Looking unto Jesus

Looking unto Jesus
Author: J Stephen Yuille
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2014-11-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0718842251

Christ declares, Abide in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me ( John 15:4). A branch derives life from the vine by virtue of its union with the vine. Similarly, Christ is the vine, and we are the branches. There is a vital, organic union between us. We draw on Christ's life through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us. We must, therefore, abide in Christ by cultivating close and constant communion with him.We must continually look unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith (Hebrews 12:2). The present work seeks to explain what this looking implies. It does so by turning to the writings of two largely forgotten Puritans and Baptists from the seventeenth century - Thomas Wilcox and Vavasor Powell. Together, they teach us that to abide in Christ is to behold him in his manifold roles and relations. As we do so, Christ becomes our all in all.

Prayer and Performance in Early Modern English Literature

Prayer and Performance in Early Modern English Literature
Author: Joseph Sterrett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2018-10-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1108698530

Early modern England was a nation alive with intense religious debate, with often violent results. Central to these debates were questions of prayer, questions powerful enough to splinter the English church and to fuel a ferocious civil war. This collection of thirteen newly commissioned essays traces the controversy and value given to the performance of prayer, through the body, the spoken word and written text, as well as its representation on stage. Through close readings of the works of Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton and Henry Vaughan amongst others, this book examines the performative aspects of prayer in a range of literary modes. This broad range of study is expanded further with chapters focussing on the private religious diaries of men and women throughout the seventeenth century, and the convergence of music and prayer in the work of William Byrd.