Indulgences are positively harmful to the recipient because they impede salvation by diverting charity and inducing a false sense of security. Christians should be taught that he who gives to the poor is better than he who receives a pardon. He who spends his money for indulgences instead of relieving want receives not the indulgence of the pope but the indignation of God.
Not since the days of Cranmer and Laud has an Anglican archbishop suffered the ultimate penalty for his faith and Luwum has therefore a special place in the history of the whole Anglican communion. He has been remembered in a chapel dedicated to modern martyrs in Canterbury Cathedral
Though the bolts are not drawn across the door; though your windows are not barred, yet what bolts or bars could hold you faster than your sickness. Your house is your prison, or your room in the hospital is a cell in the prison; and you yourself are a prisoner of God. Now, in order to profit by your imprisonment, consider first this one great truth, which is revealed to your senses in this your sickness.
On the eighth day of March 1699, Dr. Thomas Bray, and four other excellent men, met at London, under the sanction of Bishop Compton, to consult upon the best method of promoting Christian knowledge; and formed a little society for that purpose. In a few years, their numbers increased so greatly, and the sphere of their operations became so widely extended, that it was found necessary to separate the institution into two distinct branches.
Even before Prince Ratislav’s request for Byzantines to counter the influence of Frankish clergy operating in his territories, the brothers had embarked on an enterprise of great significance for the future: they devised an alphabet in which Slav language usage could be accurately conveyed.
Those who care little for their souls do not look sufficiently into their hearts. They do not consider it a sin to get angry with their neighbors without cause and do not think it a sin to lust after a woman who belongs to another provided they do not follow up their lust. But it is a great sin among those who fear God and hold their hearts in high regard.
Times are changing with great rapidity in North India, and our present missionary methods are coming under a fire of criticism which cannot but be purifying and enlightening, if we are humble enough to learn what is wrong.
How lovely on the mountain,
The feet of those who bring
Glad tidings of salvation,
Thro’ Zion’s glorious King;
People think they can confine lack of forgiveness to a particular event, a special case. You cannot, not in the end. Forgiveness is total. There can be no exceptions. No matter how justified the case, lack of forgiveness is never justified. And you cannot get away with it. . . . If we do not forgive, the evil remains in us and can ultimately destroy us. When we are unforgiving we must pray continually for the gift of mercy
Whether you seek ultimate truth externally (through the propositions of Scriptures you presume to be inerrant) or internally (through the deep spiritual experiences you presume to be universal), whatever you end up with HAS to be a little wrong