Inspirational Quotes by Philip Schaff
“glory follows virtue as its shadow; and deserting those who seek it, it seeks those who despise it.”
“For as salt seasons all food and nothing is so pleasant as to please the palate without it: so the bishop is the seasoning of the whole world and of his own Church,”
“And although to the strong he has pointed out the prize of their high calling, [ Philippians 3: 14 ] yet he suffers none to faint by the way; [ Matthew 15: 32 ] while he applauds those who lead the van, he does not despise those who bring up the rear.”
“I will only mention the Apostle Paul, whose words seem to me, as often as I hear them, to be not words, but peals of thunder. Read his epistles, and especially those addressed to the Romans, to the Galatians, and to the Ephesians, in all of which he stands in the thick of the battle, and you will see how skilful and how careful he is in the proofs which he draws from the Old Testament, and how warily he cloaks the object which he has in view. His words seem simplicity itself: the expressions of a guileless and unsophisticated person—one who has no skill either to plan a dilemma or to avoid it. Still, whichever way you look, they are thunderbolts.”
“For it is one thing to start a problem and another to expound what is already proved. The first calls for a disputant, the second for a teacher.”
“if you do fall, repentance will restore you, and you who were hypocrites at baptism may have a firm faith in your repentance. Be not disturbed by the thought of a difference between the righteous and the penitent, and do not imagine that pardon even gives a lower place; rather believe that it takes away your crown. For there is one reward: he who stands on the right hand shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
“To change one's disposition is a greater achievement than to change one's dress. It is harder for us to part with arrogance than with gold and gems.”
“see the hidden meaning of Scripture in all its fullness (for the word of God is a pearl and may be pierced on every side)”
“it is extremely trying when one has once tasted pleasure to abstain from its enticements, so the reward of doing this is proportionately great.”
“The fruit which is an hundredfold and that which is sixtyfold both spring from one seed,”
“nothing is so displeasing to God as an impenitent heart. Impenitence is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.”
“the wicked find it a consolation to carp at the good, supposing the guilt of sin to be less, in proportion as the number of those who commit it is greater.”
“Blessed be the Merciful One, who saw the weapon by Paradise, that closed the way to the Tree of Life; and came and took a Body which could suffer, that with the Door, that was in His side, He might open the way into Paradise.”
topics: christ , crucifixion-of-christ , jesus-christ , nativity , nativity-of-christ , redemption , salvation
“liberality is determined not by the amount of our possessions, but by the disposition of giving.”
“For youth is prone to fall because the heat of various desires is inflamed by the warmth of glowing youth, and it is the part of a good doctor to keep off the materials of sin. For the first exercise in training the soul is to turn away sin, the second to implant virtue.”
“let us not join in conversation with such as may be the cause to us of unholy fires.”
“What mark of His mercy have we more ready at hand than that He Himself, through the prophet Hosea, is at once merciful as though reconciled to those whom in His anger He had threatened?”
“And Solomon says: Be not overmuch righteous; [ Ecclesiastes 7: 17 ] for restraint should temper righteousness.”
“when friendship springs from the fount of good-will it does not hesitate to endure the great dangers of life for a friend.”
“since complete piety is to believe rightly, so complete impiety is to believe wrongly.”
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On his journey he stayed in England and met Edward Pusey and other Tractarians. His inaugural address on The Principle of Protestantism, delivered in German at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and published in German with an English version by John Williamson Nevin was a pioneer work in English in the field of symbolics (that is, the authoritative ecclesiastical formulations of religious doctrines in creeds or confessions). This address and the "Mercersburg Theology" which he taught seemed too pro-Catholic to some, and he was charged with heresy. But, at the synod at York in 1845, he was unanimously acquitted.
Schaff's broad views strongly influenced the German Reformed Church, through his teaching at Mercersburg, through his championship of English in German Reformed churches and schools in America, through his hymnal (1859), through his labours as chairman of the committee which prepared a new liturgy, and by his edition (1863) of the Heidelberg Catechism. His History of the Apostolic Church (in German, 1851; in English, 1853) and his History of the Christian Church (7 vols., 1858-1890), opened a new period in American study of ecclesiastical history.
In 1854, he visited Europe, representing the American German churches at the ecclesiastical diet at Frankfort and at the Swiss pastoral conference at Basel. He lectured in Germany on America, and received the degree of D.D. from Berlin.
In consequence of the ravages of the American Civil War the theological seminary at Mercersburg was closed for a while and so in 1863 Dr. Schaff became secretary of the Sabbath Committee (which fought the “continental Sunday”) in New York City, and held the position till 1870. In 1865 he founded the first German Sunday School in Stuttgart. In 1862-1867 he lectured on church history at Andover.
Schaff was a member of the Leipzig Historical Society, the Netherland Historical Society, and other historical and literary societies in Europe and America. He was one of the founders, and honorary secretary, of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and was sent to Europe in 1869, 1872, and 1873 to arrange for the general conference of the Alliance, which, after two postponements on account of the Franco-Prussian War, was held in New York in October 1873. Schaff was also, in 1871, one of the Alliance delegates to the emperor of Russia to plead for the religious liberty of his subjects in the Baltic provinces.
He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York City in 1870 holding first the chair of theological encyclopedia and Christian symbolism till 1873, of Hebrew and the cognate languages till 1874, of sacred literature till 1887, and finally of church history, till his death. He also served as president of the committee that translated the American Standard Version of the Bible, though he died before it was published in 1901.
His History of the Christian Church resembled Neander's work, though less biographical, and was pictorial rather than philosophical. He also wrote biographies, catechisms and hymnals for children, manuals of religious verse, lectures and essays on Dante, etc. He translated Johann Jakob Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche into English.