Archibald Alexander > Quotes

“Nature never makes any blunders, when she makes a fool she means it.”
― Archibald Alexander

“If ever he chooses to rescue sinners from the consequences of their sins, it will not be by sacrificing his justice, but by fully satisfying it.”
― Archibald Alexander, The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained, or The Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions

“The theologian must not be content to discuss merely speculative problems about God and man. He must seek above {2} all things to bring the truths of revelation to bear upon human practice. All knowledge has its practical implicate.”
― Archibald B. C. Alexander, Christianity and EthicsA Handbook of Christian Ethics

“Between atheism and superstition, there is this great difference; the latter may authorize some crimes, the former opens the flood-gates to all.”
― Archibald Alexander, The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained, or The Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions

“Conviction, then, is no part of a sinner’s salvation—but the clear practical knowledge of the fact that he cannot save himself, and is entirely dependent on the saving grace of God.”
― Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience

“An African prince, who was brought to England and resided there some time, being asked what he thought of the Bible, answered, that he believed it to be from God, for he found all the good people in favor of it, and all the bad people against it!”
― Archibald Alexander, The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained, or The Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions

“The tendency of modern political thought is to increase the control of government, and to regard all departments of activity as branches of the state, to be held and worked for the general good of the community. Thus there is a danger that the individual may gradually lose all initiative, and life be impoverished under a coercive mechanical system.”
― Archibald B. C. Alexander, Christianity and EthicsA Handbook of Christian Ethics

“Underlying all true poetry there is a philosophy of life.”
― Archibald B. C. Alexander, Christianity and EthicsA Handbook of Christian Ethics

“The essence of sin is selfishness. It is the deliberate choice of self in preference to God—personal and wilful rebellion against the known law of righteousness and truth.”
― Archibald B. C. Alexander, Christianity and EthicsA Handbook of Christian Ethics

“Christ would awaken in every man the consciousness of the priceless worth of his soul, and would have him realise in his own person God's idea of manhood.”
― Archibald B. C. Alexander, Christianity and EthicsA Handbook of Christian Ethics

“Whatever be man's past history and evolution, he has from the beginning been made in God's image, and bears the divine impress in all the lineaments of body and soul. His degradation cannot wholly obliterate his inherent nobility, and indeed his actual corruption bears witness to his possible holiness.”
― Archibald B. C. Alexander, Christianity and EthicsA Handbook of Christian Ethics

“Life is not merely a gift, it is a task, an achievement. We are not simply passive recipients of the Good, but free and determinative agents who react upon what is given, taking it up into our life and working it into the texture of our character.”
― Archibald B. C. Alexander, Christianity and EthicsA Handbook of Christian Ethics

“A man's rights are not merely decorations or ends in themselves. They are opportunities, instruments, trusts. And when any man has them, it means that he is placed on a vantage-ground from which, secure of oppression or interference, he may begin to do his duty.[”
― Archibald B. C. Alexander, Christianity and EthicsA Handbook of Christian Ethics