The Pursuit of Belief - Christian Classics Collection


Book Description

This meticulously edited religious collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Scripture: Bible First Clement Second Clement Didache Epistle of Barnabas Shepherd of Hermas The Infancy Gospel of Thomas Apocalypse of Peter History: History of the Christian Church (Philip Schaff) Creeds of Christendom (Philip Schaff) Philosophy of Religion: The Confessions of St. Augustine (St. Augustine) On the Incarnation (Athanasius of Alexandria) On the Soul and the Resurrection (Gregory of Nyssa) On the Holy Spirit (Basil the Great) Pastoral Care (Pope Gregory I) An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (John of Damascus) Summa Theologica (Saint Thomas Aquinas) The Imitation of Christ (Thomas à Kempis) A Treatise on Christian Liberty (Martin Luther) The Interior Castle (St. Teresa of Ávila) The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence) The Age of Reason (Thomas Paine) The Natural History of Religion (David Hume) Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (David Hume) The Religious Affections (Jonathan Edwards) The Essence of Christianity (Ludwig Feuerbach) Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche) All of Grace (Charles Spurgeon) Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness (Andrew Murray) Orthodoxy (Chesterton) The Everlasting Man (Chesterton) The Sovereignty of God (Arthur Pink) The Kingdom of God Is Within You (Tolstoy) Religious Fiction: Divine Comedy (Dante) Paradise Lost (John Milton) The Pilgrim's Progress (John Bunyan) Zadig (Voltaire) Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Lew Wallace) Quo Vadis (Henryk Sienkiewicz) In His Steps (Charles M. Sheldon) The Story of the Other Wise Man (Henry Van Dyke) The Ball and the Cross (Chesterton) The Enchanted Barn (Grace Livingston Hill) The Grand Inquisitor (Dostoevsky Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (Goethe) Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche) Spirituality: The Conduct of Life (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Lessons in Truth (H. Emilie Cady) As a Man Thinketh (James Allen) Thoughts are Things (Prentice Mulford) The Game of Life and How to Play It (Florence Scovel Shinn)




Baptism in the New Testament


Book Description

Baptism In The New Testament In this thorough and well-documented study of the sacrament of Holy Baptism, G.R. Beasley-Murray presents a critical defense of the doctrine of believers' baptism on the basis of the New Testament evidences. The author--one of the leading New Testament scholars in England--is himself a Baptist; but his discussion transcends denominatioal lines. Beasley-Murray begins by discussing various rites that precede Christian baptism historically, and analyzes the relationship between these earlier rites and baptism. From these antecedents--Old Testament ritual washings, Jewish proselyte baptism, the lustrations practiced at Qumran, and the baptism of John the Baptist--the author proceeds to the foundations of Christian baptism in the career of Jesus, its emergence as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, and its development in the New Testament epistolary literature. In his consideration of the doctrine of Christian baptism as ariculated in the New Testament, Beasley-Murray focuses his attention on the necessity of baptism and its relationship to grace, faith, the Spirit, the church, ethics, and hope. A careful examination of the rise and significance of infant baptism follows, and the study concludes with a selected bibliography and several indices.




Troubled Waters


Book Description

Baptism has been a contested practice from the very beginning of the church. In this volume, Ben Witherington rethinks the theology of baptism and does so in constant conversation with the classic theological positions and central New Testament texts. By placing baptism in the context of the covenant, Witherington shows how advocates of both believer's baptism and infant baptism have added some water to both their theology and practice of baptism




By Water and the Spirit


Book Description

By Water and the Spirit, a 6-session study guide for use in small groups, contains the full text of the paper "By Water and the Spirit," which describes the United Methodist understanding of baptism approved by the 1996 General Conference. This booklet serves as a resource for congregational leaders who are helping members make connections between the baptismal covenant and discipleship in daily life.







The Doctrine of Regeneration


Book Description




The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman Volume X


Book Description

John Henry Newman (1801-90) was brought up in the Church of England in the Evangelical tradition. An Oxford graduate and Fellow of Oriel College, he was appointed Vicar of St Mary's Oxford in 1828; from 1839 onwards he began to have doubts about the claims of the Anglican Church and in 1845 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. He was made a Cardinal in 1879. His influence on both the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England and the advance of Catholic ideas in the Church of England was profound. This volume covers a crucially important and significant period in Newman's life. The Church of England bishops' continuing condemnation of Tract 90 - plus Pusey's two-year suspension for preaching a university sermon on the Real Presence - are major factors in Newman resigning as Vicar of St Mary's, Oxford. His doubts about the Church of England are deeper and stronger than ever, and he is moving closer to Rome. William Lockhart's sudden defection to Rome in August 1843 precipitates his resignation. He preaches his final Anglican sermon, 'The Parting of Friends', and retires into lay communion at Littlemore. The first edition of University Sermons, including the celebrated sermon on theological development, virtually sells out within a fortnight.




Saved by Grace


Book Description

In the late nineteenth century, two distinct reform movements coming out of the Dutch State Reformed Church (the Afscheiding of 1834 and the Doleantie of 1886) merged to form The Reformed Churches of the Netherlands (De Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland). While both groups had much in common, there remained fundamental points of disagreement, which erupted into controversies over such doctrines as immediate regeneration and presumptive regeneration. In Saved by Grace, Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) discusses God's gracious work in bringing fallen sinners to new life and salvation. He provides a careful historical analysis that shows how Reformed theologians have wrestled to understand the Holy Spirit's work in calling and regeneration since the seventeenth century. Bavinck brings exegetical precision and theological clarity to the discussion, carefully avoiding the errors of undervaluing and overvaluing the use of means in the work of salvation. This book, therefore, takes up questions with which every new generation of Reformed writers must grapple.




Letters and Diaries


Book Description

"John Henry Newman (1801-90) was brought up in the Church of England in the Evangelical tradition. An Oxford graduate and Fellow of Oriel College, he was appointed Vicar of St Mary's Oxford in 1828; from 1839 onwards he began to have doubts about the claims of the Anglican Church for Catholicity and in 1845 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. He was made a Cardinal in 1879. His influence on both the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England and the advance of Catholic ideas in the Church of England was profound. Volume XXXII contains a further 513 letters which have surfaced since the publication of the preceding volumes, spanning the years 1830 until virtually the eve of Newman's death on 11 August 1890. There are, for example, thirty-four letters to Thomas Arnold junior following his conversion to Roman Catholicism on 18 January 1856 in Van Diemen's Land and his subsequent return to England with his wife and family; seven letters to Charles Marriott and seven letters from him dealing mainly with the sale of the Littlemore property following Newman's secession to Rome on 9 October 1845; and eighteen letters to various members of the Mozley family, including two letters to Jemima in the wake of the Achilli trial in 1853. Other recipients include the Duke of Norfolk and his family; Charles Wellington Furse, Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, near Oxford, and future Archdeacon of Westminster; and Miss Maria Trench, who was preparing some of Keble's papers and reviews for publication. There are also two letters to Pope Leo XIII petitioning him for the canonization of John Fisher, Thomas More, and the English Martyrs."--pub. desc. v.32 Suppl.