J. C. Ryle on Belief as a Mark of Regeneration
This post originally appeared at the Prydain website. It is republished here with Will Prydain’s permission. Going a little further in Ryle’s Knots Untied, this is what the good Bishop had to say about belief as a mark of regeneration: (2) Secondly, St. John says, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of…
The Question of Images In The Documents Of The English Reformation
The suitability of images in the Church’s worship of God is a question that stretches from the adolescent years of the Church to the present day. Consensus among the different traditions and denominations within the catholic Church on the topic seems to be futile. Many Protestants today find a connection to the ancient past through…
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He took his place within the check-out line, A loaf of bread, some milk, and batteries Cradled against the paunch beneath his ribs. His eyes rest vaguely where they fell on rows Of chocolate, gum, and mints that lined the counter. But, just behind, came some sharp click of tongue— Briefer, but otherwise much like…
“My Kingdom is not of this world”: A Critique of Cardinal Newman’s Development of Doctrine
Among many self-professed traditionalists and apologists, the newly sainted Cardinal Newman is the fount for their rhetoric and argument. Often considered unassailable against “Protestantism,” Newman’s ghost haunts many well-read and historically aware Protestants. His oft-repeated quip “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant” often leaves the non-Roman (or, nowadays, non-Orthodox) a…
J. C. Ryle on the Marks of Regeneration
This post originally appeared at the Prydain website. It is republished here with Will Prydain’s permission. Reading in Ryle’s Knots Untied, in the chapter on regeneration, it is interesting to see what Ryle says are the marks of regeneration. He uses the First Epistle of John to outline these marks, and here is part of…
Dying Alone in 2021
Last spring, as lockdown orders went out to American cities and states, many prominent Christian voices equated masking, social distancing, and staying home with the command to love neighbor, and the refusal to do so as tantamount to indifference to the lives of others. As the pandemic has rolled on, other church leaders have decried…
AN HOMILY OF ALMSDEEDS AND MERCIFULNESS PART I
AMONGST the manifold duties that Almighty God requireth of his faithful servants the true Christians, by the which he should that both his Name should be glorified, and the certainty of their vocation declared, there is none that is either more acceptable unto him or more profitable for them, than are the works of mercy…
Sonnet for the Third of August
(the day Wallace Stevens wrote a sonnet at his day job) Today is Surreptitious Sonnet Day, feast of St. Wallace in the poets’ church. Writing on paper, I will not betray my brief defection to the sharp-eyed search of bosses and their minions. (I do NOT trust the blonde secretary on my right). To tell…
A Catholic Anglican Rule of Faith
Introduction A friend once said to me that “all theological debates go back to Prolegomena.” Namely, what is our justification for what we believe? What is our measure of truth in matters of faith? How can we know what God has revealed? These Questions are vital for those in the Anglican Communion. We have “Anglo-Catholics,”…
Book Review: “Divided We Stand”
Divided We Stand: A History of the Continuing Anglican Movement. By Douglas Bess. Berkeley, CA: Apocryphile Press, 2006. 291 pp. $20.95 (paper). “Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us…” (Luke 1:1, NKJV). Those words have never been applied to the…