Sermons & Devotionals by W.R. Inge
W.R. Inge
PRAYER
GOOD and earnest prayer is a golden ladder which reaches up to heaven, and by which man ascends to God. The man who will pray aright should ask for nothing except what may promote God's honour and glory, his own profit and the advantage of his neighbours. When we ask for temporal things we should al... Read More
W.R. Inge
PRECEPT AND PRACTICE
BETTER one life-master than a thousand reading-masters (wger wre ein lebemeister denne tsent lesemeister). If I sought a master in the scriptures, I should seek him in Paris and in the high schools of high learning. But if I wished to ask questions about the perfect life, that he could not tell me.... Read More
W.R. Inge
RELICS
MY people, why seek ye after dead bones? Why seek ye not after living holiness, which might give you everlasting life? The dead can neither give nor take away. (599)... Read More
W.R. Inge
REST ONLY IN GOD
IF I had everything that I could desire, and my finger ached, I should not have everything, for I should have a pain in my finger, and so long as that remained, I should not enjoy full comfort. Bread is comfortable for men, when they are hungry; but when they are thirsty, they find no more comfort i... Read More
W.R. Inge
SAYINGS OF ECKHART
MASTER ECKHART saith: He who is always alone, he is worthy of God; and he who is always at home, to him is God present; and be who abides always in a present now, in him doth God beget His Son without ceasing. (600) Master Eckhart saith: I will never pray to God to give Himself to me: I will pray Hi... Read More
W.R. Inge
SIN
DEADLY sin is a death of the soul. To die is to lose life. But God is the life of the soul; since then deadly sin separates us from God, it is a death of the soul. Deadly sin is also an unrest of the heart. Everything can rest only in its proper place. But the natural place of the soul is God; as St... Read More
W.R. Inge
SIN AND SELFISHNESS
SIN is nothing else but the turning away of the creature from the unchangeable Good to the changeable; from the perfect to the imperfect, and most often to itself. And when the creature claims for its own anything good, such as substance, life, knowledge, or power, as if it were that, or possessed i... Read More
W.R. Inge
SPECIMENS OF MODERN MYSTICISM
I conclude this introductory essay with a few extracts from recent American books on the psychology of religion. It is interesting to find some of the strangest experiences of the cloister reproduced under the very different conditions of modern American life. The quotations will serve to show how f... Read More
W.R. Inge
SUFFERING
MEN who love God are so far from complaining of their sufferings, that their complaint and their suffering is rather because the suffering which God's will has assigned them is so small. All their blessedness is to suffer by God's will, and not to have suffered something, for this is the loss of suf... Read More
W.R. Inge
SURRENDER OF THE WILL
YOU should know, that that which God gives to those men who seek to do His will with all their might, is the best. Of this thou mayest be as sure, as thou art sure that God lives, that the very best must necessarily be, and that in no other way could anything better happen. Even if something else se... Read More
W.R. Inge
SUSO
Henry Suso was born in 1295 and died in 1365. His autobiography was published not long before his death. He is the poet of the band. The romance of saintship is depicted by him with a strange vividness which alternately attracts and repels, or even disgusts, the modern reader. The whole-hearted devo... Read More
W.R. Inge
SUSO AND HIS SPIRITUAL DAUGHTER
AFTER this, certain very high thoughts arose in the mind of the servitor's spiritual daughter, concerning which she asked him whether she might put questions to him. He replied, Yea verily: since thou hast been led through the proper exercises, it is permitted to thy spiritual intelligence to enquir... Read More
W.R. Inge
THE EFFICACY OF DIVINE GRACE
ALL works which men and all creatures can ever work even to the end of the world, without the grace of God--all of them together, however great they may be, are an absolute nothing, as compared with the smallest work which God has worked in men by His grace. As much as God is better than all His cre... Read More
W.R. Inge
THE FALL
THROUGH two things man fell in Paradise--through pride, and through inordinate affection. Therefore we too must return by two things, that nature may recover her power: we must first sink our nature and bring it down under God and under all men in deep humility, against whom it had exalted itself in... Read More
W.R. Inge
THE FALSE LIGHT
Now I must tell you what the False Light is, and what belongs to it. All that is contrary to the true light belongs to the false. It belongs of necessity to the true light that it never seeks to deceive, nor consents that anyone should be injured or deceived; and it cannot be deceived itself. But th... Read More
W.R. Inge
THE FIFTH WORD
OUR most tender Lord was so worn out and parched by the extreme bitterness of His pain and suffering, and by the great loss of blood, that He cried, "I thirst." A little word, but full of mysteries. In the first place it may be understood literally. For it is natural for those who are at the point o... Read More
W.R. Inge
THE FIRST WORD
NOW, O my soul, and all ye who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, come, and let us go with inward compassion and fervent devotion to the blessed palm-tree of the Cross, which is laden with the fairest fruit. Let us pass like the bee from flower to flower, for all are full of honey. ... Read More
W.R. Inge
THE FOURTH WORD
ABOUT the ninth hour our Lord Jesus cried with a loud voice, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He cried with a loud voice, that He might be easily heard by all, and also that by this wondrous word He might shake off from our souls the sleep of sloth, and cause them to wonder and marvel at... Read More
W.R. Inge
THE GERMAN MYSTICS AS GUIDES TO HOLINESS
THIS little volume is a contribution to a "Library of Devotion," and in the body of the work the reader will be seldom troubled by any abstruse philosophising. I have thought it necessary to give, in this Introduction, a short account of Eckhart's system, but the extracts which follow are taken main... Read More
W.R. Inge
THE LAST JUDGMENT
PEOPLE say of the last day, that God shall give judgment. This is true. But it is not true as people imagine. Every man pronounces his own sentence; as he shows himself here in his essence, so will he remain everlastingly. (471)... Read More
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During his life, Inge was President of the Aristotelian society, a columnist for the Evening Standard, a fellow of the British Academy, and a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. He received honorary doctorates from Oxford, Aberdeen, Durham, Sheffield, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews. Inge received honorary fellowships from King's and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge, and Hertford College, Oxford.