a witness to certain facts -- to events that have happened, to hopes that have been fulfilled, to realities that have been experienced, to a Person who has lived and died and been raised from the dead to reign for ever. Massey H. Shepherd, Jnr., Far and Near
Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.-- George Bernard Shaw
Modernized, the Easter message means that God recycles human garbage. He can turn prostitutes like Magdalene into disciples, broken reeds like Simon Peter into rocks, and political-minded Simon Zealots into martyrs for the faith. God is the God of the second chance.-Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)_Those Mysterious Priests_ [1974]
While sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up a solid round stone from the water and broke it open. It was perfectly dry in spite of the fact that it had been immersed in water for centuries. The same is true of many people in the Western world. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity; they live immersed in the waters of its benefits. And yet it has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love it. The fault is not in Christianity, but in men's hearts, which have been hardened by materialism and intellectualism. --Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)
Obedience to Christ includes obedience to his commission
to go into the world, to preach the good news, and to make
disciples. But we cannot do this without taking account of
the context in which people live their lives, or of the
alter-natives to the gospel which they find attractive. Some
of our evangelism has been very superficial on this account.
We need to develop new strategies of evangelistic
penetration that will take seriously the cultural bondage in
which people are held and the need to soak ourselves in
their culture in order to interpret the gospel to them from
inside.
John R. W. Stott (1921- ), "Obeying Christ in a Changing
World"
Christianity is not a system of philosophy, nor a ritual, nor a code of laws; it is the impartation of a divine vitality. Without the way there is not going, without the truth there is no knowing, without life there is no living. MERRILL TENNEY on Jn 14:6
I think back to many discussions in my early life when we all agreed that if you try to take the fruits of Christianity without its roots, the fruits will wither. And they will not come again unless you nurture the roots. But we must not profess the Christian faith and go to church simply because we want social reforms and benefits or a better standard of behaviour - but because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ expressed so well in the hymn: 'When I survey the wondrous Cross/ on which the Prince of Glory died/ My richest gain I count but loss/ and pour contempt on all my pride.'--Margaret Thatcher, speech to the Church of Scotland General Assembly, 21.5.88
The true ground of most men's prejudice against the Christian doctrine is because they have no mind to obey it.--John Tillotson (1630-1694)
A Christian is one who has bet his life that Christ was right.-- David Elton Trueblood (1900-1994)
The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians -- when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. --Sheldon Vanauken
If Christians want us to believe in a Redeemer, let them act redeemed.--Voltaire
Oh, Christians, look to your steps! When you have prayed against sin, then watch against temptation. Such as are more excellent than others, God expects some singular thing from them. They should bring more glory to God and, by their exemplary piety, make proselytes to religion. Better fruit is expected from a vineyard than from a wild forest. - THOMAS WATSON
Though we as Christians are like Christ, having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet we are unlike Him, having the remainders of the flesh. THOMAS WATSON
If the marks of discipleship were merely an orthodox
creed‚ excited feeling‚ denominational zeal‚
flaming partisanship, then there are many that "find the
way." But if the true travellers are men of broken
heart‚ poor in spirit‚ who mourn for sin‚ who
know the music of the Shepherd's voice‚ who follow the
Lamb‚ who delight in the throne of grace‚ and who
love the place of the cross, then there are but ‚
few‚ with whom the true saints journey to heaven in
fellowship and communion.
Ocatvius Winslow, Midnight Harmonies
0336 This is the earliest known year that Jesus' nativity was celebrated on December 25th, as mentioned in the Philocalian Calendar of A. D. 354. Jesus' birth was commemorated on January 6th in Greek Orthodoxy, although by the 400s most of the Eastern churches had accepted the Roman date.
More light than we can learn, More wealth than we can treasure, More love than we can earn, More peace than we can measure, Because one Child is born.
Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus ex Maria virgine, gaudete!
'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.
They'd been worn all week and needed the air.'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period
preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And
throughout our place of residence,
Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the
possessors of this potential, including that
species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.
Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward
edge of the wood burning caloric apparatus,
Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an
imminent visitation from an eccentric
philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations
is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ...
What do Jewish people do on Christmas Day?
They stand around the cash register and sing: "What A Friend
We Have In Jesus".
Christmas is coming
And the goose is getting fat.
How could the gander
Have done a thing like that!
Santa lives at the North Pole ...JESUS is everywhere.
Santa rides in a sleigh ...JESUS rides on the wind and walks
on the water.
Santa comes but once a year ...JESUS is an ever present
help.
Santa fills your stockings with goodies ...JESUS supplies
all your needs.
Santa comes down your chimney uninvited ...JESUS stands at
your door and knocks, and then enters your heart when
invited.
You have to wait in line to see Santa ...JESUS is as close
as the mention of His name.
Santa lets you sit on his lap ...JESUS lets you rest in His
arms.
Santa doesn't know your name;All he can say is, "Hi little
boy or girl, what's your name?" ...JESUS knew our name
before we did; Not only does He know our name, He knows our
address too. He knows our history and future and He even
knows how many hairs are on our heads.
Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly ... JESUS has a
heart full of love.
All Santa can offer is HO HO HO ... JESUS offers Health,
Help and Hope.
Santa says "You better not cry" ... JESUS says "Cast all
your cares on me for I care for you."
Santa's little helpers make toys ...JESUS makes new life,
mends wounded hearts, repairs broken homes and builds
mansions.
Santa may make you chuckle but ...JESUS gives you joy that
is your strength.
While Santa puts gifts under your tree ...JESUS became our
gift and died on a tree.
Why Jesus is better than santa.
Selfishness makes Christmas a burden, love makes it a delight.
Forasmuch as the feast of the nativity of Christ, Easter,
Whitsuntide, and other festivals, commonly called holy-days,
have been heretofore superstitiously used and observed; be
it ordained, that the said feasts, and all other festivals,
commonly called holy-days, be no longer observed as
festivals; any law, statute, custom, constitution, or canon,
to the contrary in anywise not withstanding.
In June 1647, Parliament passed legislation abolishing
Christmas and other holidays
Whoever shall be found observing any such days as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing labor, feasting, or any other way.... shall pay for every such offense five shillings.-- General Court of Massachusetts Bay May 11, 1659.
A Very Merry Christmas Everyone And for those who don't celebrate Christmas; a Very Merry Humbug! Brian Abshire
Christmas itself may be called into question,
If carried so far it creates indigestion.
Ralph Bergengren (1871- ) _The Unwise Christmas_
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
John Betjeman Christmas From A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954)He has come! the Christ of God;
Left for us His glad abode,
Stooping from His throne of bliss,
To this darksome wilderness.He has come! the Prince of Peace;
Come to bid our sorrows cease;
Come to scatter with His light
All the darkness of our night.He, the Mighty King, has come!
Making this poor world His home;
Come to bear our sin's sad load,--
Son of David, Son of God!He has come whose name of grace
Speaks deliverance to our race;
Left for us His glad abode,--
Son of Mary, Son of God!Unto us a Child is born!
Ne'er has earth beheld a morn,
Among all the morns of time,
Half so glorious in its prime!
God appears, and God is Light,
To those poor souls who dwell in Night;
But does a Human Form display
To those who dwell in realms of Day.
William Blake (1757-1827)
We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Unto us a Son is given!
He has come from God's own heaven,
Bringing with Him, from above,
Holy peace and holy love.
Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)
And herewith I shall end this year [1621]. Only I shall remember one passage more, rather of mirth then of waight. One ye day called Christmas-day, ye Govr [William Bradford] caled them out to worke, (as was used,) but ye most of this new-company excused them selves and said it wente against their consciences to work on yt day. So ye Govr tould them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed. So he led-away ye rest and left them; but when they came home at noone from their worke, he found them in ye streete at play, openly; somepitching ye barr, & some at stoole-ball, and shuch like sports. So he went to them, and tooke away their implements, and tould them that was against his conscience, that they should play & others worke. If they made ye keeping of it mater of devotion, let them kepe their houses, but ther should be no gameing or revelling in ye streets. Since which time nothing hath been atempted that way, at least openly.-- William Bradford, History of Plymouth Colony
Christmas is the Disneyfication of Christianity." - Don Cupitt,
t is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself. Charles Dickens
What Child is this who, laid to rest
On Mary's lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe,the Son of Mary.
William C. Dix, The Manger Throne (evolving into "What Child
Is This?"; 1865)
Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven. ~W.C. Fields 1880-1946
How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Thank God for the "commercialisation" of Christmas. If it weren't for that, our society would have no Christmas at all. Paul Hein
It was great condescension that He who was God should be made in the likeness of flesh; but much greater that He who was holy should be made in the likeness of sinful flesh. MATHEW HENRY
Rejoice, that the immortal God is born, so that mortal man may live in eternity. Jan Huss
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected. --Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd have been no room for the child.
~Madeleine L'Engle, in The Weather of the Heart. (1978)
Invisible in His own nature [God] became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, He chose to come within our grasp. -- Leo the Great
What in heaven's name is the idea of everyone sending everyone else pictures of stage-coaches, fairies, foxes, dogs, butterflies, kittens, flowers, etc.?... Imagine a Chinese man sitting at a table covered with small pictures. The man explains that he is preparing for the anniversary of Buddha's being protected by the dragons. Not that he personally believes that this is the real anniversary of the event or even that it really happened. He is just keeping up the old custom. Not that he has any pictures of Buddha or of the dragons. He doesn't like that kind. He says, "Here's one of a traction engine for Hu Flung Dung, and I'm sending this study of a napkin-ring to Lo Hung Git, and these jolly ones of bluebottles are for the children. ~C.S. Lewis, letter to his brother Warren (Christmas Eve 1939) -on the futility of celebrating the Nativity if one does not accept the Incarnation.
Among the oxen (like an ox I'm slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox's dullness might at length
Give me an ox's strength.Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Saviour where I looked for hay;
So may my beast like folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baa-ing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence!
CS Lewis The Nativity
Ah, we poor people, to be so cold and sluggish in the
face of the great joy that has clearly been prepared for us!
This great benefaction exceeds by far all the other works of
creation; and yet our faith in it is found to be so weak,
although it is preached and sung to us by angels, who are
heavenly theologians and who were so glad for our sake!
Their song is very, very beautiful and describes the entire
Christian religion. For giving glory to God in the highest
heaven is the supreme worship. This they wish and bring to
us in the Christ ..
Martin Luther quoted in E. M. Plass, WHAT LUTHER SAYS,
p.154
That the Creator himself comes to us and becomes our ransom - this is the reason for our rejoicing.-- Martin Luther 25 March 1533 "Table Talks"
The Unnoticed Guest
( By an Act of Parliament in 1652 Christmas was abolished)A plague on they Christmas!
The Puritans cried;
Thou glutton! Thou drunkard!
Thy flesh-pots we've spied!
'Tis pagan, 'tis popish.
'T will lead to damnation:
God cancels thy Christmas-
By State proclamation!A Christ without Christmas?
He calls us to dine!
He feeds the five thousand.
Turns water to wine,
Sits down at the tablesOf common-place sinners:
The unnoticed Guest
At all Christmas dinners.So eat and be merry!
Rejoice in his birth!
Let feasting not fasting,
Replenish the earth!
But share with the hungry,
Keep Jesus in sight:
For a Christmas that's Christ-less
Proves the Puritans right.
Arnold Kellett, Kellett's Christmas,1997.This the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.That glorious form, that light insufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity
He laid aside, and, here with us to be.
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
John Milton ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY (Composed - 1629)
What he was, he laid aside; what he was not, he assumed. He takes upon himself the poverty of my flesh so that I may receive the riches of his divinity. Gregory Nazianzen
Where is this stupendous stranger ?
Prophets, shepherds, kings, advise ;
Lead me to my Master's manger,
Show me where my Saviour lies.O most mighty, O most holy,
Far beyond the seraph's thought,
Art thou then so mean and lowly
As unheeded prophets taught ?O the magnitude of meekness,
Worth from worth immortal sprang,
O the strength of infant weakness,
If eternal is so young.Good all-bounteous, all creative,
Whom no ills from good dissuade,
Is incarnate, and a native
Of the very world he made.
Christopher Smart (1722-71) The Nativity of our LordThis little Babe, so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmed wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.
Robert Southwell (1561-1595) New Heaven, New WarCome worship the King,
That little dear thing,
Asleep on His Mother's soft breast.
Ye bright stars, bow down,
Weave for Him a crown,
Christ Jesus by angels confessed.Come, children, and peep,
But hush ye, and creep
On tiptoe to where the Babe lies;
Then whisper His Name
And lo! like a flame
The glory light shines in His eyes.Come strong men, and see
This high mystery,
Tread firm where the shepherds have trod,
And watch, mid the hair
Of the Maiden so fair,
The five little fingers of God.Come, old men and grey,
The star leads the way,
It halts and your wanderings cease;
Look down on His Face
Then, filled with His Grace,
Depart ye, God's servants, in Peace.
G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929) Christmas EveBreak forth, O beauteous heavenly light,
And usher in the morning;
O shepherds, shrink not with afright,
But hear the angel's warning.
This Child, now weak in infancy,
Our confidence and joy shall be,
The power of Satan breaking,
Our peace eternal making.
Johann Rist, 1641; translated John Troutbeck, circa 1885.
Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. - Augusta E. Rundel
Christmas is not for sophomores who live under the
illusion that they read all of Darwin, or for the
intelligentsia. . . or for the self-wise who think Marx is
wiser than Mark. It is only for the very learned, the great
scientists, the profound theologians who are heirs of the
wise men who discovered Wisdom.
At the other end of the spectrum are the simple who know
nature better than books, who have insights deeper than the
impure and a vision which sees in the night. These are the
heirs of the shepherds who find their way to the Shepherd of
their souls. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _Christmas
Inspirations_ [1984], Chapter 34
The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable. - Ralph W.Sockman
After today, I'll bet Santa takes a shovel to the
reindeer stalls to fill your stocking.
Hobbes, "Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Watterson
The King of glory sends his Son,
To make his entrance on this earth;
Behold the midnight bright as noon,
And heav'nly hosts declare his birth!About the young Redeemer's head,
What wonders, and what glories meet!
An unknown star arose, and led
The eastern sages to his feet.Simeon and Anna both conspire
The infant Saviour to proclaim;
Inward they felt the sacred fire,
And bless'd the babe, and own'd his name.Let pagan hordes blaspheme aloud,
And treat the holy child with scorn;
Our souls adore th' eternal God
Who condescended to be born.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Take Christ out of Christmas, and December becomes the bleakest and most colorless month of the year.--A. F. Wells
To perceive Christmas through it`s wrapping becomes more difficult every year. -- E. B. White (The second tree from the corner)
Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both. Tryon Edwards
A black man was asked to leave an old white church. As he walked away, he expressed his frustration to the Lord. Suddenly God spoke, and told him, "I understand your frustration. I've been trying to get into that church for 200 years!"
The holiest moment of the church service is the moment when God's people - strengthened by preaching and sacrament - go out of the church door into the world to be the church. We don't go to church; we are the church.
This signboard is broken. Message inside on Sunday.--- NJ church signboard
THE GOOD LORD IS IN HERE WHY AREN'T YOU??? - Sign outside a church.
There is little good in filling churches with people who go out exactly the same as they came in; the call of the Church is not to fill churches but to fill heaven. Fr Andrew SDC "The Way of Victory"
In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians. -- Karl Barth
It is absolutely unimportant in the eyes of God how many people follow the "Anglican tradition" of belief and practice. It is of the greatest importance how many people there are who have come to know and love our Lord because of what we Anglicans have said and done. .. Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. (1908-1974)
We believe and confess one single catholic or universal church--a holy congregation and gathering of true Christian believers, awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ being washed by his blood,and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit. This church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end, as appears from the fact that Christ is eternal King who cannot be without subjects. Belgic Confession Article 27 The Holy Catholic Church
The British churchman goes to church as he goes to the
bathroom, with the minimum of fuss and no explanation if he
can help it.
Ronald Blythe "The Age of Illusion"
Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when He called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone, you are rejecting Christ's call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called.... Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called -- the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ. ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together
It belongs to the very nature of the gospel that the
Church is built across cultural, social, and racial
barriers. There are siren voices (as well as gut reactions)
telling Christians that the way to success in evangelism is
to follow the natural divisions, and to try to build
churches along cultural, social and racial divisions. In
doing so, they ignore the "success" in the New Testament in
crossing these lines; more importantly, they are in fact
stressing success more highly than the truth of the gospel.
To buy success at the price of treating the fundamental
nature of the gospel as dispensable is to follow a false
gospel.
David Bronnert, "The Gospel and Culture" in The Changing
World
The doors of Christ's churches on earth do not stand so wide open that all sorts of people, good or bad, may freely enter as they desire. Those who are admitted to church membership must first be examined and tested as to whether they are ready to be received into church fellowship or not. … These things are required of all church members: repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore repentance and faith are the things about which individuals must be examined before they are granted membership in a church, and they must profess and demonstrate these in such a way as to satisfy rational charity that they are genuinely present. --Cambridge Declaration (1649) from The Cambridge Platform, rev. ed. by Peter Murdy, 1998, 10:2.
Christians in community must again show the world, not merely family values, but the bond of the love of Christ. Increasingly the ordered fellowship of the church becomes the sign of grace for the warring factions of a disordered world. Only as the church binds together those whom selfishness and hate have cut apart will its message be heard and its ministry of hope to the friendless be received. --Edmund Clowney, THE CHURCH
A church has no right to make anything a condition of
membership which Christ has not made a condition of
salvation.
A A Hodge A Commentary on the Confession of faith 1870 p
3
The church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam.-- RICHARD HOOKER
The Church which is married to the Spirit of the Age will be a widow in the next.-- Dean Inge
The church is more like a family than a firm ... and, within the family, men are the spiritual guides ... this is not misogyny. It puts me in touch with the vast majority of Christians who have ever lived, and the vast majority of Christians who now live.-The Rev Dr Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant and which is animated only by Faith and Hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example. --Dr. Johnso
Church is for sinners. --Eli Khamarov, "The Old Working Model"
The church is: a conspiracy of love for a dying world, a spy mission into enemy occupied territory ruled by the powers of evil; a prophet from God with the greatest news the world has ever heard, the most life changing and most revolutionary institution that has existed on earth. --PETER KREEFT
Do not ride in cars: they are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents. . . Do not stay at home: 17% of all accidents occur in the home. . . Do not walk on the streets or pavements: 14% of all accidents occur to pedestrians. . . Do not travel by air, rail, or water: 16% of all accidents happen on these. . . Only .001% of all deaths occur in worship services in church, and these are usually related to previous physical disorders. . . Hence the safest place for you to be at any time is at church! -- Mark Leslie via Sermon Fodder <Sermon_Fodder-owner@onelist.com>
I wish they would remember that the charge to Peter was "Feed my sheep", not "Try experiments on my rats", or even "Teach my performing dogs new tricks".. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964 , pp. 4-5.
Let him who wants a true church cling to the Word by which everything is upheld. --Martin Luther
The task is not, in essence, the securing of uniformity, or cooperation, or Church reunion, or any of the external forms, through which nevertheless the unity may be manifested. Within the wide bounds of the Christian Church there is abundant scope for the multiplicity of races, languages, and social conditions; room also for separate organizations with different traditions of faith and order, and much diversity of operation. But there is no room for strife or hostility, for pride or selfassertion, for exclusiveness or unkind judgments, nor for that kind of independence which leads men to ignore their fellowship with the great company of believers, the communion of saints. These things are contrary to the revealed will of God, and should be made at once to cease. As these disappear, the outward manifestation of unity will come in such ways as the Spirit of God shall guide.... G. T. Manley, Christian Unity [1945
The Church faces the same problem today as it has faced in every era - the problem of communicating to our culture while not identifying with its, values. George M. Marsden
The Church is a society of sinners - the only society in the world in which membership is based upon the single qualification that the candidate shall be unworthy of membership. -- Charles C. Morrison
Theologically, we have been discovering anew that the Church is not an appendage to the Gospel: it is itself a part of the Gospel. The Gospel cannot be separated from that new people of God in which its nature is to be made manifest. --Stephen Neill (1900-1984)
For many years the Christians met in homes and never possessed any special buildings for their gatherings. As religio illicita, no thought could be had of a permanent structure for gatherings. This would only facilitate matters for the Roman government in its merciless persecutions. The early Church was very conscious of its pilgrim character in a world which was at enmity with God. ... Donald L. Norbie, New Testament Church Organization
The Christian church is not only a community of future hope but also a community of remembrnce.Every period of renewal begins with a deeper penetration of the past, to recapture the faith of our fathers--Michael Novak
Christ is the Lord of the church. Imagine what this must have meant to the small group of believers in the pagan city of Colosse, feeling things were against them, battling hard and perhaps tempted to despair. The glorious Christ, the eternal, pre-existent one, the beloved Son of God, the mighty Victor, is the head of the church, which is His body. This means not only that the church is united to Christ, who is its head, but also that the church is the means whereby all that Christ is and wills is expressed in the world. The church is vitalized by Christ's presence, energized by his power and is his instrument in the world. George M, Philip, "Daily Grace"
As theology declined in most churches, and sociology
became the major "Christian" concern, the churches became
steadily more irrelevant, in that school and state were now
the truly effective institutions, and the roll of a harmless
club became progressively the function of the church.
R. J. Rushdoony The Messianic Character of American
Education
It is not the business of the church to adapt Christ to men, but men to Christ. -- Dorothy Sayers
This is the real Church of the Lord Jesus Christ -- not
merely organisation, but a group of people, individually the
children of God, drawn together by the Holy Spirit for a
particular task, either in a local situation or over a wider
area. The Church of the Lord Jesus should be a group of
those who are redeemed and bound together on the basis of
true doctrine. But subsequently they should show together a
substantial "sociological healing" of the breaches between
men, which have come about because of... man's sin. The
Christian sociological position is that the sociological
problems which we find... are a result of the separation
that has come between men because of sin. Now the world
should be able to see in the Church those marks [which
show] that there is a substantial sociological healing
possible in the present generation. It is not enough for the
Church to be engaged with the State in healing social ills,
though this is important at times. But when the world can
turn around and see a group of God's people exhibiting
substantial healing in the area of human relationships in
their present life, then the world will take notice. Each
group of Christians is, as it were, a pilot plant, showing
that something can be done in the present situation, if only
we begin in the right way.
Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There
[1968]
Those of us who are children of God must realize the seriousness of modern apostasy; we must urge each other not to have any part in it. But at the same time we must be the loving, true bride of the divine bridegroom in reality and in practice, day by day, in the midst of the spiritual adultery of our day. Our call is first to be the bride faithful, but that is not the total call. The call is not only to be the bride faithful, but also to be the bride in love.-Francis A. Schaeffer, _The Church Before the Watching World: A Practical Ecclesiology_ (Inter-varsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 60515, ISBN 0-87784-542-5
Several years ago I wrestled with the question of what was wrong with much of the church that stood for purity. I came to the conclusion that in the flesh we can stress purity without love or we can stress love without purity, but that in the flesh we cannot stress both simultaneously. In order to exhibit both simultaneously, we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ, to the work of the Holy Spirit. Spirituality begins to have real meaning in our moment-by-moment lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God.Francis A. Schaeffer, _The Church Before the Watching World: A Practical Ecclesiology_ (Inter-varsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 60515, ISBN 0-87784-542-5
We must stand clearly for the principle of the purity of the visible church, and we must call for the appropriate discipline of those who take a position which is not according to Scripture. But at the same time we must visibly love them as people as we speak and write about them. ... We must say that [they] are desperately wrong and that they require discipline in and by the church, but we must do so in terms that show it is not merely the flesh speaking. This is beyond us, but not beyond the work of the Holy Spirit. . . . with prayer both love, and concern for the truth, can be shown.. . . Francis A. Schaeffer, _The Church Before the Watching World: A Practical Ecclesiology_ (Inter-varsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 60515, ISBN 0-87784-542-5
. . . by God's grace, we must do two things simultaneously: We must do all that is necessary for the purity of the visible church to exhibit the holiness of God, and yet, no matter how bitter [they] become or what nasty things they say . . . , we must show forth the love of God in the midst of the strongest speaking we can do. If we let down one side or the other, we will not bear our testimony to God who is holy and who is love. Francis A. Schaeffer, _The Church Before the Watching World: A Practical Ecclesiology_ (Inter-varsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 60515, ISBN 0-87784-542-5
Jesus' teaching and the New Testament Church make plain that while there is 'the invisible Church', yet the Church is not to be hidden away, in an unseen area, as though it does not matter what men see. What we are called to do upon the basis of the unfinished work of Christ in the power of the Spirit through faith, is to exhibit a substantial healing, individual and then corporate, so that men may observe it. Here too is a portion of the apologetic: a presentation which gives at least some demonstration that these things are neither theoretical nor a new dialectic, but real; not perfect, yet substantial. If we only speak of and exhibit the individual effects of the Gospel, the world, psychologically conditioned as it is today, will explain them away. What the world cannot explain away will be a substantial, corporate exhibition of the logical conclusions of the Christian presuppositions. It is not true that the New Testament presents an individualistic concept of salvation. Individual, yes: we must come one at a time; but it is not individualistic only. First there must be the individual reality, and then the corporate. Neither will be perfect in this life, but they must be real.- F A Schaeffer, The God Who is There Section VI Chapter 1 pp. 153-154
Protestantism makes the relation of a man to the Church to depend upon his relation to Christ; Romanism makes the relation of a man to Christ to depend on his relation to the Church. -- Schleiermacher
It can be exalting to belong to a church that is 550 years behind the times and sublimely indifferent to fashion; it is mortifying to belong to a church that is five minutes behind the times, huffing and puffing to catch up. - JOSEPH SOBRAN
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, how some folks must love the Church! -- Gerald I. Teague
When the church is unified and the Lord is glorified, then the saints will be edified, sinners will be sanctified, and the devil will be terrified. --Anthony Warner
The Catholic crisis of 2002 is also a powerful reminder of the Iron Law of Christianity and Modernity: Christian communities that maintain their doctrinal identity and moral boundaries flourish in the modern world; Christian communities that fudge doctrine and morals decay. Contrary to much popular wisdom, the Christian movement is flourishing throughout the world. And in all instances, without exception, it is the Christian communities that eschew Lite approaches to doctrine and morals that are growing. -- George Weigel, _The Courage to be Catholic_, 2002
This catholic Church hath been sometimes more, sometimes
less visible. And particular Churches, which are members
thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of
the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered,
and public worship performed more or less purely in them.
The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture
and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no
churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless,
there shall be always a church on earth, to worship God
according to his will.
Westminster Confession of Faith; Chapter XXV
We are called to see that the Church does not adapt its
thinking to the horizons that modernity prescribes for it
but rather that it brings to those horizons the powerful
antidote of God's truth. It is not the Word of God but
rather modernity that stands in need of being
demythologised.
David F. Wells No Place For Truth, p.100
By this late date, evangelicals should be hungering for a genuine revival of the church, aching to see it once again become a place of seriousness where a vivid otherworldliness is cultivated because the world is understood in deeper and truer ways, where worship is stripped of everything extraneous, where God's Word is heard afresh, where the desolate and broken can find sanctuary. Why, then, are they not more serious in their efforts to recover the true church? It is because virtually everything within them and around them militates against it. Cultural pressures and influences are so intrusive and inwardly destabilising that Christian spirituality becomes a forlorn pursuit unless the individual is embodied in a structure that gives corporate expression to private spirituality, in which the lone thread is woven into a fabric. Many churches have not learned the lessons that most parents stumble on sooner or later. Churches imagine that the less they ask or expect of believers, the more popular they will become and the more contented worshippers will be. The reverse is true. Those who ask little find that the little they ask is resented or resisted; those who ask much find that they are given much and strengthened by the giving. --David Wells, God in the Wasteland- The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams, PG. 225, 226.
If I see a man who loves the Lord Jesus in sincerity, I am not very solicitous to what communion he belongs. The Kingdom of God, I think, does not consist in any such thing. GEORGE WHITEFIELD
Even in the realm of politics, the Amti-Revolutionary
movement confesses the eternal principles of God's Word.;
state authority is bound by the ordinances of God only in
the conscience of public officials and not directly so bound
nor through the pronouncements of any church.
Anti-Revolutionary Party of The Netherlands, 3 April 1879,
in The Practice of Political Spirituality, McKendree R
Langley, Paedeia Pres 1984, p9
In a Christian state, the government, as the servant of
God, is to glorify God's name by
(1) removing all administrative ans legislative hindrances
to the full oxpression of the gospel in national life.
(2) refraining from any direct interference with the
spiritual development of the nation, for that is beyond
government's competence.
(3) treating equally all churches, religious organisations
and citizens rgardless of their views on eternal matters;
and
(4) recognising in the conscience a limit to state power in
so far as conscience is presumed to be honorable.
Anti-Revolutionary Party of The Netherlands, 3 April 1879,
in The Practice of Political Spirituality, McKendree R
Langley, Paedeia Pres 1984, p28
Their office [civil government] is not only to
have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil
state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry, and
thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship,
that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus destroyed and the
kingdom of Christ promoted.
Belgic Confession, article 36. This has been changed or
removed by most of the Dutch reformed churches in the 20th
century.
Together we contend for the truth that politics, law, and culture must be secured by moral truth. With the Founders of the American experiment, we declare, "We hold these truths." With them, we hold that this constitutional order is composed not just of rules and procedures but is most essentially a moral experiment. With them, we hold that only a virtuous people can be free and just, and that virtue is secured by religion. To propose that securing civil virtue is the purpose of religion is blasphemous. To deny that securing civil virtue is a benefit of religion is blindness. -Charles Colson and others, Evangelicals & Catholics Together:The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,1994
We strongly affirm the separation of church and state, and just as strongly protest the distortion of that principle to mean the separation of religion from public life. We are deeply concerned by the courts' narrowing of the protections provided by the "free exercise" provision of the First Amendment and by an obsession with "no establishment" that stifles the necessary role of religion in American life. As a consequence of such distortions, it is increasingly the case that wherever government goes religion must retreat, and government increasingly goes almost everywhere. -Charles Colson and others, Evangelicals & Catholics Together:The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,1994
I am glad you recognize the religious nature of the State
which is the established religion of today.... Many
Christians seem to fear admitting that there is an
established religion because they have been brainwashed by
establishment media into thinking that the State is neutral.
The State browbeats anyone who suggests that establishment
of religion exists because of former separation of church
and state issues.
The real issue is not between church and state. The real
issue is that the state as a religious establishment has
progressively disestablished Christianity as its law
foundation, all the while professing neutrality, yet in fact
establishing humanism as the religion of the state. While
law courts have been dishonest regarding the religious
nature of their function, the churches have been weak in
reminding them. There can be no separation of religion and
state. It is only a question of which religion will prevail.
- Bruce.Dayman@icbc.com
Don't you love how the words "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" have been interpreted to mean almost the exact opposite of what they once meant? [...] Do the "separation of church and state" extremists have any idea how utterly hateful and intolerance and paranoid and fearful they come across these days? Or how much they've done to make ordinary Americans despise their own government and see it as a thing separate from themselves, an intolerant enemy to be fought? I mean, do they have any idea at all? It's a sad thing, when "pluralism" comes to mean "intolerance." -- Dean Esmay, http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1103280317.shtml
History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion. . . and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern. B Franklin, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania
History reveals the Church and the State as a pair of
indispensable Molochs. They protect their worshiping
subjects, only to enslave and destroy them. --Aldous Huxley
(1894-1963) _Themes and Variations_ [1950],
"Variations on a Philosopher"
(Proving Huxley understood the State but not the Church.
GJW)
Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone; Jefferson, Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. draft.Section I
All (the gospel) asks is unlimited freedom to develop in accordance with its own genius in the heart of our national life.We do not want the government to hand over unbelief hancuffed and chained as though for a spiritual execution. We prefer that the power of the gospel overcome that demon in free combat with comparable weapons. Only this we do not want: that the government arm unbelief to force us, half armed and handicapped by an assortment of laws, into an unequal struggle with so powerful an enemy. - Abraham Kuyper, Maranathan in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, J Bratt p.224-5
A free church, a hol;y nation - Abraham Kuyper
It is not lawful for the State...to hold in equal favor different kinds of religion....The equal toleration of all religions...is the same thing as atheism. Leo XIII: Immortale Dei, Nov.1,1885
Junker Henry means to be God and do as he pleases.-Martin Luther on Henry VIII, as the King marries Catherine Parr on 12 July 1543.
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) _Strength to Love_ [1963]
We‚ve come a long way in America. After two centuries, it seems we finally do have a religious test for office. True religiosity is disqualifying. Well, not quite. Believers may serve but only if they check their belief at the office door. At a time when religion is a preference and piety a form of eccentricity suggesting fanaticism, Chesterton needs revision: tolerance is not just the virtue of people who do not believe in anything; tolerance extends only to people who don‚t believe in anything. Believe in something, and beware. You may not warrant presidential-level attack, but you‚ll make yourself suspect should you dare enter the naked public square.--Charles Krauthammer, 1999
There must be prayers in the Scottish Parliament so that
the people who are there know that God is watching what they
do.
Bashir Maan, President of Glasgow Central Mosque
Sir, as diverse times before, so now again I must tell you there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland; there is Christ Jesus and His Kingdom the Kirk, whose subject King James the Sixth is, and of whose Kingdom he is not a king, nor a head, nor a lord, but a member; and they whom Christ has called, and commanded to watch over His kirk and govern His spiritual kingdom, have sufficient power of Him and authority so to do, both together and severally, the which no Christian King nor prince should control and discharge, but fortify and assist, otherwise not faithful subjects, not members of Christ. - Andrew Melville to James the Sixth (First) in 1596
The goal fixed for us by the Christian revelation is nothing less than a Christian state as well as Christian individuals, Christian families and a Christian church.- John Murray, The Christian World Order, 1943
...is there good sense in working towards the
establishment of a Christian world order when we know that ,
in the completeness of its conception, it is not attainable
in what we generally call this life? We must be bold to say
that the Christian revelation does not allow us to do
anything less that to formulate and work towards a Christain
world order in the life that we now live.
The civil magistrate derives his authority from God. Apart
from divine institution and sanction, civil government has
no right to exist..... Since civil government derives its
authority from God, it is responsible to God and therefore
obligated to conduct its affairs in accordance with God's
will. The Word of God bears upon civil authority will all
the stringency that belongs to God's Word.
Furthermore, the Word of God reveals that Christ is head
over all things, that he has been given all authority in
heaven and in earth. The civil magistrate is under
obligation to acknowledge this headship and therefore to
conduct his affairs, not only in subjection to the
sovereignty of God, but also in subjection to the
mediatorial sovreignty of Christ, and must therefore obey
his will as it is revealed for the discharge of that
authority which the civil magistrate exercises in subjection
to Christ. To recede from this position or to abandon it
either as a conception or as goal, ****is to reject in
principle the sovreignty of God and of his Christ.***
...this overpowering sense of our weakness and inability is
no reason for faintheartedness...the responsibility is ours.
It is stupendously great. The insufficiency is ours: it is
complete. But the power is God's. The grace is of God. The
promise is his.let us in his strength go forth to claim
every realm for him who must reignuntil all his enemies
shall have been made his footstool.- John Murray vol
3p364
The problem, of course, is that neither [church nor state] is prepared to remain within its institutional boundaries. Government, if it is to be sustainable, engages beliefs and loyalties of an ultimate sort that can properly be called religious. As the impulse of the modern state is to define all public space as governmental space, so the consequence is a tendency toward "civil religion." Religion, on the other hand, if it represents a comprehensive belief system, speaks to the human condition in all its aspects, including the right ordering (the government) of public life....Thus each institution is, in the eyes of the other, constantly bursting its bounds. Therein is the foundation of the open-ended argument between church and state. Open-ended, that is, so long as a society professes to be democratic. -- Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square, 1984
We avow our sincere patriotism and our unquestioned
loyalty to the nation that we love, but we claim for
ourselves the right and the liberty to speak at any time
contrary to those who may temporarily be in control of the
government, if loyalty to Jesus Christ, as we apprehend it,
demands such action.
The Reformed Church in the U.S., _Minutes of the General
Synod_, 1926.
Christ, the prophets, and apostles of our Lord, went to heaven with the note of traitors, seditious men, and such as turned the world upside down: claumnies of treason to Caesar were an ingredient in Christ's cup, and therefore the author is the more willing to drink of that cup that touched his lip, who is our glorious Forerunner: what, if conscience toward God, and credit with men, cannot both go to heaven with the saints, the author is satisfied with the former companion, and is willing to dismiss the other. Truth to Christ cannot be treason to Caesar, and for his choice he judgeth truth to have nearer relation to Christ Jesus, than the transcendent and boundless power of a mortal prince. --Samuel Rutherford , preface to Lex Rex
Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as divine revelation in the college ?......Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?-- Justice Joseph Story, Vidal v. Girard's Executors 1844
Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation. --Justice Joseph Story,_Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States_, 1833
The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. --Justice Joseph Story,_Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States_, 1833
The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent&emdash;that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgement of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mahommedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political Institutions.... The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid.... and the Aegis of the Government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it; our system of free government would be imperfect without it. - John Tyler (1790 &endash; 1862)
The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heavene: yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be. preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administrated, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God -- Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) Chapter XXIII. Of the Civil Magistrate.III.
Small James (King of Scotland from one year old) twice
disobeyed him (tutor George Buchanan, 60 years his senior)
and then deliberately defied him to his face. Buchanan
turned him up and laid on so heartily that Lady Mar came
running, horrified by the howls to ask:"What dost though to
the Lord's Annointed?'
"I have skelped(beaten) his airse, you may kiss it if you
like!" he is said to have answered.
Elizabeth Whitley, The Two Kingdoms, Edinburgh, 1977.
Christ during His life upon earth was of all men the
poorest, castingfrom Him all worldly authority. I deduce
from these premises... that the Pope should surrender all
temporal authority to the civil power and advise his clergy
to do the same.
John Wycliffe in 1384 dismissing an order to appear before
The Papal Court, in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations,
1996.
The struggles between church and state began just over fifty years after Constantine's move. One of Constantine's successors, the emperor Theodosius, while in a nasty dispute with the Thessalonians, a Greek tribe, invited the whole tribe to Milan -- and orchestrated a blood-curdling massacre of his guests: men, women, and children. The archbishop of Milan, a pious priest named Ambrose, was appalled and publicly refused to give the emperor Holy Communion. Theodosius protested, resorting to a biblical defense. He was guilty of homicide, he explained, but wasn't one of the Bible's heroic kings, David, guilty not just of homicide but of adultery as well? The archbishop was unyielding, thundering back, in Edward Gibbon's famous account, "You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then his repentance." To the utter amazement of all, for the next eight months the emperor, the most powerful man in the world, periodically dressed like a beggar (as David had in the biblical tale) and stood outside the cathedral at Milan to ask forgiveness of the archbishop. --Fareed Zakaria, _The Future of Freedom_
Ministers need to eat for two. Feed me for their sake.
I remember myself, that when I was young, I had sometime the company of one ancient godly minister, who was of weaker parts than many others, but yet did profit me more than most; because he would never in prayer or conference speak of God, or the life to come, but with such marvelous seriousness and reverence, as if he had seen the majesty and glory which he talked of. - RICHARD BAXTER
An elastic ecclesiastic -- J Blanchard
The lives of ministers oftentimes convince more strongly than their words; their tongues may persuade, but their lives command.- Thomas Brooks
We must always speak of the efficacy of the ministry in
such a manner that the entire praise of the work may be
reserved for God alone.
John Calvin (1509-1564)
If some Christians that have been complaining of their ministers had said and acted less before men and had applied themselves with all their might to cry to God for their ministers -- had, as it were, risen and stormed heaven with their humble, fervent, and incessant prayers for them -- they would have been much more in the way of success.-- Jonathan Edwards
Perhaps no one sins more outrageously in our age, or is more characteristic of the slackness we tolerate, than the priest and the theologian who reduce God to no more than a concept but insist that they believe enough to remain members of their church or temple. They are making it awkward to be an atheist. ...Why stand outside the doors of the church as an atheist, and think gravely of the falsehoods preached within that one feels compelled to combat, when all the time one could just step inside and in God's own house preach against them in His name? --Henry Fairlie, _The Seven Deadly Sins Today_
We never find a presbyter in the singular in the New Testament. He is always a member of a team. In the modern church, the ordained man is almost always on his own in the community, unless he is lucky enough to have a colleague, or to be a member of a team ministry. We expect the ordained man to be almost omnicompetent, and complain at his deficiencies. This is an extremely serious error. It is very bad for the man himself to be made to feel that he is the sole minister: it may lead to despair, arrogance, blindness to the true situation, and inhibiting the gifts of others. It is bad for the parish: they become critical and lazy. When the different limbs in Christ's body are not allowed their special ministry, they are harmed and their gifts atrophy. The ordained man too is harmed, for he has to attempt to do various ministries for which he has no charisma from God, and the church cannot be adequately cared for. ... E. M. B. Green (1930- ), "Mission and Ministry"
Because the role of the Christian leader is to preach, teach, act as a shepherd, [and] be an example in personal and family life, the New Testament properly insists that he must not be a new convert nor a young man. He must have proved himself [and] demonstrated his God-given charisma for leadership, before he looks to the Church for recognition of it through ordination. Here once again we stand in marked contrast to the New Testament... The early Christians laid great stress on quality of life. A leader must merit respect,with his sexual, drinking [and] financial habits beyond reproach, a man of experience, a family man, someone who has led others to the faith and built Christians up in it. We go, on the whole, for untried men whose degree matters more than their lives, and who may never have led anyone to belief in Christ, or may even regard the whole idea as distasteful. ... E. M. B. Green (1930- ), "Mission and Ministry"
The devil will let a preacher prepare a sermon if it will keep him from preparing himself.--Vance Havner
Every wise workman takes his tools away from the work
from time to time that they may be ground and sharpened; so
does the only-wise Jehovah take his ministers oftentimes
away into darkness and loneliness and trouble, that he may
sharpen and prepare them for harder work in his service.
Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843)
Archbishop: A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ. Henry Louis Mencken
Pastor: One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't pay. Henry Louis Mencken
I measure ministers by square measure. I have no idea of the size of a table, if you only tell me how long it is: but if you also say how wide, I can tell its dimensions. So, when you tell me what a man is in the pulpit, you must also tell me what he is out of it, or I shall not know his size -- JOHN NEWTON
Your mission is to evangelize, not to curse. Prove yourself to be an evangelist, not a tyrannical legislator. Men want to be led, not driven.- Oecolampadius to William Farel
If the word do not dwell with power in us,it will not go out with power from us. -- J Owen
Whatever vices and corruptions men see in the lives of their ministers will not be attributed to the depravity of their old nature which still abides in them, but to the gospel. - JOHN OWEN
Bear. Bear. Bear. Forbear. Forbear. Forbear. In yielding
is victory. Fight the devil and love the deacon--Love him
till he is loveable.
C. H. Spurgeon. Letters, p.77
Some ministers would make good martyrs. They are so dry, they would burn well.-- C H Spurgeon
THE VERY FIRST thing which needs to be said about Christian ministers of all kinds is that they are "under" people (as their servants) rather than "over" them (as their leaders, let alone their lords). Jesus made this absolutely plain. The chief characteristic of Christian leaders, he insisted, is humility not authority, and gentleness not power.- John Stott, The Gospel and the End of Time
Christianity is not a system of philosophy, nor a ritual, nor a code of laws; it is the impartation of a divine vitality. Without the way there is not going, without the truth there is no knowing, without life there is no living. MERRILL TENNEY on Jn 14:6
I look on all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation. -- John Wesley (1703-1791)
There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus
Christ. Nor can the pope of Rome, in any sense, be head
thereof.
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), ch 25:6
Our clerics neither evangelize like the apostles, nor go to war like the secular lords, nor toil like labourers.----John Wycliffe (?1330-1384) in The Lion Christian Quotation Collection, 1997
There was good reason for the silence of the Holy Spirit as to how,when, in what form Christ ordained the apostles, the reason being to show the indifferency of all forms of words. ---John Wycliffe (?1330-1384) in The Lion Christian Quotation Collection, 1997
In order to the existence of such a ministry in the Church, there is requisite an authority received from God, and consequently power and knowledge imparted from God for the exercise of such ministry; and where a man possesses these, although the bishop has not laid hands upon him according to his traditions, God has Himself appointed him.... John Wycliffe (1320?-1384)
A city man is a home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike. But a country man has a place where he belongs, where he always returns, and where, when the time comes, he is willing to die."--Edward Abbey
In our large cities, the population is godless, materialized--no bond, no fellow feeling, no enthusiasm. These are not men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers and appetites walking. --Emerson
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too
small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that
voluntarily does this to himself.
Robert Heinlein,Time Enough for Love p. 371
A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.--- Herbert V. Prochnow
The city's heat is like a leaden pall--
Its lowered lamps glow in the midnight air
Like mammoth orange-moths that flit and flare
Through the dark tapestry of night. The tall
Black houses crush the creeping beggars down,
Osbert Sitwell, Progress
The three great elements of modern civilization, Gunpowder, Printing, and the Protestant Religion. --Thomas Carlyle
Civilization exists by geologic consent subject to change without notice. --- Will Durant
Reporter: "What do you think of western
civilisation?"
Ghandi: "I think it would be a good idea."
...it is largely because civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone.-- F.A. Hayek
In every era of human history, modernity, or some equivalent term has meant the ways, norms, and standards of the dominant and expanding civilization. Every dominant civilization has imposed its own modernity in its prime. The Hellenistic kingdoms, the Roman Empire, the medieval Christendoms, and Islam, as well as the ancient civilizations of India and China, all imposed their norms over a wide area and radiated their influence over a much broader on, far beyond their imperial frontiers. Islam was the first to make significant progress toward what it perceived as its universal mission, but modern Western civilization is the first to embrace the whole planet. Today, for the time being, as Ataturk recognized and as Indian computer scientists and Japanese high-tech companies appreciate, the dominant civilization is Western,and Western standards therefore define modernity.--Bernard Lewis, _What Went Wrong? - Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response_, cr. 2002, Oxford University Press
The dark age is likely to intervene anyway. It is very unusual for one moral order to slide into another with no intervening chaos. There are many other symptoms. The excessive interest in eroticism is characteristic of the end of a civilization, because it really means a growing impotence, and a fear of impotence. Then the obsessive need for excitement, vicarious excitement, which of course the games provided for the Romans, and which television provides for our population. Even the enormously complicated structure of taxation and administration is, funnily enough, a symptom of the end of a civilization; these things become so elaborate that in the end they become insupportable because of their very elaboration. Above all, there is this truly terrible thing which afflicts materialist societies -- boredom; an obsessive boredom, which I note on every hand. Mine is, admittedly, a minority view; a lot of people think that we are just on the verge of a new marvelous way of life. I see no signs of it at all myself. I notice that where our way of life is most successful materially it is most disastrous morally and spiritually; that the psychiatric wards are the largest and most crowded, and the suicides most numerous, precisely where material prosperity is greatest, where most money is spent on education. - Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered, 1969, page 213
If all that Western civilization offers is freedom, then it is a civilization bent on its own destruction. - Roger Scruton, The West and the Rest, ISI Books, 2002, p v111
Civilization--and by this I do not mean talking cinemas and tinned food, nor even surgery and hygienic houses, but the whole moral and artistic organization of Europe--has not in itself the power of survival. It came into being through Christianity, and without it has no significance or power to command allegiance. . . . It is no longer possible, as it was in the time of Gibbon, to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis on which it rests. . . . Christianity . . . is in greater need of combative strength than it has been for centuries.-- Evelyn Waugh, 1930
He died greater than he had lived, - Burnet , History of his own Time, vol. 1., p. 55; London, 1815. ( On Charles I)
IF THE REMONSTRANCE HAD BEEN REJECTED I WOULD HAVE SOLD
ALL I HAD THE NEXT MORNING AND NEVER HAVE SEEN ENGLAND MORE,
AND I KNOW THERE ARE MANY OTHER MODEST MEN OF THE SAME
RESOLUTION.
Oliver Cromwell on Parliament's passing of the revolutionary
Grand Remonstrance, Quoted in the Earl of Clarendon, A
History of the Rebellion.
I HAD RATHER HAVE A PLAIN RUSSET-COATED CAPTAIN THAT
KNOWS WHAT HE FIGHTS FOR, AND LOVES WHAT HE KNOWS, THAN THAT
WHICH YOU CALL A GENTLEMAN AND IS NOTHING ELSE.
OLIVER CROMWELL 1599-1658 A Letter from Cromwell to Sir
William Spring. Sept. 1643. Taken from Cromwell's Letters
and Speeches in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
TRULY ENGLAND AND THE CHURCH OF GOD HATH HAD A GREAT FAVOUR FROM THE LORD, IN THIS GREAT VICTORY GIVEN US. Oliver Cromwell on the Battle of Marston Moor. 1644.
WE STUDY THE GLORY OF GOD, AND THE HONOUR AND LIBERTY OF
PARLIAMENT, FOR WHICH WE UNAMINOUSLY FIGHT, WITHOUT SEEKING
OUR OWN INTERESTS.
Oliver Cromwell to Colonal Valentine Walton. 5 or 6
September 1644.
I COULD NOT RIDING OUT ALONE ABOUT MY BUSINESS, BUT SMILE OUT TO GOD IN PRAISES, IN ASSURANCE OF VICTORY BECAUSE GOD WOULD, BY THINGS THAT ARE NOT, BRING TO NAUGHT THINGS THAT ARE. OliverCromwell before the Battle of Naseby. 1645.
CRUEL NECESSITY. Cromwell on the execution of King Charles I. Jan 1649.
THIS IS A RIGHTEOUS JUDGEMENT OF GOD UPON THESE BARBAROUS WRETCHES, WHO HAVE IMBRUED THEIR HANDS IN SO MUCH INNOCENT BLOOD. Oliver Cromwell after the storming of Drogheda.1649.
I BESEECH YOU IN THE BOWELS OF CHRIST THINK IT POSSIBLE
YOU MAY BE MISTAKEN.
OLIVER CROMWELL 1599-1658 In a letter to the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland. 1650.
THE DIMENSIONS OF THIS MERCY ARE ABOVE MY THOUGHTS. IT IS FOR AUGHT I KNOW, A CROWNING MERCY. OLIVER CROMWELl 1599-1658 In a letter. 1651.
Cavaliers (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right but Repulsive) --W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, 1066 and All That:
CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a blockhead. Ambrose Bierce: Devil's Dictionary
There may be said to be two classes of people in the world: those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not. Robert Charles Benchley
The true way to overcome the evil of class distinctions is not to denounce them as revolutionists denounce them, but to ignore them as children ignore them. G K Chesterton_Charles Dickens_, 1906
Sir, there is one Mrs. MacAulay in this town, a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and said to her, 'Madam, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine with us.' I thus, Sir, showed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me since. Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them? Boswell: Life of Johnson
If you voted for Clinton YOU must have inhaled
If Clinton was the answer It must have been a stupid question
Impeach Hillary
Inhale to the chief
Don't blame me I didn't vote for Hillary
Smoke dope, dodge the draft, Cheat on your wife, become President, It's the new American way
Commander & Cheat
Hold the Liberals liable
Reagan -- the great communicator, Clinton -- the great fabricator
The Ho Chi Minh Trail led to the White House
From a chicken in every pot to a chicken smokin' pot
At least Gennifer got kissed
Keep our privates straight
If you voted for change, better start counting it
The Lord giveth and Clinton taketh away
One More Whore and We Get Gore
Bill Clinton: Commander in Heat
Jail to the Chief!
If his private life doesn't matter, let him date YOUR daughter
Two terms for Clinton: the second in jail
Clinton: Our Nation's Fondling Father
Q: What are the two worst things about Bill Clinton?
A: His face
Bill Clinton.
We have you surrounded.
Drop the cigar.
Step away from the intern
and come out with your pants up."
--seen on a button
Jack Kevorkian for White House Physician. -- bumper sticker
Honk if you voted for Gore. It's that big button in the middle of your steering wheel -- Bumper sticker
Clinton Apologizes to Syphilis Victims ~ Newspaper headline ( May 16, 1997)
It has confirmed in me, the Belief, of what was formerly suspected, viz., that your Principles were very wicked and depraved, tho your Cunning was exquisite enough, to conceal your Crimes from the Public scrutiny. I am now brought to believe what was formerly only suspected, viz. your subordination of Witnesses, your Perjuries, and your Briberies as well as your Cruelty. John Adams, Dec. 23rd, 1765
If I were in the President's place I would not get a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own blood, hearing Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, "How do I reload this damn thing?" --Congressman Dick Armey
Clinton smoked marijuana but did not inhale. He had an inappropriate relationship with a woman but did not have sex. He lied but did not commit perjury. So, what else did he not do, this self-defined innocent sinner?--Lida Bates, NEWSWEEK,12 October 1998
Future historians will be able to study at the Jimmy Carter Library,the Gerald Ford Library, the Ronald Regan Library, and the Bill Clinton Adult Bookstore.- George Carlin
Clinton was slicing the baloney so thin you could see through it.--Anne Carlson , Time
The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they're not. -- Hillary Clinton, 1992, "60 Minutes" interview
A hard dog to keep on the porch.-- Hillary Clinton, 1999 oin her husband
I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. -W J Clinton
Yes, the president should resign. He has lied to the American people, time and time again, and betrayed their trust. He is no longer an effective leader. Since he has admitted guilt, there is no reason to put the American people through an impeachment. He will serve absolutely no purpose in finishing out his term; the only possible solution is for the president to save some dignity and resign. --Bill Clinton regarding Richard Nixon, 1974
Ultimately, as I've always believed, the burden is on those who irrationally love the guy. That he is a liar and a narcissist of Biblical proportions is irrefutable. Even the instrumentalist argument, that they love him because he is "good at his job," is preposterous because he has been good at betraying all of the principles that Clinton-lovers hold dear. [...] No, I think the irrational people are the lonely hearts of both sexes who prostituted themselves for the pimp they love; every time he bitch-slapped them, they forgave him because he is such a beautiful, complicated man. Hating Bill Clinton (both the sins and the sinner) is a rational response; loving him takes a bizarre leap of faith. -- Jonah Goldberg
I regret that I have but one country to give for my life. "Bill Clinton" in a cartoon by Bob Gorrell
I find it unacceptable for this man(Clinton), who has demonstrated repeatedly that he has no ability whatsoever to engage in any kind of decent moral reasoning, to cite "moral duty" on the part of the United States. The very phrase ought to choke him. He has no claim, no authority whatsoever, to speak for me or any other decent person when it comes to moral judgment. Alan Keyes, WorldNetDaily, March 26 1999
I won't use the label superior Northerners pejoratively use to describe Southern crackers. I won't call them 'white trash.' But if not that, then what?-- Michael Kramer, The New York Post
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell the truth.~Mencken, H.L.
The Clinton's secret is that they live in a morally discontinuous universe--events do not have consequences, and what happened 15 minutes ago has no connection to what happens now. Beware of power when it masters the secret of popular amnesia. -- Lance Morrow, on Hillary's possible 2004 presidential run
Leave it to Bill Clinton to close out his presidency with one last helping of his signature dish: a pungent stew of campaign contributions, ethical shortcuts and what-the-hell disregard for likely consequences.-- Newsday, editorial
We are particularly troubled by the numerous instances in which Mr. Clinton granted pardons or commutations without proper consultation with federal prosecutors, often to reward friends or political allies or gain future political advantage.-- The New York Times, editorial
We nostalgically recall the days when sleeping with the President meant attending a Cabinet meeting. -- P. J. O'Rourke, 1997
Now that the impeachment process has moved on to the Senate, someone has raised the question as to whether Bill Clinton will be t tried as an adult. Thomas Sowell
It is going to be a lot harder for courts to prosecute rapists if perjury about sex cannot be punished. Or are we supposed to apply that principle to just one man? --Thomas Sowell
Does it make sense that everybody else is lying, except a man with a history of lying? That mountains of circumstantial evidence are just coincidences? That a man with a lifelong reputation for honourable behaviour -- Kenneth Starr-- is now behaving dishonourably, in order to fabricate a case, while a man with no sense of honour is the innocent victim?--Thomas Sowell
The president has kept all of the promises he intended to keep. --Clinton Aide George Stephanopolous Speaking On "Larry King Live"
Your President, President Clinton, he is a great
communicator. The trouble is he has absolutely nothing to
communicate.
Margaret Thatcher in Memories of Maggie, ed Iain Dale.
President Clinton, on my behalf but without my consent,
apologized:
--to Japan, for winning World War II and deposing the evil
military government.
--to African nations, for not regarding their butcher-clown
leaders and chaotic societies as equals.
--to black Americans, for slavery in America,
notwithstanding that it was precisely Western ideals that
made the abolition of slavery possible, and that citizenship
in modern America is like winning a lottery prize compared
to the Third World.
Yet, when it comes time to apologize for himself, for his
own wrongdoing, he doesn't. Instead, he says: I lied. Screw
you. I'm going on vacation. - Bruce Thompson
What seems to be happening now is the liberals' realization that in fact the Clintons don't give a damn what anyone thinks, including them. Very hard on them, poor souls. ... This fact came home hard to liberal commentators when the Clintons finally abandoned allpretense to style, which was very important to his enablers, for a lot of whom the most important warring values are not those of good vs. evil, but tacky vs. stylish....Something about the spectacle of the former charmer and his wife so nakedly doing what they wanted to do just because they could do it--without disguising any of it as political acts aimed at the right--got to be just too much for his progressive sympathizers.-- Wall Street Journal, editorial
The list [of items stripped from the White House] demonstrates again the Clintons' defining characteristic: They have no capacity for embarrassment. Words like shabby and tawdry come to mind. They don't begin to do it justice.-- The Washington Post, editorial
So the Clinton-Gore era culminates with an election as stained as the blue dress, a Democratic chorus complaining that the Constitution should not be the controlling legal authority, and Clinton's understudy dispatching lawyers to litigate this: "It depends on what the meaning of 'vote' is.-- George Will
Nescafé no es café. (Instant coffee is not coffee.)~~~ (Mexican Saying)
Black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love. - Turkish proverb.
Look here, Steward, if this is coffee, I want tea; but if
this is tea, then I wish for coffee.
Armour, G. D. (1864-1949) _Punch_ vol. 123, p. 44, 23 July
1902, cartoon caption )
It is disgusting to note the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects and the amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. Everybody is using coffee. If possible this must be prevented. My people must drink beer. (Frederick the Great)
The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. "Over the Teacups"(1891).
Decaffeinated coffee? Kinda like kissing your sister. - Bob Irwin
... black as soote and tasing not unlike it. - Coffee described by Sandys, 16th C?, quoted by Barbara Tuchman, Bible and Sword, p.111
Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle water. (The Women's Petition Against Coffee, 1694)
I really believe that the colour we use least in our metaphors is grey. In our political metaphors, we talk about the 'greens', we talk about the 'brown shirts', we talk about the 'blacks', the 'reds', we rarely talk about grey, except perhaps, when referring to old people. Yet grey in my opinion is *the* politically realistic colour of this century. All really major problems that we have to face are grey problems, none of their solutions are black and white solutions, they are all grey. We do not want to listen to grey questions. We do not want to hear grey answers. - Carl Djerassi
May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. -- Ps. 119:76
'Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes. --Cervantes *Don Quixote* (1605)
Comforts corrode our consciences -- Steve Constable
This is our comfort, God is in heaven...His and only His counsel shall stand.-- Oliver Cromwell, letter 21 December 1646
1. Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both
in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood,
and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also
preserves me in such a way that without the will of my
heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed,
all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore,
by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and
makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for
Him.
2. Q. What do you need to know in order to live and die in
the joy of this comfort?
A. First, how great my sins and misery are; second, how I am
delivered from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to be
thankful to God for such deliverance.- The Heidelberg
Catechism , January 19, 1563.
It is solace to haue companie in peyne. --R. Rolle *Meditations on Passion* (1349)
Our forefathers did without sugar until the 13th
century,
without coal fires until the 14th,
without buttered bread until the 16th,
without tea or soup until the 17th,
without gas, matches or electricity until the 20th.
Now what was it you were complaining about?
Richard Stephes
It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery. --Publius Syrus (C. 42 BC) Maxim 995
Society in shipwreck is a comfort to all. --Publius Syrus (C. 42 BC) Maxim144
That which cannot quiet the heart in a storm, cannot entitle a man to blessedness; earthly things accumulated, cannot rock the troubled heart quiet, therefore cannot make one blessed. When Saul was sore distressed, could all the jewels of his crown comfort him? 'They shall cast their silver in the streets...their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord.' (Ezek. 7:19) --THOMAS WATSON
Therefore, in reading profane authors, the admirable
light of truth displayed in them should remind us, that the
human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its
original integrity, is still adorned and invested with
admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the
Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be
careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to
reject or condemn truth wherever it appears. In despising
the gifts, we insult the giver. How then can we deny that
truth must have beamed on those ancient lawgivers who
arranged civil order and discipline with so much equity?
Shall we say that the philosophers, in their exquisite
researches and skilful description of nature, were blind?
Shall we deny the possession of intellect to those who drew
up rules of discourse, and taught us to speak in accordance
with reason? Shall we say that those who, by the cultivation
of the medical art, expended their industry on our behalf
were only raving? What shall we say of the mathematical
sciences? Shall we deem them to be the dreams of madmen?
Nay, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these
subjects without the highest admiration; an admiration which
their excellence will not allow us to withhold. But shall we
deem anything to be noble and praiseworthy, without tracing
it to the hand of God? Far from us be such ingratitude; an
ingratitude not chargeable even on heathen poets, who
acknowledged that philosophy and laws, and all useful arts
were the inventions of the gods. Therefore, since it is
manifest that men whom the Scriptures term 'carnal' are so
acute and clear-sighted in the investigation of inferior
things, their example should teach us how many gifts the
Lord has left in possession of human nature, notwithstanding
its having been despoiled of the true good....
Nor is there any ground for asking what concourse the Spirit
can have with the ungodly, who are altogether alienated from
God. For what is said as to the Spirit dwelling in believers
only, is to be understood of the Spirit of holiness, by
which we are consecrated to God as temples. Notwithstanding
this, he fills, moves and invigorates all things by virtue
of the Spirit, and that according to the peculiar nature
which each class of beings has received by the Law of
Creation. But if the Lord has been pleased to assist us by
the work and ministry of the ungodly in physics, dialectics,
mathematics, and other similar sciences, let us avail
ourselves of it, lest, by neglecting the gifts of God
spontaneously offered to us, we be justly punished for our
sloth John Calvin (Institutes 2:2:15-16).
If we discard common grace, we are driven inevitably to one of two conclusions; either man is not totally depraved. He can do good of himself; or the good which he does is not really good at all. His virtues, his patriotism, marital fidelity, filial piety, love of his children, common honesty are all of them glittering sins. In the doctrine of man the denial of common grace leads to rankest Modernism or blackest misanthropy. --R B Kuiper
The reason that the Ten Commandments are short and clear is that they were handed down direct, and not through several committees... Dan Bennett
Don't hate the media, become the media - Jello Biafra; Dead Kennedys
If you want to get an idea across, wrap it up in a person.Ralph Bunche (1904-1971)
Please note that all human intercourse consists merely of making noises and doing things. --Diderot
Don't SAY things. What you ARE stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason.--Benjamin Franklin
Indeed we are all in peril if the flawed messenger invalidates the message. ~ Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor (2001)
Christian love, which applies to all, even to one's enemies, is the worst adversary of Communism. --Nikolai Bukharin, _Pravda_, March 30, 1934
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent ... The Dark Ages may return on the gleaming wings of science. Beware, I say. Time may be short.--Winston Churchill speaks at Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946
Revolutions, like trees, must be judged by their fruit," Ignazio Silone wrote, and this is the standard the authors apply to the Communist experience--in the China of "the Great Helmsman," Kim Il Sung's Korea, Vietnam under "Uncle Ho" and Cuba under Castro, Ethiopia under Mengistu, Angola under Neto, and Afghanistan under Najibullah. The authors, all distinguished scholars based in Europe, document Communist crimes against humanity, but also crimes against national and universal culture, from Stalin's destruction of hundreds of churches in Moscow to Ceausescu's leveling of the historic heart of Bucharest to the widescale devastation visited on Chinese culture by Mao's Red Guards. As the death toll mounts--as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on--the authors systematically show how and why, wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established, it quickly led to crime, terror, and repression. An extraordinary accounting, this book amply documents the unparalleled position and significance of Communism in the hierarchy of violence that is the history of the twentieth century. -- review of The Black Book of Communism Crimes, Terror, Repression Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin Edited by Mark Kramer Translated by Jonathan Murphy
The real "opium of the people", distracting men's minds
from their essential task, is the communist myth of an
earthly paradise.
Jean Danielou, _The Lord of History_, 1958
One thing about Ronald Reagan that struck me time and again was his obvious, visceral loathing of communism. For him it wasn't just a difference of opinion about economics or governance: he saw through the whole thing to its essentially anti-human nature. And this was at a time, we all too easily forget, when plenty of people in the West -- I think a majority of the intellectual classes even as late as the 1980s -- didn't mind communism at all, thought in fact that it was just the ticket, if perhaps not for the USA, at least for poor counties like Nicaragua. Reagan had the firmest, clearest, truest moral compass of any modern President. May he rest in peace. -- John Derbyshire, http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_05_30_corner-archive.asp#033228
We deny all morality taken from super-human or non-class conceptions. We say that this is a deception, a swindle, a befogging of the minds of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landlords and capitalists. --Lenin, speech, October 2, 1920
We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory.--Lenin, 1908
Freedom is a bourgeois prejudice. We repudiate all morality which proceeds from supernatural ideas or ideas which are outside the class conception. In our opinion, morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of the class war. Everything is moral which is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting order and for uniting the proletariat. Our morality consists solely in close discipline and conscious warfare against the exploiters. --V.I. Lenin
From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need. --Karl Marx
Communism will probably disappear altogether when the Russian experiment comes to a climax, and Bolshevism either converts itself into a sickly imitation of capitalism or blows itself up with a bang. The former issue seems much more likely. ---H. L. Mencken, Baltimore _Evening Sun_, July 14, 1930
The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.~H.L. Mencken
Communist atheism denies any transcendent dimension to being,any call to which humans must freely respond, any standard of truth, evidence, moral integrity, and goodness by which humans are every moment being judged. For the Communist, all is nothingness except the Dialectic of History, before which and in whose name he prostrates himself. The Communist borrows from Christianity and Judaism a comfort, viz. that his prostration places him on the side of justice and compassion. Yet his comfort is unwarranted because it rests on ideas in which his premises forbid him to believe. For the Communist has only one moral principle: the Collective Will of the Party. All else can be done in that name: murder, torture, imprison, exterminate, assassinate. No other moral question can be scientifically raised. There is in man no internal source of dignity. Personal liberty and personal responsibility cannot be honored in theory, although of course they continued to live on among individuals. In theory, these realities are dismissed as bourgeois affectations. The Communist's moral comforts are stolen from elsewhere. --Michael Novak, "The Godlessness That Failed", _First Things_, June/July, 2000
Communism...is absolutely contrary to the natural law itself, and, if once adopted, would utterly destroy the rights, property, and possessions of all men, and even society itself. --Pope Pius IX, _Qui Pluribus_, 1846
Marxism is a perfect example of the chimeras that fuelled the sixties. And it was probably the most potent one. Albeit, much of this Marxism would have been unrecognisable to Marx. It was Marxism watered down, Marxism spiked with LSD and Marxism adulterated with mystical food colouring. But it was Marxism nonetheless because the wildest hippie and the sternest member of the Politburo shared the same daydream, the daydream that underlies all Marxism: _that a thing might be somehow worth other than what people will give for it. This is just not true. And any system that bases itself on such a will-o'-the-wisp is bound to fail. Communes don't work. Cuba doesn't either. --P. J. O'Rourke
"All right, I can see the broken eggs. Now where's
this omelette of yours?" - Victor Lvovich Khibalchich
,(1890-1947) (better known as Victor Serge)
Note: This statement was made after visiting Russia, to the
pro-Leninist sentiment in the global left.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Victor_Serge
Nearly 20 years ago, confined to an 8-by-10 cell in a prison on the border of Siberia, I was granted by my Soviet jailers the 'privilege' of reading the latest copy of Pravda, the official mouthpiece of the Communist regime. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an 'evil empire.' Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, prisoners quickly spread the word of Reagan's 'provocation' throughout the prison. The dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth--a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us. --Natan Sharansky, "Afraid of the Truth", _The Washington Post_, October 12, 2000
Class is a communist concept. It groups people in bundles, and sets them against one another. Margaret Thatcher in Brenda Maddox, Maggie the First Lady,
Communism was the regime for the priveleged elite, capitalism the creed for the common man..- Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power, Harper Collins,1995, p156
Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.--Frank Zappa
Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.-- Henry Ward Beecher
The best exercise for strengthening the heart is reaching down and lifting people up.-- Ernest Blevins
Complain as little as possible of your wrongs, for, as a general rule, you may be sure that complaining is sin: ... because self-love always magnifies our injuries.... FranÁois de Sales (1567-1622)
One falls to the ground in trying to sit on two stools.-- Francois Rabelais
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.
There are only 10 kinds of people, those who know binary and those who don't. --Unknown
Its not the computer that screws up--The faulty interface lies between the chair and the keyboard.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.....
Read my chips: No new upgrades!
I hit the CTRL key but I'm still not in control!
Will the information superhighway have any rest stops?
A computer isn't smart enough to make a mistake. Computers are dumb. Fast and efficient and dumb. No computer ever had an idea.
Home is where you hang your @
The E-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
A user and his leisure time are soon parted.
Oh, what a tangled website we weave when first we practice.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net... and he won't bother you for weeks.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the release date of Windows 2000 has been postponed until January 1901.
I am trying to limit the time that I spend on my computer and increase the time I spend with my wife and children. Now, where did I put them...?
The Lord is my programmer, I shall not crash.
He installed his software on the hard disk of my heart;
All of His commands are user-friendly.
His directory guides me to the right choices for His name's
sake.
Even though I scroll through the problems of life, I will
fear no bugs,
For He is my backup.
His password protects me.
He prepares a menu before me in the presence of my
enemies.
His help is only a keystroke away.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my
life,
And my file will be merged with His and saved forever.
Amen.
Mouse: (n.) an input device used by management to force computer users to keep at least a part of their desks clean.
Being a Mac user is like being a Navy SEAL: a small, elite group of people with access to the most sophisticated technology in the world, who everyone calls on to get the really tough jobs done quickly and efficiently.
Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate that.
Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before
A thunderstorm is God's way of saying you spend too much time in front of the computer.
In a world without fences, who needs Gates - JavaOne 1997 t-shirt
A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about. --Douglas Adams
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest. &emdash;Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992
Isn't it just my luck. Some stranger says to me, "I LOVE
YOU" and next thing I know, I've got this virus...
Posted to rec.humor.funny by Chip Aucoin
Don't ask a man what kind of computer he uses. If it's a Macintosh, he'll tell you. If not, why embarass him? --Tom Clancy
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.--E. W. Dijkstra
To err is human but to really foul up requires a computer. --Paul Erlich
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.--Sydney J. Harris
From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it. [on the removal of a two-inch-long moth from an experimental computer at Harvard in 1945] --Grace Murray Hopper
That's what's cool about working with computers. They don't argue, they remember everything and they don't drink all your beer.-- Paul Leary, 1991
The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village. --Marshall McLuhan
PCMCIA - People can't memorise computer industry acronyms - I can't recall where I heard this. --mrtrakstar@aol.com
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their
home.
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital
Equipment Corp., 1977
In a world without walls, who needs Windows? - Simon Phipps, http://www.cafeshops.com/webmink
Computing machines perhaps can do the work of a dozen
ordinary men, but there is no machine that can do the work
of one extraordinary man.
Richard Rhodes In "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.-- B. F. Skinner
Why is it drug addicts and computer aficionados are both called users? --Clifford Stoll, 1995
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true; I no longer know how to use my telephone. -- Bjarne Stroustrup, computer science professor, designer of C++ programming language (1950- )
Terrified of being alone, yet afraid of intimacy, we experience widespread feelings of emptiness, of disconnection, of the unreality of self. And here the computer, a companion without emotional demands, offers a compromise. You can be a loner, but never alone. You can interact, but need never feel vulnerable to another person.--Sherry Turkle _The Second Self_ [1984], Chapter 9
The best computer is a man, and it's the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labour. --Wernher Von Braun
When I'm around hard-core computer geeks, I want to say, 'Come outside -- the graphics are great!' - Matt Weinhold
While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is admission to someone else.
At the earlier Methodist class meetings, members were expected every week to answer some extremely personal questions, such as the following: Have you experienced any particular temptations during the past week? How did you react or respond to those temptations? Is there anything you are trying to keep secret, and, if so, what? At this point, the modern Christian swallows hard! We are often coated with a thick layer of reserve and modesty which covers "a multitude of sins" -- usually our own. Significantly, James 5:16-20, the original context of that phrase, is the passage which urges, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. --Michael Griffiths, Cinderella with Amnesia
Admit your errors before someone else exaggerates them. --Andrew V. Mason
Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone. --Karl Barth
I have great faith in fools - self confidence my friends call it. - Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 - 1849
The conflict between good and evil is drama, but the conflict between good and good is tragedy.
At home, at work, or in school, we can show Jesus Christ to others by the way we handle conflict
I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and besides, the pig likes it. ---Cyrus Ching
I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinion and sentiments I find delight. --Dr. Samuel Johnson
When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling and peace has become sin. You must at the price of dearest peace lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith. Abraham Kuyper
To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
Be different: conform.
Why can't you be a nonconformist like everyone else?
A well-beaten path does not always make the right road.
Xerox never comes up with anything original.
Resist your time--take a foothold outside it. --Lord Acton, MSS notes, Cambridge, late 19th century
The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.-- Robert Anthony
To get nowhere, follow the crowd. --Frank Baer
Who so would be a man, must be a nonconformist.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803&endash;1882) "Self-Reliance," Essays, First Series (1841, repr. 1847).
If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it. S.I. Hayakawa
We must conform, to a certain extent, to the conventionalities of society, for they are the ripened results of a varied and long experience. --A. A. Hodge
Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity. - Eric Hoffer (1902 &endash; 1983)
It is no measureof health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.-- Krishnamurti
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be
seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover
their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay
Every society honours its live conformists and its dead troublemakers. --Mignon McLaughlin
How glorious it is, and also how painful, to be an exception.... Alfred de Musset
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. --Henry Thoreau (Walden)
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. -Mark Twain
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt. ~ Oscar Wilde 1854-1900, lecture (1882)
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
A guilty conscience needs no accuser.
Conscious is when you are aware of something, and conscience is when you wish you weren't.
A well-beaten path does not always make the right road.
There is not pillow so soft as a clear conscience. --French Proverb
It is not given to human beings [...] to foresee or predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes and kindle with pale gleams the glory of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience, the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and the sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour. -Part of Winston Churchill's eulogy for Neville Chamberlain Their Finest Hour, Page 486
A good conscience is a continual Christmas. - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) _Poor Richard's Almanac [1733]_
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. --- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
The inner voice is at once our greatest danger and an indispensable help.--Carl G. Jung (1875-1961)_The Development of Personality_ [1954]
Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?"
Expedience asks the question, "Is it political?"
Vanity asks, "Is it popular?"
But conscience asks the question, "Is it right?"
There comes a time when one must take a position that's
neither safe, nor political, nor popular, but he must make
it because his conscience tells him that it's right. --
Martin Luther King Jr.
Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason -- I
do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for
they have contradicted each other -- my conscience is
captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant
anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor
safe. God help me. Amen.
Martin Luther, at the Imperial Diet at Worms, 18 April
1521.
Conscience is the still small voice that can make you feel still smaller. -B. Phillips
A bad conscience embitters the sweetest comforts; a good conscience sweetens the bitterest crosses. --Wendell Phillips
To say of an act done, "My conscience is quite clear", sounds smug and satisfactory. It does not by any means follow that the speaker's conscience ought to be clear. It may simply show that [it] is sadly unenlightened. ... G. E. Reindorp
At times, although one is perfectly in the right, one's
legs tremble; at other times, although one is completely in
the wrong, birds sing in one's soul.
Vasily V. Rozanov Russian philosopher
Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voice of the body. --J. J. Rousseau
Conscience: The still small voice that makes you feel still smaller. --James A. Sanaker
A brave man hazards life, but not his conscience. --Schiller, _The Death of Wallenstein_, 1799
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
Shakespeare, _Henry VIII_
A person may sometimes have a clear conscience simply because his head is empty. --Ralph W. Sockman, _How to Believe_, 1953
The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. --Germaine de Stael (1766-1817)
A Conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A Reactionary is a somnambulist walking backward. Franklin D. Roosevelt
We need to learn to set our course by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship. Omar Bradley
Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead. -- Aldous Huxley
If you always do what you've always done, You'll always be what you've always been. --Josh McDowell
Consistency is the paste jewel that only cheap men cherish.--William Allen White
The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working.
The popularity of conspiracy theories is explained by
people's desire to believe that there is -some- group of
folks who know what they're doing.
Damon Knight
Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money. Unknown Author Aged 13
If you cannot get what you like, why not try to like what you get?
Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get.... Spanish Proverb
The contented person is never poor-the discontented is never rich.
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.- Paul of Tarsus, Phil. 4:11-13
Content thyself to be obscurely good.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.-- Joseph
Addison
The contented person is never poor-the discontented is never rich.The quantum of wantum remains constant. -Samuel Beckett
Gold can no more fill the spirit of a man, than grace his purse. A man may as well fill a bag with wisdom, as the soul with the world.-- Robert Bolton
Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is leading, with the thoughts he is thinking, with the deeds he is doing; when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is still, in spite of all, the child of God.... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)
A little is as much as a lot, if it is enough. --Steve Brown
Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition. -- Jeremiah Burroughs
Contentment in every condition is a great art, a spiritual mystery. It is to be learned, and to be learned as a mystery.-- Jeremiah Burroughs
Bloom where you are planted.--- Nancy Reader Campion
Agur said, "Give me neither poverty nor riches"; and this will ever be the prayer of the wise. Our incomes should be like our shoes: if too small, they will gall and pinch us, but if too large, they will cause us to stumble and to trip. But wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, but wants more. True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander. --Caleb C. Colton
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail. --John Donne.
Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress. --Thomas A. Edison
To the discontented man no chair is easy.-- Benjamin Franklin
Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor. --Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, 1749
How few are our real wants! and how easy it is to satisfy
them! Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable.
Julius Charles Hare and Augustus William Hare, _Guesses At
Truth_,1827
We shall never be content until man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself. - Jerome K. Jerome (1859 &endash; 1927)
The Fountain of Content must spring up in the mind; and ... he, who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing, but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #6
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. --- Helen Adams Keller
To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have. --Ken Keyes, Jr.
This is my motto: Contented with little, yet wishing for more.Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Next to faith this is the highest art -- to be content with the calling in which God has placed you. I have not learned it yet. -- Martin Luther
It is right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are.-- Sir James Mackintosh
The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.--Malcolm Muggeridge
Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. -Florence Nightingale (1820 &endash; 1910)
A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires.-- Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374)In "Dictionary of Quotations," by Bergen Evans, 1968.
Great wealth and content seldom live together. --Bob Phillips
God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. --JOHN PIPER
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.--Pliny the Younger (61-112)
In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we eventually learn that here, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished. KARL RAHNER
It is so important not to waste what is precious by
spending all one's time and emotion on fretting or
complaining over what one does not have.
Edith Schaeffer
If the Lord sets you to guard a lonely post in perfect stillness from all active work, you ought to be just as content as to be in the midst of the active warfare. It is no virtue to love the Master's work better than the Master's will. -Hannah Whitall Smith, (1832-1911), letter of 7/16/1886 [M.E. Dieter, ed. CHRISTIAN’S SECRET OF THE HOLY LIFE: UNPUBLISHED PERSONAL WRITINGS OF HANNAH WHITALL SMITH (Zondervan, 1994), p.253]
He is the richest who is content with the least. -Socrates
It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion. Robert Southey
He that deserves nothing should be content with anything. Spurgeon's Proverbs
If I am a son of God, nothing but God will satisfy my soul; no amount of comfort, no amount of ease, no amount of pleasure,will give me peace or rest. If I had the full cup of all the world's joys held up to me, and could drain it to the dregs, I should still remain thirsty if I had not God.... G. A. Studdert Kennedy, The Wicket Gate [1923]
You hunt in the morning (says he), and crowd to the public rooms at night, and call it diversion; when your heart knows it is perishing with poverty of pleasures, and your wits get blunted for want of some other mind to sharpen them upon. There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality),but exchange of ideas in conversation; and whoever has once experienced the full flow of London talk, when he retires to country friendships and rural sports, must either be contented to turn baby again and play with the rattle, or he will pine away like a great fish in a little pond, and die for want of his usual food. --Piozzi: Anecdotes of Johnson
Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error. -- Benjamin Rush
Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall
lose it the moment when my sufferings are to end?
Marie Antoinette on the way to the guillotine 16 Oct 1793
"Women of Beauty and Heroism"Frank B. Goodrich
Courage is fear that has said its prayers. - Dorothy Bernard
Courage conquers more within
Than any foes without,
Never needs to boast or blame
Or raise his voice and shout.
Courage is a quietness--
Not martial music made--
Born of facing up to life
Even when afraid.
-Emily Sargent Councilman
A hero is no braver than any other man, but he is braver for five minutes longer.--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.... Horace, The Book of Positive Quotations
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. --Robert G. Ingersoll
Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other. --Boswell: Life of Johnson
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of
every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point
of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which
yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only
on conditions. Pilate was merciful until it became
risky.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Screwtape Letters
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. -- Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968) Speech, South Africa, 1966.
Captain Smith:
General, how is it that you can keep so serene, stay so
utterly insensible with the storm, the shells and bullets
running about your head?
General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson: Captain Smith, my
religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in
bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern
myself with that, but to be always ready whenever it may
overtake me. That's the way all men should live, then all
men would be equally brave.(Dialogue from the film _Gods and
Generals_ [2003], screenplay by Ronald F.
Maxwell)
True will-power and courage are not on the battlefield, but in everyday conquests over our intertia, laziness, boredom. --Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899)
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgement that something else is more important than fear. --Ambrose Redmoon
Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared. -- Eddie Rickenbacher
Who dares wins.- SAS motto
For courage mounteth with occasion.... William Shakespeare (King John)
I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people. -- George Bernard Shaw
The world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready
somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the
less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out
into your daily battle fields, and no crowds shout about
your coming when you return from your daily victory or
defeat.
Robert Louis Stevenson
When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? -- Henry Thoreau
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear.-- Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Courage is being scared to death -- and saddling up anyway. --John Wayne (1907-1979)
IN The Name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honor of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. In WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth and of Scotland, the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620-- William Bradford , The Mayflower Compact
Lord, I am no longer my own, but Yours. Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will. Let be employed by You or laid aside for You, exalted for You or brought low by You. Let me have all things, let me have nothing, I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You are mine and I am Yours. So be it. Amen. J--John Wesley
There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men that public opinion.--Henry Ward Beecher_Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit_ [1887]
To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice. --Confucius, _Analects_, c. 500BC
Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely painful -- horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; Hatred has its pleasures. -- _The Screwtape Letters_
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame
Their great Original proclaim.
Th'unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's powers display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty Hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevai
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
While all the stars that round her burn
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound
Amid the radiant orbs be found?
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
"The hand that made us is divine."
Joseph Addison, in The Spectator (London, England: August
23, 1712)
I sometimes think that God will ask us, 'That wonderful world of mine, why didn't you enjoy it more?--Ronald Blythe , "Out of the Valley"
When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator.--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
God created out of nothing--wonderful you say:yes to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners. --Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) _Journal_ [July 7, 1838]
Ever since the fall of Adam the world knows neither God nor his creation. It lives altogether outside of the glory of God. Oh, what thoughts man might have had about the fact that God is in all creatures, and so might have reflected on the power and the wisdom of God in even the smallest flowers! Of a truth, who can imagine how God creates, out of the parched soil, such a variety of flowers, such pretty colors, such sweet vernal grass, beyond anything that a painter or apothecary could make! Yet God can bring out of the ground such colors as green, yellow, red, blue, brown. Adam and those around him would have been elevated by all this to the praise of God, and they would have made use of all created things with thanksgiving. Now we enjoy all this to overflowing, yet without understanding, like cattle or other beasts trampling the most beautiful blossoms and lilies underfoot. -- Luther's Tabletalk from No.4201
Let us make now Man in our image, Man
In our similitude.
John Milton. 1608-1674. Paradise Lost. Book VII, 519 - 20
The higher the mountains, the more understandable is the glory of Him who made them and who holds them in His hand.-- Francis Schaeffer
Which beginning of time according to our chronology, fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty third day of _Octob_. in the year of the Julian Calender, 710 [4004 B.C.].--Ussher, James (1581-1656)_The Annals of the World_ (1658) p. 1 On the Creation.
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker. --Voltaire
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars...
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery...
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass"
Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk -- the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement or support from outside to motivate behavior, the second can wilt if not cultivated. If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are put in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished.... Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
credulity
The credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the
invention of knaves.
Edmund Burke, "Letter to a Member of the National
Assembly"
The nineteenth century decided to have no religious
authority. The twentieth century seems disposed to have any
religious authority.
G K Chesterton [Illustrated London News, April 26,
1924]
In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it. --G K Chesterton
Our twentieth century, far from being notable for
scientific scepticism, is one of the most credulous eras in
all history. It is not that people believe in nothing -
which would be bad enough - but that hey believe in anything
- which is really terrible. Recoiling, as they do, from
accepting the validity of miracles, and priding themselves
on seeing the Incarnation as a transcendental con-trick,
they will accept at its face value any proposition, however
nonsensical, that is presented in scientific or sociological
jargon - for instance, the existence of a population
explosion, which has been so expertly and decisively
demolished by Professor Colin Clark of Monash University.
Could any mediaeval schoolman, I ask myself, sit through a
universally applauded television series like Bronowski's
Ascent of Man without a smile of derision at such infantile
acceptance of unproven and unprovable assertions?
Malcom Muggeridge, Vintage Muggeridge, ed. Geoffrey Barlow,
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985, pp. 74-75, "The Bible
Today," from a lecture delivered on 7 October 1976
You believe easily that which you hope for earnestly.-- Terence
The Creeds . . . were formulated gradually, as a result
of a series of desperate controversies -- which are now
named, sometimes after the supposed leaders and
representatives of a particular interpretation of the
Christian religion, and sometimes after the particular
interpretation itself. I need not now attempt to make
precise these heresies, as they came to be called. It is
necessary only to point out that in various ways all these
heresies were simplifications. By means of them, the
revelation of God to men was made -- or appeared to be made
-- less scandalous. On the other hand, the various clauses
of the Creed were not formulated as a new simplification, or
as an alternative-ism. They were nothing more than emphatic
statements of the Biblical scandal, statements which brought
into sharp antagonism the new simplification and the old,
Scriptural, many-sided, and vigorous truth.
E. C. Hoskyns (1884-1937), We Are the Pharisees
Either let our faith conform to our creed or make our creed conform to our faith. --C Hodge
Cricket is a game that owes much of its unique appeal to the fact that it should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game. Any action which is seen to abuse this spirit causes injury to the game itself. - The Laws of Cricket
He didn't quite manage to get his leg over. ~ Jonathan Agnew (with Brian Johnston - after Ian Botham had spun around off balance and tried to step over the wicket unsuccessfully. (1991)
The batsman's Holding, the bowler's Willey.~ Brian 'Johnners' Johnston 1912-94 (commentating a cricket Test Match as Michael Holding faced bowler Peter Willey)
Ray Illingworth has just relieved himself at the pavilion end. ~ Brian Johnston 1912-94
THERE'S a breathless hush in the Close to-night
-
Ten to make and the match to win -
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"
The sand of the desert is sodden red, -
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; -
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"
This is the word that year by year
While in her place the School is set
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind -
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"
Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938) Vitai Lampada
I'll be at your Board, when at leisure from cricket.-- The Earl of Sandwich's response, on being appointed a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty on 11 June 1745.
I don't think I can take seriously any sport which takes less than three days to reach its conclusion. ~Tom Stoppard, in Guardian (24 Dec 1984)
T'finest bloody fast bowler that ever drew breath.
Frederick Sewards Trueman, when asked how he wanted to be
remembered.
An aged Don was asked by a reporter how he thought he
would fare against modern test bowlers. He replied that he
would average in the fifties. The reporter reminded him that
he had retired with a never surpassed test average of 99.4.
"Yes" replied The Don, " But I am 72 now."
F S Trueman, BBC Radio 4, 26.2.2001
Here's a gift to take and treasure,
England's gift as well as mine,
Symbol of her clean-spent leisure,
Of her youth and strength a sign;
Gleams of sunlight on old meadows
O'er these varnished toys are cast,
And within that box's shadows
Stir the triumphs of the Past.
Still the ancient tale entrances,
Giving us in golden dower
ULYETT'S drives and IVO's glances,
JACKSON'S dash and THORNTON'S power;
Skill of LYTTELTONS and LACEYS,
Grit of SHREWSBURYS and GUNNS;
Pride of STUDDS and STEELS and GRACES
Piling up their English runs.
Take these simple toys as token
Of the champions that have been,
Stalwart in defence unbroken,
Hefty hitters, hitting clean;
And, when capped in Life's eleven,
May you stand as firm as they;
May you, little son of seven,
Play the game the English way.
John Tudor, TO A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD (With his first Cricket
Set). _Punch_, April 23, 1919
If you feel Dog tired at night, it may be because you growled all day!
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
Does my quiet self-pity get to you or should I move up to incessant nagging?
Today I will gladly share my experience and advice, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so."
I am learning that criticism is not nearly as effective as sabotage.
Pick your friends but not to pieces.
All the honey a bee gathers during its lifetime doesn't sweeten its sting
Sharp acids corrode their own containers.... Albanian proverb
Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead.-Chinese Proverb
If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot.-- Italian Proverb
A thick skin is a gift from God. Konrad Adenauer (1876-1976)
Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They're there every night, they see it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves. Brendan Behan--Quoted by Gyles Brandreth in *Theatrical Disasters*
It is well, when one is judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality.--Arnold Bennett
Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. Prov. 27:6
In all of history, we have found just one cure for error -- a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism." -David Brins
A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent." - John Calvin (1509 &endash; 1564)
Unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. It often means that you have aroused jealousy and envy. Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog. --Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)
There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault. --Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) _Don Quixote de la Mancha_ [1605-1615]
Censure is often useful, praise is often deceitful ~ Winston Churchill 1874-1965
If anyone strives after humility and patience, he is a hypocrite. If he allow himself in the pleasures of this world, he is a glutton. If he seeks justice, he is impatient. If he seeks it not, he is a fool. If he would be prudent, he is stingy; if he would make others happy, he is dissolute. If he gives himself up to prayer, he is vainglorious. And this is the great loss of the Church that by means like these many are held back from goodness! Chrysostom, out of J.M. Neale, out of Spurgeon's Psalms, 31:11
It is better to correct your own faults than those of another.-- Democritus
Criticism is easy, art is difficult.- - Philippe Destouches
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art. - Benjamin Disraeli
To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. -- Will Durant
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. ... Albert Einstein, (1875-1955)
The very Chateau Lafite of whine. Michael Elliot
If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: 'He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned. --Epictectus
In reality, the world have payed too great a compliment
to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater
profundity than they really are.
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) "Tom Jones," bk. 5, ch. 1,
1749.
Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
If a friend tell thee a fault, imagine always that he telleth thee not the whole. --Thomas Fuller (I), _Introductio ad Prudentium_, 1731
I'm too rich to care what the critics say.~Mel Gibson
Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false, they can't hurt you unless you are wanting in manly character; and if true, they show a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and trouble. ~ William Gladstone.
If a donkey bray at you, don't bray at him. George Herbert
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.... Elbert Hubbard
Personalize your sympathies; depersonalize you antipathies. --W. R. Inge, _More Lay Thoughts of a Dean_, 1931
A man who tells me my play is very bad, is less my enemy than he who lets it die in silence. A man, whose business it is to be talked of, is much helped by being attacked. - Samuel Johnson, Quoted in Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
It is advantageous to an authour, that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.. - Samuel Johnson, Quoted in Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Nothing ... will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome. --Samuel Johnson Rasselas
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables. -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
When the people criticised and answered his pamphlets, papers, &c. Why now, these fellows are only advertising my book (he would say); it is surely better a man should be abused than forgotten. --Piozzi: Anecdotes of Johnson
To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship. - Samuel Johnson: Rambler #59
To hear complaints is wearisome to the wretched and the happy alike.... Samuel Johnson
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.-- Franklin P. Jones
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. Carl Gustav Jung
I saw the show under unfortunate circumstances: the curtain was up. -- George S. Kaufman
He has great tranquillity of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men. He will easily be content and pacified, whose conscience is pure. You are not holier if you are praised, nor the more worthless if you are found fault with. What you are, that you are; neither by word can you be made greater than what you are in the sight of God. ... Thomas ý Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418]
I saw this show under adverse circumstances - my seat was facing the stage. (On Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down.) John David Klein
The highest point to which a weak but experienced mind can rise is detecting the weakness of better men. -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, _Aphorisms_, late 18thC
I have never found in a long experience of politics that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance. - Harold Macmillan (1894 &endash; 1986)
s that the aroma of sour grapes I smell wafting from your whine cellar? - Keith Martin
We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged
frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank
criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to
criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to
undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to
have a healthy love for him.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) Essays, bk. III, ch.
11 [1595]
He who dares not offend cannot be honest. -- Thomas Paine
Who can refute a sneer? --William Paley (1743-1805): Moral Philosophy. Vol. ii. Book v.Chap. 9.
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) Book review; in "The Algonquin Wits," ed. by Robert E. Drennan, 1968.
I don't mind anything that's written about me, as long as it's not true.- Dorothy Parker
The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be
ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993)"Pearls of Wisdom," ed. J.
Agel and W. Glanze, 1987.
To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult. --Plutarch
I don't pay much attention to critics. The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who can, andthose who criticize.--Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)_New Yorker_ [October 6, 1997], "Prompting the President"
I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have
your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.
Max Reger (1873-1916) German composer Responding to a savage
review of his music (1906) In Nicolas Slonimsky, Lexicon of
Musical Invective (1953)
If you are not being criticized, you may not be doing much,- Donald Rumsfeld
Answer them [critics] with silence and indifference. It works better, Iassure you, than anger and argument...-Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868) Italian opera composer
I must be cruel only to be kind.--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)_Hamlet_ [1600-1601], act iii, sc.iv, ln. 178
Although I cannot lay an egg, I am a very good judge of omelettes. -- G. B. Shaw
Remember, a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic. - Jean Sibelius (1865 &endash; 1957)
No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: "But what would you replace it with?" When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with. -- Thomas Sowell
If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted and it is ugly, be satisfied, for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)_Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_ Vol. 34 [1888]
Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions -- which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.... . Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Sacred cows make the best hamburger. --Mark Twain
I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have. -- Leonardo da Vinci
Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember - the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you. --- Zig Ziglar
During a great part of the eighteenth century most Tories hated him because he overthrew the monarchy, most Whigs because he overthrew Parliament. Since Carlyle wrote, all liberals have seen in him their champion, and all revolutionists have apotheosized the first great representatives of their school; while, on the other side, their opponents have hailed the dictator who put down anarchy. Unless the socialists or the anarchists finally prevail- and perhaps even then - his fame seems as secure as human reputation is likely to be in a changing world. -- W.C Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell
The commonest charge against Cromwell is hypocrisy‚ and the commonest basis for that is defective chronology. ~ W.C Abbott in Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell had certainly this afflatus. One that I knew was at the battle of Dunbar, told me that Oliver was carried on with a Divine impulse; he did laugh so excessively as if he had been drunk; his eyes sparkled with spirits. He obtain’d a great victory; but the action was said to be contrary to human prudence. The same fit of laughter seized Oliver Cromwell just before the battle of Naseby; as a kinsman of mine, and a great favourite of his, Colonel J. P. then present, testified. Cardinal Mazerine said, that he was a lucky fool. ~ John Aubrey in Miscellanies
To give the devil his due, he restored justice, as well distributive as comutative, almost to its ancient dignity and splendour; the judges without covetousness discharging their duties according to law and equity... His own court also was regulated according to a severe discipline; here no drunkard, nor whoremonger, nor any guilty of bribery, was to be found, without severe punishment. Trade began again to prosper; and in a word, gentle peace to flourish all over England. ~ George Bate, Physician to the Cromwellian Court
When he quitted the Parliament, his chief dependence was on the Army, which he endevoured by all means to keep in unity, and if he could not bring it to his sense, he, rather than suffer any division in it, went-over himself and carried his friends with him into that way which the army did choose, and that faster than any other person in it. ~ Sir John Berkley in Memoirs of Sir John Berkley
".... he thought secracy a virtue, and dissimulation no vice, and simmulation, that is in plain English, a lie, or perfiderousness to be tolerable fault in case of necessity. - Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae.. on Oliver Cromwell
He was of a sanguine complexion, naturally of such a vivacity, hilarity and alacrity as another man is when he hath drunken a cup too much. - Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae.. on Oliver Cromwell
He gart Kings ken they had a lith in their neck. - Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, in James Boswell, Tour of the Hebrides.
A devotee of law, he was forced to be often lawless; a civilian to the core, he had to maintain himself by the sword; with a passion to construct, his task was chiefly to destroy; the most scrupulous of men, he had to ride roughshod over his own scruples and those of others; the tenderest, he had continually to harden his heart; the most English of our greater figures, he spent his life in opposition to the majority of Englishmen; a realist, he was condemned to build that which could not last. -- John Buchan, Oliver Cromwell. The Dictionary of Biographical Quotations.
Sylla was the first of victors; but our own
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell; he
Too swept off the senates while he hewed the throne
Down to a block - immortal rebel! See
What crimes it costs to be a moment free
And famous through all ages.
Lord Byron, Child Harold, canto iv.
I confess I have an interest in this Mr Cromwell; and indeed, if truth must be said, in him alone. The rest are historical, dead to me; but he is epic, still living. Hail to thee, thou strong one; hail across the longdrawn funeral-aisle and night of time! --Thomas Carlyle, Historical Sketches
Things will shortly happen which have been unheard of, and above all would open the eyes of those who live under Kings and other Sovereigns, and lead to great changes. Cromwell alone holds the direction of political and military affairs in his hands. He is one who is worth all the others put together, and, in effect, King. ~ John Dury as reorted by Hermann Mylius (27 September 1651)
His grandeur he deriv'd from heaven alone,
For he was great e'er fortune made him so
And wars like mists that rise against the sun
Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.
|No borrow'd bays his temple did adorn,
But to our Crown he did fresh jewels bring;
Nor was his virtue poison'd soon as born,
With the too early thoughts of being King.
John Dryden, Heroick Stanzas consecrated to his Highness
Oliver.
Saw the superb funeral of the Protector:...but it was the joyfullest funeral that I ever saw, for there were none that cried, but dogs, which the souldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise; drinking and taking tobacco in the streets as they went. ~ John Evelyn in his Diary (22 November 1658)
This day (to the stupendous and inscrutable Judgements of God) were the Carcasses of that arch-rebell Cromwell and Bradshaw the judge who condemned his Majestie & Ireton, son-in-law to the Usurper, dragged outof their superbe tombs (in Westminster among the Kings), to Tyburn & hanged on the Gallows there from 9 in the morning til 6 at night, and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument, in a deepe pitt: Thousands of people who (who had seen them in all their pride and pompous insults) being spectators: look back at November 22, 1658, & be astonish’d - And fear God & honour the King, but meddle not with those who are given to change. ~ John Evelyn in his Diary (30 January 1661)
That slovenly fellow which you see before us, who hath no ornament in his speech; I say that sloven, if we should ever come to have a breech with the King (which God forbid) in such case will be one of the greatest men of England. - John Hampden, Speaking to Lord Digby in the house of commons, overheard by Sir Richard Bulstrode.
We will cut off his (the king's) head with the crown on it.-- Oliver Cromwell, in W C Abbott, The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Camgridge, Mass., 1937-47, vol I, p.576.
Oliver Cromwell in 1654 was I think the first spokesman for an English government to assert that "liberty of conscience is a natural right", fundamental to the consitution of the Protectorate. - Christopher Hill, A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious People. Joihn Bunyan and his Church.OUP 1988
In a word, as he was guilty of many crimes against which Damnation is denounced, and for which hell-fire is prepared, so he had some good qualities which have caused the memory of some men in all Ages to be celebrated; and he will be look’d upon by posterity as a brave bad man. ~ Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon in A History of the Rebellion
A complex character such as that of Cromwell, is incapable of creation, except in times of great civil and religious excitement, and one cannot judge of the man without at the same time considering the contending elements by which he was surrounded. It is possible to take his character to pieces, and, selecting one or other of his qualities as a corner-stone, to build around it a monument which will show him as a patriot or a plotter, a Christian man or a hypocrite, a demon or a demi-god as the sculptor may choose. F.A Inderwick, The Interregnum, 1648-60. The Dictionary of Biographical Quotations.
"I am," said he, "as much for a government by consent as any man; but where shall we find that consent? Amongst the Prelatical, Presbeyterian, Independent, Anabaptist, or Leveling Parties?"... then he fell into the commendation of his own government, boasting of the protection and quiet which the people enjoyed under it, saying, that he was resolved to keep the nation from being imbrued in blood. I said that I was of the opinion too much blood had already been shed, unless there were a better account of it. "You do well," said he, "to charge us with the guilt of blood; but we think there is a good return for what hath been shed." ~ Edmund Ludlow Interview with Cromwell (August 1656)
His body was wel compact and strong, his stature under 6 foote ( I beleeve about two inches) his head so shaped, as you might see it a storehouse and shop both of vast tresury of natural parts. His temper exceeding fyery as I have known, but the flame of it kept downe, for the most part, or soon allayed with those moral endowments he had. He was naturally compassionate towards objects in distresse, even to an effeminate measure; though God had made him a heart, wherein was left little roume for any feare, but what was due to himselfe, of which there was a large proportion, yet did he exceed in tenderness towards suffrerers. A larger soule, I thinke, hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay than his was. - John Maidston, Letter to John Winthrop, 24 March 1659.( This by Cromwell's steward disproves the saying that no man is a hero to his valet)
Of late I have not given so free and full a power unto (Cromwell) as formerly I did, because I heard that he used his power so as in honour I could not avow him in it....for his expressions were sometimes against the nobility, that he hoped to live to see never a nobleman in England, and he loved such (and such) better than others because they did not love Lords. And he further expressed himself with contempt of the Assemberly of Divines...these he termed persecutors, and that they persecuted honester men than themselves. ~ Earl of Manchester, Letter to the House of Lord’s (December 1644)
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious Arts of Peace,
But through adventrous war,
Urged his active star...
To ruine the great work of time,
And cast the kingdom oldInto another Mold...
Andrew Marvell in An horation Ode upon Cromwell's return
from Ireland
Cromwell, -, who through a cloud,
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way has ploughed
And on the neck of crowned fortune proud
Has reared God's trophies, and his work pursued,
While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war: new foes arise,
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains:
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw.
John Milton, Sonnet XV1, To the Lord General Cromwell.
He has arrogated to himself despotic authority and the actual sovereignty of these realms under the mask of humility and the public service....Obdience and submission were never so manifest in England as at present,...their spirits are so crushed..yet...they dare not rebel and only murmur under their breath, though all live in hope of the fulfilment one day of the prophecies foretelling a change of rule ere long. ~ Lorenzo Paulucci, Venetian Secretary in England, to Giovanni Sagredo, Venetian Ambassador in France, (21 February 1654)
At dinner we talked much of Cromwell, all saying he was a brave fellow and did owe his crown he got to himself, as much as any man that ever got one. ~ Samuel Pepys, Diary, (8 February 1667)
The Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and of the Dominions thereunto belonging, shall be and reside in one person, and the people assembled in parliament; the style of which person shall be "The Lord Protector of the Commonwealth"... That Oliver Cromwell, Captain General of the forces of England, Scotland and Ireland, shall be, and is hereby declared to be, Lord Protector...for his life. ~ Decree by the Instrument of Government (16 December 1653)
He was a practical mystic, the most formidable and terrible of all combinations, uniting an aspiration derived from the celestial and supernatural with the energy of a mighty man of action; a great captain, but off the field seeming, like a thunderbolt, the agent of greater forces than himself ; no hypocrite, but a defender of the faith; the raiser and maintainer of the Empire of England. - Lord Rosebery, in W.C.Abbott, The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell.
Cromwell was faced with churches who wanted an established national church still the old Roman model. The Presbyterians, who were the most powerful group, were emphatically for an established group. That to them was salvation. The Separatists disagreed with them, but the other groups wanted to command the establishment. Cromwell wanted not a church establishment, but a Christian establishment. He wanted England committed to a Christian faith, not to a church. That's what he worked for. He had to fight the churches. It was the churches that defeated Calvinism and most of all the Presbyterians. It's the great blot in Presbyterian history that they brought in Charles II, a thoroughly degenerate man, and believed he would keep his word to them that he would go along with their idea of an establishment. Of course, he broke his word to them and 2000 clergymen had to leave the Church of England. Over a course of time, the Presbyterians virtually died out in England. - RJ Rushdoony from the video series: God's Law and Society.
Lieutenant-General Cromwell...a member of the House of Commons, long famous for godliness and zeal to his country, of great note for his service in the House, accepted of a commission at the very beginning of this war, wherein he served his country faithfully, and it was observed God was with him, and he began to be renowned. ~ Joshua Sprigge in Anglia Rediviva (1647)
Whilst he Cromwell) was curious of his own words, (not putting forth too many lest they should betray his thoughts) he made others talk until he had, as it were, sifted them, and known their most intimate designs. - Sir William Waller, Recollections.
As to your own person the title of King would be of no advantage, because you have the full Kingly power in you already... I apprehend indeed, less envy and danger, and pomp, but not less power, and real opportunities of doing good in your being General than would be if you had assumed the title of King. ~ Bulstrode Whitelocke to Cromwell as reported in Whitelocke's Memorialls of English Affairs
He (Cromwell) would sometimes be very cheerful with us, and laying aside his greatness he would be exceeding familiar with us, and by way of diversion would make verses with us, and everyone must try his fancy. He commonly called for tobacco, pipes, and a candle, and would now and then take tobacco himself; then he would fall again to his serious and great business. -- Bulstrode Whitelocke, _Memorialls of English Affairs_, 1682
Men try to fix problems with duct tape. God did it with nails.
Think your life is tough? Try hanging from a cross!
What shall I say to the commendation of Christ and His
Cross I bless the Lord He has made my prison a palace to me.
And what am I that He should have dealt thus with me? I have
looked greedy-like to such a lot as this, but still thought
it was too high for me when I saw how vile I was.
Isabel Alison executed 26 January 1681
The cross means this: Jesus taking our place (huper) to satisfy the demands of God's justice and turning aside God's wrath. JAMES M. BOICE
The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. -- DIETRICH BONHOFFER
Now I saw in my dream, that the highway up which
Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a wall,
and that wall was called Salvation. Up this way, therefore
did burdened Christian run, but withoug great difficulty,
because of the load on his back.
He ran thus till he came at a pace somewhat ascending; and
upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the
bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream that just as
Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off
his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to
tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of
the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. --
Pilgrim's Progress
If I ask to be delivered from trial rather than for deliverance out of it, to the praise of His glory; if I forget that the way of the Cross leads to the Cross and not to a bank of flowers; if I regulate my life on these lines, or even unconsciously my thinking, so that I am surprised when the way is rough and think it strange, "Think it not strange, Count it all joy," then I know nothing of Calvary love. ... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951)
If monotony tries me, and I cannot stand drudgery; if stupid people fret me and the little ruffles set me on edge; if I make much of the trifles of life, then I know nothing of Calvary love.... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951)
Nails were not enough to hold God-and-man nailed and fastened on the Cross, had not love held Him there.... Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
The poets themselves said, that amor Deum gubernat, that love governed God. And, as Nazianzen well speaks, this love of God, this dulcis tyrannus, &emdash;this sweet tyrant,&emdash;did overcome him when he was upon the cross. There were no cords could have held him to the whipping-post but those of love; no nails have fastened him to the cross but those of love. - THOMAS GOODWIN
God is not only holy, but the source and pattern of holiness: He is the origin and the upholder of the moral order of the universe. He must be just. The Judge of all the earth must do right. Therefore it was impossible by the necessities of his own being that he should deal lightly with sin, and compromise the claims of holiness. If sin could be forgiven at all, it must be on the same basis which would vindicate the holy law of God, which is not a mere code, but the moral order of the whole creation. But such vindication must be supremely costly. Costly to whom? Not to the forgiven sinner, for there could be no price asked from him for his forgiveness; both because the cost is far beyond his reach, and because God loves to give and not to sell. Therefore God himself undertook to pay a cost, to offer a sacrifice, so tremendous that the gravity of his condemnation of sin should be absolutely beyond question even as he forgave it, while at the same the Love which impelled to pay the price would be the wonder of angels, and would call forth the worshiping gratitude of the redeemed sinner. On Calvary this price was paid by God: the Son giving himself, bearing our sin and its curse; the Father giving the Son, his only Son whom he loved. But it was paid by God become man, who not only took the place of the guilty man, but also was his representative...The divine Son, one of the three persons of the one God, he through whom, from the beginning of the creation, the Father has revealed himself to man (Jn 1:18), took man s nature upon him, and so became our representative. He offered himself as a sacrifice in our stead, bearing our sin in his own body on the tree. He suffered, not only awful physical anguish, but also the unthinkable spiritual horror of becoming identified with the sin to which he was infinitely opposed. He thereby came under the curse of sin, so that for a time even his perfect fellowship with his Father was broken. Thus God proclaimed his infinite abhorrence of sin by being willing himself to suffer all that, in place of the guilty ones, in order that he might justly forgive. Thus the love of God found its perfect fulfillment, because he did not hold back from even that uttermost sacrifice, in order that we might be saved from eternal death through what he endured. Thus it was possible for him to be just, and to justify the believer, because as Lawgiver and as Substitute for the rebel race of man, he himself had suffered the penalty of the broken law. H. E. GUILLEBAUD, Why the Cross?
Wonder not then that all the true followers of Christ,
the saints of every age, have so gloried in the cross of
Christ, have imputed such great things to it, have desired
nothing so much as to be partakers of it, to live in
constant union with it. It is because His sufferings, His
death and cross, were the fulness of His victory over all
the works of the devil. Not an evil in flesh and blood, not
a misery of life, not a chain of death, not a power of hell
and darkness, but were all baffled, broken, and overcome by
the process of a suffering and dying Christ. Well,
therefore, may the cross of Christ be the glory of
Christians!
William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Love
There is not a word in the Bible which is extra cruem, which can be understood without reference to the cross. MARTIN LUTHER
Believe, then, believe and be ye saved: think it not hard, if ye get not your will nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but Himself. 'God forbid that ye should rejoice in any thing but the cross of Christ.- Samuel Rutherford, Letters IV. To LADY KENMURE, ANWOTH, Feb. 1, 1630
Ye contracted with Christ, I hope, when first ye began to follow Him, that ye would bear His cross. Fulfill your part of the contract with patience, and break not to Jesus Christ. Be honest, brother, in your bargaining with Him; for who knoweth better how to bring up children than our God? For (to lay aside His knowledge, of the which there is no finding out) He has been practiced in bringing up His heirs these five thousand years; and His bairns are all well brought up, and many of them are honest men now at home, up in their own house in heaven, and are entered heirs to their Father's inheritance. Now, the form of His bringing up was by chastisements, scourging, correcting, nurturing; and see if He maketh exception of any of His bairns; no, His eldest Son and His Heir, Jesus, is not excepted (Rev. 3.19; Heb. 12.7-8; 2.10). Suffer we must; ere we were born God decreed it, and it is easier to complain of His decree than to change it. Forward then, dear brother, and lose not your grips. - Samuel Rutherford, Letters , VIII. To JOHN KENNEDY, on his deliverance from shipwreck ANWOTH, Feb. 2, 1632
Howbeit Christ's green cross, newly laid upon me, be somewhat heavy, while I call to mind the many fair days sweet and comfortable to my soul and to the souls of many others, and how young ones in Christ are plucked from the breast, and the inheritance of God laid waste; yet that cross of Christ is accompanied with sweet refreshments, with the joy of the Holy Ghost, with faith that the Lord hears the sighing of a prisoner, with undoubted hope (as sure as my Lord liveth) after this night to see daylight, and Christ's sky to clear up again upon me, and His poor kirk; Samuel Rutherford, Letters , XII. To lady KENMURE, on the eve of his banishment to Aberdeen, EDINBURGH, July 28, 1636
He was never sweeter and kinder than He is now. My dear worthy Lady, I give it to your Ladyship, under my own hand, my heart as well as my hand welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet and glorious cross of Christ; welcome, sweet Jesus, with Thy light cross. Thou hast now gained and gotten all my love from me; keep what Thou hast gotten! - Samuel Rutherford, letters, XII. To lady KENMURE, on the eve of his banishment to Aberdeen, EDINBURGH, July 28, 1636
Some have written to me that I am possibly too joyful at the cross;but my joy overleapeth the cross, it is bounded and terminated upon Christ. I know that the sun will overcloud and eclipse, and that I shall again be put to walk in the shadow: but Christ must be welcome to come and go, as He thinketh meet. I hope, when a change comets, to cast anchor at midnight upon the Rock which He has taught me to know in this daylight; whither I may run, when I must say my lesson without book, and believe in the dark. I am sure it is sin to tarrow at Christ's good meat. and not to eat when He saith, 'Eat, O well-beloved, and drink abundantly.' If He bear me on His back, or carry me in His arms over this water, I hope for grace to set down my feet on dry ground, when the way is better. But this is slippery ground: my Lord thought good I should go by a hold, and lean on my Well-beloved's shoulder. It is good to be ever taking from Him..- Samuel Rutherford, Letters XXII. To MR HUGH MACKAIL, ABERDEEN
His cross is the sweetest burden that ever I bare; it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails are to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbor.- Samuel Rutherford, Letters, XXIII. To JOHN EWART, ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637
I am fully agreed with my Lord. Christ has put the Father and me into each other's arms. Many a sweet bargain He made before, and He has made this among the rest. I reign as king over my crosses. I will not flatter a temptation, nor give the devil a good word: I defy hell's iron gates. God has passed over my quarreling of Him at my entry here, and now He feedeth and feasteth with me. Praise, praise with me; and let us exalt His name together.- Samuel Rutherford, Letters,XXIV. To WILLIAM LIVINGSTONE, ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637
I bless His glorious name, that my losses are my gain, my prison a palace, and my sadness joyfulness. At my first entry, my apprehensions so wrought upon my cross, that I became jealous of the love of Christ, as being by Him thrust out of the vineyard, and I was under great challenges, as ordinarily melted gold casteth forth a drossy scum, and Satan and our corruption form the first words that the heavy cross speaketh, and say, 'God is angry, He loveth you not.' But our apprehensions are not canonical, they indite lies of God and Christ's love. But since my spirit was settled, and the clay has fallen to the bottom of the well, I see better what Christ was doing. And now my Lord is returned with salvation under His wings. I see not how to be thankful, or how to get help to praise that Royal King, who raiseth up those that are bowed down. And, therefore, let no man scant at Christ's cross, or raise an ill report upon Him or it; for He beareth the sufferer and it both. - Samuel Rutherford, letters,XXV. To MR GEORGE GILLESPIE ABRDEEN, March 13, 1637
Christ triumphs in me, blessed be His Name. I have all
things. I burden no man. I see that this earth and the
fullness thereof is my Father's. Sweet, sweet is the Cross
of my Lord. The blessing of God upon the Cross of my Lord
Jesus! My enemies have contributed, beside their design, to
make me blessed. This is my palace, not my prison ... I
think this is all, to gain Christ. All other things are
shadows, dreams, fancies, and nothing.
Samuel Rutherford, Letter to William Gordon
To believe Christ's cross to be a friend, as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of faith.... Samuel Rutherford, a letter [1640]
Christ beareth me good company. He has eased me, when I saw it not, lifting the cross off my shoulders, so that I think it to be but a feather, because underneath are everlasting arms. - Samulel Rutherford, Letters, ABERDEEN, Feb. 16, 1637
It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear that story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all. --Dorothy Sayers
The sun refused to shine on the crucifixion. The light that rules the day, probably for the first and last time in history, was snuffed out like a candle when, according to every human calculation, it should have continued to shine. The reason was that the crowning crime of man, the killing of nature's Lord, could not pass without a protest from nature itself. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _The Seven Last Words_ [1935]
The crown of thorns is the condition of the crown of glory.--Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)
The moon of Mahomet
Arose, and it shall set;
While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon,
The cross leads generations on.
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1792-1822. Hellas. Line 221.
From my many years experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross.... Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)
For the first time in our history the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.-- Carl Bernstein
In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, and in Australia you have to explain what a writer is. --Geoffrey Cottrell
The most difficult task facing us today is to persuade the person who is enjoying Christian culture and Christian standards that these do not survive of themselves... Godfrey Cowan
If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it. --S.I. Hayakawa
We breathe culture like we do air, often not even aware
of it. We do not question the air we breathe, so culture is
often imbibed without reflection. However, there are times
we are only too aware of the culture that surrounds us.
Indeed, Christians today, evangelicals in particular, are
known more as soldiers in the culture wars fighting with
legislation and occasional violence than as soldiers of
Christ fighting with spiritual weapons.
The general pattern is clear. People generally are
unreflective, not rigorous in their contemplation of the
forces that work on their minds and hearts. Christians are
little different.We breathe the culture until it slaps us in
the face and then we give it a quick kick in the groin.
Neither response flows from reflection. Critical reflection,
however, is fruitful. -- Tremper Longman III, READING THE
BIBLE POSTMODERNLY
Being born in the middle of the 20th century, Boomer's
education and outlook have been strongly influenced by the
towering presence of two revolutionary figures : Freud and
Einstein. Despite many Boomers not having formally studied
or even been aware of the work of either of these men, The
Freudian and Einsteinian views of the world have been deeply
embedded into the culture which has shaped their generation.
Freud and Einstein, from their utterly different
perspectives, have influenced Western popular culture by
generating two powerful beliefs: the belief that all the
answers to our psychological (and even spiritual) questions
are within us: and the belief that everything (not just time
and space, but knowledge and morality as well) is
relative.
Hugh Mackay (1938-) Generations: Baby Boomers, their parents
and their children. Ch.3. (1997)
The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown. -- Jonathan Meades, The Times Magazine, 22 April 2000
For a Westerner to trash Western culture is like criticizing our nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere on the grounds that it sometimes gets windy, and besides, Jupiter's is much prettier. You may not realize its advantages until you're trying to breathe liquid methane.--NEAL TOWN STEPHENSON
Be not curious in unnecessary matters; for more things are shewed unto thee than men understand. ~Ecclesiasticus 3.23
Enquire not what boils in another's pot. - Thomas Fuller
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.--- Dr. Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, March 12, 1751.
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. --Ellen Parr
Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. - Linus Pauling (1901 &endash; 1994)
Treat the customer as an appreciating asset. --Tom Peters, 1987
Cynics are further from realities than saints.--Lionel Curtis, "The Capital Question of China"
Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.- Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969)
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. -- H. L. Mencken
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.-- George Bernard Shaw
I'd rather be disappointed in some than cynical about all. - Bruce Thompson
.....a far away country....people of whom we know
nothing.
Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) Radio broadcast 27.9.38,
referring to Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland