Clergy From England

"If the prophecies concerning the increase of Christ's kingdom be true, and if what has been advanced, concerning the commission given by him to his disciples being obligatory on us, be just, it must be inferred that all Christians ought heartily to concur with God in promoting his glorious designs, for he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. One of the first, and most important of those duties which are incumbent upon us, is fervent and united prayer. However the influence of the Holy Spirit may be set at nought, and run down by many, it will be found upon trial, that all means which we can use, without it, will be ineffectual. If a temple is raised for God in the heathen world, it will not be by might, nor by power, nor by the authority of the magistrate, or the eloquence of the orator; but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

"The Missionaries must be men of great piety, prudence, courage, and forbearance; of undoubted orthodoxy in their sentiments, and must enter with all their hearts into the spirit of their mission; they must be willing to leave all the comforts of life behind them, and to encounter all the hardships of a torrid, or a frigid climate, an uncomfortable manner of living, and every other inconvenience that can attend this undertaking. … They must be very careful not to resent injuries which may be offered to them, nor to think highly of themselves, so as to despise the poor heathens, and by those means lay a foundation for their resentment, or rejection of the gospel. They must take every opportunity of doing them good, and labouring, and travelling, night and day, they must instruct, exhort, and rebuke, with all long suffering, and anxious desire for them, and, above all, must be instant in prayer for the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the people of their charge. Let but missionaries of the above description engage in the work, and we shall see that it is not impracticable. It might likewise be of importance, if God should bless their labours, for them to encourage any appearances of gifts amongst the people of their charge; if such should be raised up many advantages would be derived from their knowledge of the language, and customs of their countrymen; and their change of conduct would give great weight to their ministrations."

"As our blessed Lord has required us to pray that his kingdom may come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, it becomes us not only to express our desires of that event by words, but to use every lawful method to spread the knowledge of his name. In order to this, it is necessary that we should become, in some measure acquainted with the religious state of the world; and as this is an object we should be prompted to pursue, not only by the gospel of our Redeemer, but even by the feelings of humanity, so an inclination to conscientious activity therein would form one of the strongest proofs that we are the subjects of grace, and partakers of that spirit of universal benevolence and genuine philanthropy, which appear so eminent in the character of God himself."

"In one period the grossest ignorance and barbarism prevailed in the world; and afterwards, in a more enlightened age, the most daring infidelity, and contempt of God; so that the world which was once over-run with ignorance, now by wisdom knew not God, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God as much as in the most barbarous ages, into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Nay, as they increased in science and politeness, they ran into more abundant and extravagant idolatries."

"William Carey's empathy for Indians was expressed in a speech before Lord Wellesley at a public disputation of the college: I, now an old man, have lived for a long series of years among the Hindoos. I have been in the habit of preaching to multitudes daily, of discoursing with the Brahmans on every subject, and of superintending schools for the instruction of the Hindoo youth. Their language is as familiar to me as my own. This close intercourse with the natives for so long a period, and in different parts of our empire, had afforded me opportunities of information not inferior to those which have hitherto been presented to any other person. I may say indeed that their manners, customs, habits, and sentiments are as obvious to me as if I was myself a native."

"Yet God repeatedly made known his intention to prevail finally over all the power of the Devil, and to destroy all his works, and set up his own kingdom and interest among men, and extend it as universally as Satan had extended his. It was for this purpose that the Messiah came and died, that God might be just, and the justifier of all that should believe in him. When he had laid down his life, and taken it up again, he sent forth his disciples to preach the good tidings to every creature, and to endeavour by all possible methods to bring over a lost world to God."

"Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God."

"Our Lord Jesus Christ, a little before his departure, commissioned his apostles to Go, and teach all nations; or, as another evangelist expresses it, Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. This commission was as extensive as possible, and laid them under obligation to disperse themselves into every country of the habitable globe, and preach to all the inhabitants, without exception, or limitation. They accordingly went forth in obedience to the command, and the power of God evidently wrought with them."

"As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of the All-Holy; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate thought, descends from the Eternal Reason, and ought, when we apprehend it, to guide us upwards to Him."

"Resignation,—not to a whirlwind of inexorable forces, not to a brutal fate or destiny, not to powers who cannot see or hear or feel, but to One Who lives forever, and Who loves us well, and Who has given us all that we have, ay, life itself, that we may at His bidding freely give it back to Him."

"The real difficulty with thousands in the present day is not that Christianity has been found wanting, but that it has never been seriously tried."

"The Divine Logos is God reflected in His own eternal Thought; in the Logos God is His own Object. This infinite Thought, the reflection and counterpart of God, subsisting in God as a Being or Hypostasis, and having a tendency to self-communication,—such is the Logos. The Logos is the Thought of God, not intermittent and precarious like human thought, but subsisting with the intensity of a personal form. The very expression seems to court the argument of Athenagoras, that since God could never have been ἀλογος, the Logos must have been not created but eternal."

"Dodgson was overcome by the beauty of Cologne Cathedral. I found him leaning against the rails of the Choir and sobbing like a child. When the verger came to show us over the chapels behind the Choir, he got out of the way, he said that he could not bear the harsh voice of the man in the presence of so much beauty."

"A traveller in Cornwall, when gazing at the masses of mighty rock which defy, and look as if they might defy for ever, the continuous onslaught of the Atlantic, has expressed a thought which comes to most men at some time in their lives. The magnificence and the awe of nature fills him with an oppressive sense of the relative insignificance of man. A few years hence and he will be beneath the sod; but those cliffs will stand, as now, facing the ocean, incessantly lashed by its waves, yet unshaken, immovable; and other eyes will gaze on them for their brief day of life, and then they, too, will close."

"The truth is I suppose that a tour lays in a great stock of thought and spirits for the future; the fatigue and drawbacks of actual travelling are forgotten and a bright residuum remains."

"The question of Christ's Divinity is the question of the truth or falsehood of Christianity."

"Liberalism itself is, on all matters connected with Church and Education, only a kind of corporate and 'respectable' ungodliness."

"Worship is the earthly act by which we most distinctly recognize our personal immortality: men who think that they will be extinct a few years hence do not pray. In worship we spread out our insignificant life, which yet is the work of the Creator's hands, and the purchase of the Redeemer's Blood, before the Eternal and All-Merciful, that we may learn the manners of a higher sphere, and fit ourselves for companionship with saints and angels, and for the everlasting sight of the face of God."

"Thus the word reveals the Divine Essence; His Incarnation makes that Life, that Love, that Light, which is eternally resident in God, obvious to souls that steadily contemplate Himself. These terms, Life, Love, Light—so abstract, so simple, so suggestive—meet in God; but they meet also in Jesus Christ. They do not only make Him the centre of a philosophy; they belong to the mystic language of faith more truly than to the abstract terminology of speculative thought. They draw hearts to Jesus; they invest Him with a higher than any intellectual beauty."

"Augustine of Hippo used to say that, but for God's grace, he should have been capable of committing any crime; and it is when we feel this sincerely, that we are most likely to be really improving, and best able to give assistance to others without moral loss to ourselves."

"The life of man is made up of action and endurance; and life is fruitful in the ratio in which it is laid out in noble action or in patient perseverance."

"The history of the Church of Christ from the days of the Apostles has been a history of spiritual movements."

"A deliberate rejection of duty prescribed by already recognized truth cannot but destroy, or at least impair most seriously, the clearness of our mental vision."

"What we do upon a great occasion will probably depend upon what we already are; what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline, under the grace of Christ, or of the absence of it."

"Depend upon it, my younger brethren, the bright, self-sacrificing enthusiasms of early manhood are among the most precious things in the whole course of human life."

"The Divine Christ has died on the Cross a Victim for the sins of the world: what is He doing now? Did His redemptive love exhaust itself in the days of His flesh? The past has been forgiven; but has any provision been made for the future? Have we been reconciled to God by the death of His Son, but is there no salvation through His risen life?"

"Prayer is the act by which man, detaching himself from the embarrassments of sense and nature, ascends to the true level of his destiny."

"Look to the end; and resolve to make the service of Christ the first object in what remains of life, without indifference to the opinion of your fellow-men, but also without fear of it."

"It is only Jesus Christ who has thrown light on life and immortality through the Gospel; and because He has done so, and has enabled us by His Atoning Death and Intercession to make the most of this discovery, His Gospel is, for all who will, a power of God unto salvation."

"If Christianity has really come from heaven, it must renew the whole life of man; it must govern the life of nations no less than that of individuals; it must control a Christian when acting in his public and political capacity as completely as when he is engaged in the duties which belong to him as a member of a family circle."

"Though all the East did quake to hear Of Alexander's dreadful name, And all the West did likewise fear To hear of Julius Cæsar's fame."

"Grant me grace, O God! that I My life may mend, sith I must die."

"I feel no care of coin, Well-doing is my wealth; My mind to me an empire is, While grace affordeth health."

"To rise by others' fall I deem a losing gain; All states with others' ruins built To ruin run amain."

"When Fortune smiles, I smile to think How quickly she will frown."

"My conscience is my crown, Contented thoughts my rest; My heart is happy in itself, My bliss is in my breast. Enough I reckon wealth; A mean the surest lot, That lies too high for base contempt, Too low for envy's shot."

"Times go by turns and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse."

"No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend."

"Before my face the picture hangs, That daily should put me in mind Of those cold names and bitter pangs, That shortly I am like to find: But yet, alas! full little I Do think hereon that I must die."

"The saddest birds a season find to sing, The roughest storm a calm may soon allay; Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, That men may hope to rise yet fear to fall."

"Behold a silly tender babe, In freezing winter night, In homely manger trembling lies; Alas! a piteous sight."

"This stable is a prince's court, The crib his chair of state; The beasts are parcel of his pomp, The wooden dish his plate."

"As in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow, Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear."

"Time wears all his locks before, Take thy hold upon his forehead; When he flies he turns no more, And behind his scalp is naked. Works adjourn'd have many stays, Long demurs breed new delays."

"Plough not the seas, sow not the sands, Leave off your idle pain; Seek other mistress for your minds, Love's service is in vain."

"My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns; Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals; The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls."

"In Aman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept, Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe; The Lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept, Yet he to heaven, to hell did Dives go. We trample grass and prize the flowers of May, Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away."

"Not Solomon, for all his wit, Nor Samson, though he were so strong, No king nor person ever yet Could 'scape, but Death laid him along."

"Shun delays, they breed remorse; Take thy time while time is lent thee; Creeping snails have weakest force, Fly their fault lest thou repent thee. Good is best when soonest wrought, Linger’d labours come to nought."

"Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights, A brief wherein all marvels summèd lie, Of fairest forms and sweetest shapes the store, Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more."