“Rock of Ages” is by the Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady written in 1763 and first published in The Gospel Magazine in 1775. Traditionally, it is held that Toplady drew his inspiration from an incident in the gorge of Burrington Combe in the Mendip Hills in England. Toplady, a preacher in the nearby village of Blagdon, was travelling along the gorge when he was caught in a storm. Finding shelter in a gap in the gorge, he was...
LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS
“GOD moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill, He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sov’reign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace; Behind...
Fra Thome de Jesu’s prayer from Psalm 31:5
“When those hands fail me, then I am indeed abandoned and miserable! When they sustain and keep me, then am I safe, exalted, strong, and filled with good. Receive me then, O Eternal Father, for the sake of our Lord’s merits and words; for he, by his obedience and his death, hath now merited from thee everything which I do not merit of myself. Into thy hands, my Father and my God, I commend my spirit, my soul, my body, my powers, my...
Athanasius writing in: ‘On the Incarnation’ (A.D. 293-373)
“A very strong proof of this destruction of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by a present fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Savior, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish....
Calvin on Matthew 11:12
“Since the days of John. I have no doubt that Christ speaks honorably of the majesty of the Gospel on this ground, that many sought after it with warm affection: for as God had raised up John to be the herald of the kingdom of His son, so the Spirit infuses such efficacy into his doctrine, that it entered deeply into the hearts of men and kindled that zeal. It appears, therefore, that the Gospel, which comes forward in a manner so sudden...