Quotation station

I want us to bear in mind that the church is never more true to itself than when it remembers its origin as a sect, as a minority opinion, countercultural and antiestablishment. Questioning the rightness of things as they are has again and again been the spark of the church's renewal and the hallmark of its faithfulness to the gospel. D. Rensberger, Overcoming the World; Politics and Community in the Gospel of John, London: SPCK, 1988, 136

When John Calvin was asked to respond to Cardinal Sadoleto as to why Geneva was irretrievably Protestant, the Reformer included this indictment of the state of preaching before the Reformation: Nay, what one sermon was there from which old wives might not carry off more whimsies than they could devise at their own fireside in a month? For as sermons were usually then divided, the first half was devoted to those misty questions of the schools which might astonish the rude populace, while the second contained sweet stories and amusing speculations by which the hearers might be kept awake. Only a few expressions were thrown in from the Word of God, that by their majesty they might procure credit for these frivolities. Calvin then contrasts this former way of preaching with the Reformation approach to Scripture: First, we bid a man to begin by examining himself, and this not in a superficial and perfunctory manner, but to cite his conscience before the tribunal of God, and when sufficie...

Herein we find proof for the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. The unregenerate do not really believe in the holiness of God. Their conception of His character is altogether one-sided. They fondly hope that His mercy will override everything else. "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself" (Ps. 50:21) is God’s charge against them. They think only of a "god" patterned after their own evil hearts. Hence their continuance in a course of mad folly. Such is the holiness ascribed to the Divine nature and character in Scripture that it clearly demonstrates their superhuman origin. The character attributed to the "gods" of the ancients and of modern heathendom are the very reverse of that immaculate purity which pertains to the true God. An ineffably holy God, who has the utmost abhorrence of all sin, was never invented by any of Adam’s fallen descendants! The fact is that nothing makes more manifest the terrible depravity of man’s heart and his enmity...

Step one, take pristine white hanky, dribble from a pipette spots of STRONG RED IODINE. Get the red stuff from a FARMER'S SHOP, not a chemist - that stuff will tend to be colourless. Then dip in water (from which you sip to show that is is water), to show incapacity of works to remove sin (our efforts, good deeds, being in church, etc.). The dip in a glass of PHOTOGRAPHIC FIXER. Piff paff poof- it will become white again! Then put hanky now soaked in fixer back into the water - water will have all sin removed. by homeopathy, i think. Or magic. Not sure abut the science here, tbh. Credit Howard Worsley, Trinity College