A Confession of the Catholic Faith of Pope Damasus

A Confession of the Catholic Faith which Pope Damasus Sent to Bishop Paulinus in Macedonia when He was at Thessalonica. After the Council of Nicæa there sprung up this error. Certain men ventured with profane mouths to say that the Holy Spirit is made through the Son. We, therefore, anathematize those who do not with …

Christian baptism: where do we go from here? by David F. Wright

David F. Wright, "Christian Baptism: where do we go from here?" The Evangelical Quarterly 78.2 (Apr.-June 2006): 163-169 Abstract Today paedobaptists increasingly recognize faith-baptism as the norm of Christian baptism, both in theology and in practice. Equally Baptists must recognize how minimal and rare were challenges to infant baptism prior to the Reformation. What is …

Excerpts from CS Lewis’s sermon “Learning in War-Time”

by C. S. Lewis A sermon preached in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, Autumn, 1939. Original document available here. The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a …

John Wesley on reading the Early Church Fathers

The Scriptures are a complete rule of faith and practice; and they are clear in all necessary points. And yet their clearness does not prove that they need not be explained, nor their completeness that they need not be enforced. The esteeming of the writings of the first three centuries, not equally with, but next …

The notion of obligations comes before that of rights

The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider …

St. Andrew’s Day, 1935

Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over, The bending poplars, newly bare, And the dark ribbons of the chimneys Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,Torn posters flutter; coldly sound The boom of trams and the rattle of hooves, And the clerks who hurry to the station Look, shuddering, over the eastern roves, Thinking, each one, …

Benedicite, omnia opera Domini

O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever. O ye Angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever. O ye Heavens, bless ye the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever. O ye Waters that be above …

C.S Lewis on old books

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very …

This is the year which holds the writer

This text was originally posted in the entry 'I, who will already be dust by your time, have made mention of you in this book' by A Clerk of Oxford. I think its appropriate to post this on All Saints Day. This is the year which holds the writer: the thirty fifth year of the reign …

Pensées, Section 2: The Misery of Man without God by Blaise Pascal

Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty, and turn his vision from the low objects which surround him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in comparison with the vast circle …