Theologians From England

"The greatest calamity ever visited upon the Church of England."

"I was borne and baptized in the bosome of the Church of England established by Law; in that profession I have ever since lived, and in that I come now to dye; This is no time to dissemble with God, least of all in matter of Religion; and therefore I desire it may be remembred, I have alwaies lived in the Protestant Religion, established in England, and in that I come now to dye. What Clamours and Slanders I have endured for labouring to keepe a Uniformity in the externall service of God, according to the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church, all men know, and I have abundautly felt."

"He was the last of the great ecclesiastical statesmen, perhaps because his example acted as a deterrent to any future aspirants to that position."

"His book against the Jesuit will be his lasting epitaph."

"I have been entreated by Mr. Governor and the rest of the merchants of Exon, to make known unto yourself and the merchants of the towne how far I have waded in the prosecution of the suit unto the King and the Lords, for some course to be taken to suppress the Turks and secure the trades. I have, therefore, sent you herewith enclosed the copies of all the petitions which have been preferred... Unto this my Lord Archbishop (Laud) hee gave this answer, striking his hands upon his breast, that while he hath breth in his bodie he would, to the uttermost of his power, advance a business so necessarie and consequentiall, and has assured me that his Majestie would take such course as that within this twelve months not a Turkish ship should be able to putt to sea; and at the Board his Grace was exceeding heartie in the business."

"The Parliament was certainly far from faultless. We fully agree with Mr. Hallam in reprobating their treatment of Laud. For the individual, indeed, we entertain a more unmitigated contempt than for any other character in our history. The fondness with which a portion of the church regards his memory, can be compared only to that perversity of affection which sometimes leads a mother to select the monster or the idiot of the family as the object of her especial favour."

"That we have our Prayer-Book, our altar, even our Episcopacy itself, we may, humanly speaking, thank Laud... That our Articles have not a Genevan sense tied to them, and are not an intolerable burden to the Church, is owing to Laud. He rescued them from the fast tightening Calvinistic grasp, and left them, by his prefixed "Declaration", open. Laud saved the English Church... The English Church in her Catholic aspect is a memorial of Laud."

"Doctor Young the Lord Bishop of Rochester that Ordained him, finding his study raised above the Systems and Opinions of the age, upon the nobler foundation of the Fathers, Councils, and the Ecclesiastical Historians, easily presaged, "That if he lived he would be an instrument of restoring the Church from the narrow and private principles of modern times, to the more free, large, and publick sentiments of the purest and first Ages.""

"I had a serious offer made me again to be a Cardinal. ... But my answer again was, that something dwelt within me which would not suffer that, till Rome were other than it is."

"And one thing more I will be bold to speak out of a like duty to the Church of England, and the "house of David." They, whoever they be, that would overthrow sedes Ecclesiæ, the "seats of ecclesiastical government," will not spare, if ever they get power, to have a pluck at the "throne of David." And there is not a man that is for "parity," all fellows in the Church,—but he is not for monarchy in the State."

"It doesn’t take much refection—and indeed only a little research—to discover that the kind of conservative readings of the Genesis story that are often put up in opposition to what it is thought Darwin said (often without bothering to read what Darwin himself had to say) bear almost no relation to what we find in the refection of the fathers on the account found in Genesis. Such Christians have imagined a tradition that has no right to call itself tradition."

"Thomas Cranmer shaped the Church of England by his life, his death and his writing. Not only his liturgical style, but Cranmer's personal witness and martyrdom have left a profound impress on the Anglican consciousness. No one who has read or heard of how Cranmer, at the stake, put his right hand in the flames saying that the hand that had offended, signing retractions that he did not in his heart believe, should be the first to suffer, can ever forget it."

"Every man desireth, good people, at the time of their death, to give some good exhortation that others may remember after their death, and be the better thereby. So I beseech God grant me grace, that I may speak something at this my departing, whereby God may be glorified and you edified. ….. I pray you learn and bear well away this one lesson, To do good to all as much as in you lieth, and to hurt no one, no more than you would hurt your own natural and loving brother or sister. For this you may be sure of, that whosoever hateth any person, and goeth about maliciously to hinder or hurt that person, surely, and without all doubt, God is not with them, although they think themselves never so much in God's favour."

"There is little doubt that the Prayer Books are Cranmer's personal legacy to the Church. Though he did not act alone, the final form of the text comes from his own hand."

"I commend thy soul to God, and thy body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection."

"In the midst of life we are in death."

"Now the nature of man being ever prone to idolatry from the beginning of the world, and the Papists being ready by all means and policy to defend and extol the mass, for their estimation and profit; and the people being superstitiously enamored and doted upon the mass (because they take it for a present remedy against all manners of evils); and part of the princes being blinded by papistical doctrine part loving quietness, and loth to offend their clergy and subjects, and all being captives and subjects to the antichrist of Rome; the state of the world remaining in this case, it is no wonder that abuses grew and increased in the church, that superstition with idolatry were taken for godliness and true religion, and that many things were brought in without the authority of Christ as purgatory, the oblation and sacrificing of Christ by the priest alone; the application and appointing of the same to such persons as the priests would sing or say mass for, and to such abuses, as they could devise; to deliver some from purgatory, and some from hell (if they were not there finally by God determined to abide, as they termed the matter); to hallow and preserve them that went to Jerusalem, to Rome, to St. James in Compostella, and to other places in pilgrimage; for a preservative against tempest and thunder, against perils and dangers of the sea, fora remedy against murrain of cattle, against pensiveness of the heart, and against all manner of affliction and tribulation"

"There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted."

"It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures. This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar ;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture. Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign."

"My duty towards my neighbours is to love them as myself. And to do to all as I would they should do to me. To love, honour and succour my father and mother. To honour and obey the King and his ministers. To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters. …. To hurt nobody by word or deed. To be true and just in all my dealing. To bear no malice or hatred in my heart. To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil speaking, lying and slandering. To keep my body in temperance, soberness and chastity. Not to covet or desire others’ goods. But learn and labour truly to get my own living, and to do my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me."

"Cranmer was the master, or rather the creator, of English liturgical style, because he had apprehended the nature of worship. To serve the purposes of worship he brought the resources of the scholar: appreciation of the fine composition of liturgical Latin; knowledge of the rules of rhythm and clausula; facility and felicity in translation; a feeling for the meanings of words. With such resources, and moved by a profound religious sincerity, Cranmer made of English a liturgical language comparable with Latin at its best."

"For two sundry sorts of people, it seemeth necessary that something be said in the entry of this book by the way of a preface, whereby hereafter it may be both the better accepted of them which hitherto could not well bear it, and also the better used of them which heretofore have misused it. For truly some there are that be too slow and need the spur, some other seem too quick, and need more of the bridle; some lose their game by short shooting, some by overshooting; some walk too much on the left hand, some too much on the right. In the former sort be all they that refuse to read or to hear read the scripture in the vulgar tongue; much worse, they that also let or discourage the other from the reading or hearing thereof. In the latter sort be they which by their indiscrete speaking, contentious disputing, or otherwise by their licentious living, slander and hinder the word of God most of all. Neither can I well tell whether of them I may judge the more offender: him that doth obstinately refuse so godly and goodly knowledge, or him that so ungodly and so ungoodly doth abuse the same. And as touching the former, I would marvel much that any man should be so mad as to refuse in darkness, light; in hunger, food; in cold, fire. For the word of God is light."

"[E]ven those who will not go as far as claiming Cranmerian authorship for the collects outright have agreed that the balance of probability lies very much towards establishing him as the translator of a number of Latin collects of the Sarum rite for the new Prayer Book, and the composer of collects for occasions where no model existed, or where the existing model was not adopted. Otherwise, it becomes very difficult to explain their consistency of style, their economy of expression, and in the case of those that are translations or adaptations of Latin originals, their skilful negotiation between two languages, and their deft adjustments of content to conform to Reformation doctrinal precepts."

""The ink of the scholar", so runs an Arabic proverb, "is of more worth than the blood of the martyr." The proverb is true of Cranmer. In his liturgy he bequeathed to the newly reformed English Church an instrument of worship which was to ensure to it a principle of life, and which also, in its remarkable combination of the traditional with the contemporary, of the old with the new, was to be not the least important factor in imparting to Anglican Christianity its distinctive stamp."

"[P]erhaps Cranmer's most remarkable achievement as a liturgist, considering its subsequent influence, was the Order for Morning and for Evening Prayer."

"Now was it night, when in deepe rest enrol'd Are waves and windes, and mute the world doth show Weari'd the beasts, and those that bottome hold Of billow'd sea, and of moyst streames that flow, And who are lodged in cave, or pen'd in fold, And painted flyers in oblivion low, Under their secret horrours silenced, Stilled their cares, and their harts suppelled."

"I sing the goodly armes, and that Chieftaine Who great Sepulchre of our Lord did free. Much with his hande, much wrought he with his braine; Much in that glorious conquest suffred hee: And hell in vaine hitselfe opposde, in vaine The mixed troopes Asian and Libick flee To armes, for Heaven him favour'd, and he drew To sacred ensignes his straid mates anew."

"If it is necessary that each sentient being must have the possibility of achieving an overwhelming good, then it is clear that there must be some form of life after earthly death. Despite the many pointers to the existence of God, theism would be falsified if physical death was the end, for then there could be no justification for the existence of this world. However, if one supposes that every sentient being has an endless existence, which offers the prospect of supreme happiness, it is surely true that the sorrows and troubles of this life will seem very small by comparison. Immortality, for animals as well as humans, is a necessary condition of any acceptable ; that necessity, together with all the other arguments for God, is one of the main reasons for believing in immortality."

"Gay subject–subject consciousness is more compatible with Buddhist non‐duality than the hetero subject–object consciousness. It can be claimed, therefore, that Buddha Nature, and Buddhism itself, is queer."

"'Amen', ... in Hebrew, is one of a cluster from a root which signifies reliability, integrity and truth. ... Our utterance of it is acknowledgment of God's 'Amen', which always goes before. The recognition of God's integrity and truthfulness, unswerving faithfulness in execution of his promises, is so central to Judaism's faith that 'Amen' may almost be taken as a name for God. We might miss this when we read, in the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, that 'he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth', but the Hebrew here, if rendered literally, would be 'by the God Amen'."

"Christianity and life ought to be one."

"If one is anxious to write about God, one ought to be anxious to write well."

"She was dead, but her very death heightened that word "supernatural"; it was what she, not being, was."

"There were no Calvinists or Dominics or Augustines. The man who was most like those great ones was a Dane, a contemporary of Hans Andersen, but though Hans Andersen achieved world-wide repute at once, Soren Kierkegaard had to wait for his through some seventy years. It has taken Christendom that long to catch him up; it took fifty years to catch up St. Thomas, and it has not caught up Dante yet. He coordinated experiences in a new manner; say, using the old word, that he caused alien and opposite experience to coinhere. ... No doubt as soon as Kierkegaard becomes fashionable he will be explained. His imagination will be made to depend on his personal history, and his sayings will be so moderated in our minds that they will soon become not his saying but ours. It is a very terrible thing to consider how often this has happened with the great, and how often we are contented to understand what we have neatly supposed that they have said."

"He said: "If I thought more of myself?" "You wouldn't have much difficulty in finding it," she answered. "Let's walk." He didn't understand the first phrase, but he turned and went by her side, silent while he heard the words. Much difficulty in finding what? in finding it? the it that could be found if he thought of himself more; that was what he had said or she had said, whichever had said that the thing was to be found, as if Adela had said it, Adela in her real self, by no means the self that went with Hugh; no, but the true, the true Adela who was apart and his; for that was the difficulty all the while, that she was truly his, and wouldn't be, but if he thought more of her truly being, and not of her being untruly away, on whatever way, for the way that went away was not the way she truly went, but if they did away with the way she went away, then Hugh could be untrue and she true, then he would know themselves, two, true and two, on the way he was going, and the peace in himself, and the scent of her in him, and the her, meant for him, in him; that was the she he knew, and he must think the more of himself."

"Deep, deeper than we believe, lie the roots of sin; it is in the good that they exist; it is in the good that they thrive and send up sap and produce the black fruit of hell."

"The concupiscence of the eyes touches the soul at a higher level than that of the flesh, and is consequently even more subtle and dangerous. Everyone can distinguish sins of the flesh, and most people endeavor to keep themselves from any serious entanglement with them, but it is quite possible to become considerably involved in the concupiscence of the eyes without being in the least aware of the fact."

"The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."

"An hour's conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy."

"I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the cross'. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering."

"We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior."

"Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love."

"Certainly in the gospels Jesus manifested love, but it was very different from what is generally supposed. It included a certain ruthlessness in his care and concern, a willingness to condemn not individuals but classes, a hatred of bigotry and pretence."

"Jesus' disclosure shows that in his very nature God is self-effacing, whereas Christian orthodoxy has thought of him as the opposite; majestic, glorious and triumphal."

"All the synoptic gospels show Jesus in close relationship with the ‘outsiders’ and the unloved. Publicans and sinners, prostitutes and criminals are among his acquaintances and companions. If Jesus were homosexual in nature (and this is the true explanation of his celibate state) then this would be further evidence of God’s self-identification with those who are unacceptable to the upholders of ‘The Establishment’ and social conventions."

"Men usually remain unmarried for three reasons: either because they cannot afford to marry or there are no girls to marry (neither of these factors need have deterred Jesus); or because it is inexpedient for them to marry in the light of their vocation (we have already ruled this out during the ‘hidden years’ of Jesus’ life); or because they are homosexual in nature, in as much as women hold no special attraction for them. The homosexual explanation is one which me must not ignore."

"Although he was trained in mathematics and was not a biblical scholar... Barnes, undertook to write a book about the origins of the Christian religion. Published in 1947, The Rise of Christianity caused a stir because it was so frankly dismissive of traditional Christian dogma, especially the miraculous. In this book, for example, Barnes calls the birth stories "edifying legend." He observes that the roots of the story of the Virgin Birth are "pagan." He questions the dogma of the Logos—the eternal word incarnate in this man, Jesus—set forth in the first chapter of John's Gospel. And he denies the bodily resurrection of Christ. Like Thomas Jefferson, he admires Jesus' character and teaching."

"We see in man three elements; the material body, the life principle and the element of human personality. The last has only slowly reached its present complexity and is still far from the power and perfection that we can imagine it will some day possess."

"There has been the assumption that men are finite spirits. They are, that is to say, not only animals with a brief terrestrial existence, but in them is an element which comes from, and belongs to, the spiritual world. This world we postulate to be the world of eternal reality, of God; and we assume that in it whatever is of God, the things that are good, beautiful and true, will exist for ever with Him. We have then, to justify our belief that, because such God-like qualities exist in human personality, that personality will survive the destruction of the body."

"Man is what he is, because a spiritual element has entered into, and taken possession of, animal consciousness. This spiritual element is not, according to Christian teaching, divine: but it is capable of entering into relations with God. It can perceive Him: in thought, it can reason as to His nature and actions: in will and feeling, it can serve and love Him, or disobey and fear Him. Such activity shows itself in what we call the working of conscience."