Thursday, January 24, 2019

The love of praise

The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart;
The proud to gain it, roils and toils endure,
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.

-- Edward Young

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

They toil not . . .


And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

-- Matthew 6:28f.

Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

-- Luke 12:27

Monday, January 21, 2019

Ridiculous antinomian drivel from Relevant Magazine says the Ten Commandments are over, obviously never even read The Sermon on the Mount

They should call it It's All Relative Magazine, where the 10 Commandments aren't commandments, just guidelines whose purpose was merely historicist and instrumental, not timeless and fundamental. Heaven and earth must have passed away when we were not looking! Murder, theft, and adultery? What antiquated concepts!

Why Do Christians Want to Post the 10 Commandments and Not the Sermon on the Mount?:

The Ten Commandments played a significant role in God’s creation of the nation of Israel. It gave them moral guidelines and helped separate this new nation from their neighbors. This was part of the formal agreement (or covenant) God created with his people, but Jesus’ death and resurrection signaled the end of that covenant and all the rules and regulations associated with it. Jesus didn’t issue his new command as an additional commandment to the existing list of commands. He didn’t say, “Here’s the 614th law.” Jesus issued his new commandment as a replacement for everything in the existing list. Including the big ten. Just as his new covenant replaced the old covenant, Jesus’ new commandment replaced all the old commandments.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. -- Matthew 5:17f.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. -- Matthew 7:21

 

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Dingbat Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii thinks Ben Sasse Lutheranism and Knights of Columbus Catholicism are somehow alt-right

Not only are the fine points of centuries-old American religious cultural divisions lost on our foreign-born officials, the atheist alt-right must be amused to be lumped in with a Lutheran defending membership in a Catholic fraternal organization. Maybe it's time to fix all that and require all of our officials to be native born.

Friday, January 18, 2019

The scholar's life

 
Yet hope not Life from Grief or Danger free,
Nor think the Doom of Man revers'd for thee:
Deign on the passing World to turn thine Eyes,
And pause awhile from Learning to be wise;
There mark what Ills the Scholar's Life assail,
Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret, and the Jail.
See Nations slowly wise, and meanly just,
To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust.

-- Samuel Johnson

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Thou wilt taste no pleasure solitary?

What think'st thou then of me, and this my state?
Seem I to thee sufficiently possessed
Of happiness, or not? who am alone
From all eternity, for none I know
Second to me, or like, equal much less.

-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

Saturday, January 5, 2019

German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller: 80% of cases of sexual assault in the church involved male youths not children


Cardinal Brandmüller claimed that only a “vanishingly small number” of clergy had committed abuses. He said the real problem was homosexuality and claimed it is “statistically proven” that there is a link between homosexuality and abuse.

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

A wish for the new year

 
 
 
 
Here let me sit,
and hold high converse with the mighty dead.

-- James Thomson (1700-1748)