According to Jewish tradition the 5 books of Moses are read and studied each year. In order to complete the study, the 5 books are separated into sections . The fourth book of the Pentateuch - Numbers. Presented according to weekly parshah. Praised are You, Adonai, Our G_d, ruler of the Universe, who has made us holy with commandments and commanded us to engage in the study of Torah.

According to Jewish tradition the 5 books of Moses are read and studied each year. In order to complete the study, the 5 books are separated into sections . The last book of the Pentateuch - Deuteronomy is presented according to weekly parshah. Praised are You, Adonai, Our G_d, ruler of the Universe, who has made us holy with commandments and commanded us to engage in the study of Torah. Parshat descriptions provided by Wikipedia.

The Book of Joshua is the first of the former prophets and the beginning of Nevi’im. The book of Joshua retells the conquest of Canaan and the division of the land among the Twelve Tribes. The conclusion includes Joshua’s address to the people and the witnessing of his death and burial. - Summary by Wikipedia and Linette Geisel

The Book of Judges is the second of the former prophets within Nevi’im. The book of Judges covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom in the Books of Samuel, during which Biblical judges served as temporary leaders. Judges, tell of the struggle of the people to possess the land. When the people are unfaithful, G_d delivers them into the hands of their enemies; once the people repent, mercy is given, a Judge delivers them from oppression until the cycle repeats...

Johann Adam Möhler was professor theology at the Tübingen University where both Catholics and Protestants taught and studied. In 1832 he published Symbolism; a work that examined the doctrines of original sin, grace and free will as held by the different Christian confessions. It caused a storm of controversy in the Protestant nations of Europe. In it he turned the weapons furnished by Hegel, the “Protestant Aquinas”, against Protestantism. His method and style were supported by the use of facts, texts, and documents...

Meditationes Sacrae, was first published in Latin in 1606 when Gerhard was only twenty-two years old. It consists of 51 brief meditations on various aspects of the Christian life. Nearly four hundred years after its first appearance, it remains the only work published by such a young author that has stood the test of time. Frequently reprinted in Latin, it has also been translated into most European languages as well as Greek and Arabic. While not a large book, it is impactive beyond its size. - Jonathan Lange

This it the most authentic biography of St. Dominic Savio, seeing as it is written by St. John Bosco, Savio's teacher.

The celebration of the Tercentenary of the Authorized Version of the English Bible of 1611 has called into existence the little book here presented to the reader's notice. It is the brief repetition of a story beginning in 670 A.D. and reaching on for twelve hundred years to 1879. It takes us back to the Monastery of Whitby where Caedmon the monk paraphrased Scripture story in Saxon song, and brings us through the centuries to the Abbey of Westminster where a distinguished body of English scholars met in 1870 and commenced that Revision of the Scriptures which first saw the light in 1881.

This collection of hymns have been translated from the poetry to the Latin church, arranged in the order of the Christian year. "This volume is intended for hours of devotion, and the vast storehouse of sacred poetry of the Latin Church has been put under tribute to supply the material," writes the author, Reverend John Brownlie, in the preface. The collection includes hymns for Christmas, Easter, All Saints' Day, Advent, and more.

A journey that takes the hero, Christian, through the varied landscapes that constitute life and through the events that happen to human beings is the plot of The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. Readers who have read and loved Louisa May Alcott's Little Women would recall the many references to this 17th century work of religious fiction. The Pilgrim's Progress is based on several values based in the teachings of Christianity. The importance of using the Bible as a guiding principle in life, of traveling not just geographically but also spiritually, the emphasis on community living and of the companionship of fellow people and many other themes...

The Holy War is perhaps John Bunyan’s second most popular work, after The Pilgrim’s Progress. It tells the story of afierce battle to take control of a city from its rightful ruler.

Grace Abounding is the spiritual autobiography of John Bunyan, who also penned Pilgrim’s Progress, perhaps one of the most significant pieces of Christian literature, second only to the Bible. Grace Abounding follows Bunyan’s struggle to find true repentance and forgiveness, his battle with Satan’s temptations of unbelief, his comfort found in the Bible and his overarching victory gotten by the grace of God through Jesus Christ his Son. Readers familiar with Pilgrim’s Progress will recognize...

John Bunyan (November 28, 1628 – August 31, 1688), a Christian writer and preacher, was born at Harrowden (one mile south-east of Bedford), in the Parish of Elstow, England. He wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, arguably the most famous published Christian allegory. In the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August. Bunyan became a popular preacher as well as a prolific author, though most of his works consist of expanded sermons. In theology he was a Puritan, but there was nothing gloomy about him. The portrait his friend Robert White drew, which has often been reproduced, shows the attractiveness of his true character.

Institutes of the Christian Religion is John Calvin’s seminal work on Protestant systematic theology. Highly influential in the Western world and still widely read by theological students today, it was published in Latin in 1536 and in his native French in 1541, with the definitive editions appearing in 1559 (Latin) and in 1560 (French). The book was written as an introductory textbook on the Protestant faith for those with some learning already and covered a broad range of theological topics...

John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. Calvin's writing and preachings provided the seeds for the branch of theology that bears his name. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Switzerland. Calvin developed his theology in his biblical commentaries as well as in his sermons and treatises. Calvin produced commentaries on most of the books of the Bible...

In 1548, Calvin published his "Commentaries on six of St Paul's Epistles, viz., Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Timothy. In his "Commentaries," the peculiar doctrines which mark his system of theology occur, of course, in a scattered manner, as the occasion of his text may call them forth.

While many of Calvin's sermons are now lost after they were sold by weight by the library of Geneva, his sermons on Ephesians have been preserved, having been translated into Early Modern English by Arthur Golding . Arthur Golding's claim to fame is that his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses influenced Shakespeare. A comparison with Calvin's commentary on the same letter shows that Calvin saw preaching as no mere explanation of the text - the sermons work consecutively through the text but circle round on the point many time with brief illustration and continuous application to the hearers...

In offering this selection of Sermons to the publick, the publisher has not been governed by Sectarian principles, but has selected Sermons upon various subjects, that the reader may understand the general doctrine held forth by those eminent divines. When we consider the mental darkness which enveloped the world in the days of Luther and Calvin, under Popish superstition and idolatry, and that theirs were some of the first attempts to emancipate the human intellect from more than "Egyptian darkness,"...

Two godly and learned sermons, made by that famous and worthy instrument in God's church, John Calvin. Which sermons were long since translated out of Latin into English, by Robert Horne late Bishop of Winchester, at what time he suffered exile from his country, for the testimony of a good conscience, as his Apology in the beginning of the book will witness. And because these sermons have long lain hidden in silence, and many godly and religious persons, have been very desirous of them: at their earnest request they are now published.

The prayers of John Calvin, however, have received little attention, as compared with the fame which crowns his theological writings. His commentaries upon Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the minor prophets were originally delivered in the form of lectures, each followed by appropriate petitions. Both lectures and prayers were extemporaneous. In his epistle dedicatory, prefaced to the commentary upon the minor prophets, and addressed to the King of Sweden, Calvin says: "Had it been in my power I would rather have tried to prevent the wider circulation of that extemporaneous kind of teaching, intended for the particular benefit of my auditory, and with which benefit I was abundantly satisfied.

Of all commentators I believe John Calvin to be the most candid...He was no trimmer and pruner of texts. He gave their meaning as far as he knew it. His honest intention was to translate the Hebrew and the Greek originals as accurately as he possibly could, and then to give the meaning which would naturally be conveyed by such Greek and Hebrew words: he laboured, in fact, to declare, not his own mind upon the Spirit's words, but the mind of the Spirit as couched in those words. Dr. King very truly says of him, "No writer ever dealt more fairly and honestly by the Word of God...

Now, my design in this work has been to prepare and qualify students of theology for the reading of the divine word, that they may have an easy introduction to it, and be enabled to proceed in it without any obstruction. For I think I have given such a comprehensive summary, and orderly arrangement of all the branches of religion, that, with proper attention, no person will find any difficulty in determining what ought to be the principal objects of his research in the Scripture, and to what end he ought to refer any thing it contains...

The reading-over of these present sermons will sufficiently declare what commodity and profit they may bring with them: As in very deed the author of them right well showeth throughout all his work, in what sort the Lord God hath heretofore been served and also how ordinarily he is served by him. And therefore, for a full recommendation as well of the author as also of the work itself, I intend through God his assistance to set forth none other thing than the same fruit and profit, which they have already gotten that have read them and that fruit which they may make report of, that shall hereafter read them...

The Conferences were written by John Cassian at the request of Pope Leo. They document the conversations that Cassian had with the elders living in Scetis , and about principles of the spiritual and ascetic life. The work would go on to be a classic for both the Western and Eastern monastic world, and would frequently be read at mealtimes. - Summary by ancientchristian

John Churton Collins was a literary critic who lived from 1848-1908. In 1904 John Collins became professor of English literature at Birmingham University (United Kingdom). He writes about the lives of English and German authors beginning with William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and ending with Alfred, Lord Tennyson(1809-1892). He wrote the book in response to On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, by Thomas Carlyle (1840). His son, L.C. Collins, collected these essays from various sources after his father's death. Additional proof-listening by Larry Wilson.

This is a picturesque and moving account of the life and work of Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1774-1821), the first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. This widowed mother of five established schools in New York and Maryland and was the first to found a congregation of Religious Sisters in the United States, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, whose motherhouse stands today in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

John Donne (1572 – March 31, 1631) was a Jacobean poet and preacher, representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works, notable for their realistic and sensual style, include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and immediacy of metaphor, compared with that of his contemporaries. Towards the end of his life Donne wrote works that challenged death, and the fear that it inspired in many men, on the grounds of his belief that those who die are sent to Heaven to live eternally...

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is a 1624 prose work by the English writer John Donne. It is a series of reflections that were written as Donne recovered from a serious illness, believed to be either typhus or relapsing fever. (Donne does not clearly identify the disease in his text.) The work consists of twenty-three parts describing each stage of the sickness. Each part is further divided into a Meditation, an Expostulation, and a Prayer. The seventeenth meditation is perhaps the best-known part of the work...

John Donne was an English Jacobean preacher, sometime lawyer, later in life a Member of Parliament and Royal Chaplain. Marrying for love against the wishes of his influential father-in-law; Donne's career was cast into shadow: forcing him to support his wife, Anne, as best he might under a specter of unforgiving penury. Despite such hardships - perhaps because of them - Donne's writings demonstrate a mastery of poetry layered with metaphysical meaning and mystery: which continues to delight and challenge modern-day readers...

John Eliot, a North American missionary, advocates for post-civil-war England to adopt a representative democracy, using the Mosaic Law as a model.

Shows God's providence in every aspect of our lives. - Summary by RuthP

"The present work has as its basis the series of five Short Histories by the same author, which appeared in the following order: The Reformation, 1884; The Early Church, 1886; The Medieval Church, 1887; The Modern Church in Europe, 1888; and The Church in the United States, 1890. The five volumes form a connected History of the Church nearly down to the present time." John Fletcher Hurst was an American bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He wrote the 5 histories as Chautauqua textbooks. The audio files are in the following order:Part 1: The Early Church Part 2: The Medieval Church Part 3: The Reformation Part 4: The Modern Church in Europe Part 5: The Church in the United States

The Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe, is an English Protestant account of the persecutions of Protestants, many of whom had died for their beliefs within the decade immediately preceding its first publication. It was first published by John Day, in 1563. Lavishly illustrated with many woodcuts, it was the largest publishing project undertaken in Britain up to that time. Commonly known as, “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs”, the work’s full title begins with “Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church...

The purpose of this book is not to decide the religious issue of the present day, but merely to present the issue as sharply and clearly as possible, in order that the reader may be aided in deciding it for himself...In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology...

There is a tendency in the modern Church to neglect the study of Bible history. Such neglect will inevitably result in a loss of power. The gospel is a record of something that has happened, and uncertainty about the gospel is fatal weakness. Furthermore the historical study of the apostolic age—that age when divine revelation established the great principles of the Church's life—is the best corrective for a thousand vagaries. Much can be learned from modern pedagogy; but after all what is absolutely fundamental, both for teacher and for student, is an orderly acquaintance with the Bible facts...

Henry Martyn , a brilliant and ambitious young student in Cambridge, England, was led by God to be a missionary to India and Persia. While pastoring, starting schools, and teaching the locals as well as Europeans through his role as chaplain for the East India Company, he worked on several far-reaching Bible translations. All this despite much weakness and illness due to harsh climates and difficult travels. This short life of 31 years is a testament to the power of God to work through one life fully dedicated to Him.

A religious autobiography of unsurpassed interest, the simple confidential tone of which "revolutionized the popular estimate of its author," establishing the strength and sincerity of the convictions which had led him into the Roman Catholic Church (Wikipedia). "No autobiography in the English language has been more read; to the nineteenth century it bears a relation not less characteristic than Boswell's 'Johnson' to the eighteenth." Rev. Wm. Barry, D.D.

As a rule, when Cardinal Newman's poetry is mentioned, people think of "The Pillar of the Cloud," better known as "Lead, Kindly Light." This lyric is only one of the many beautiful poems written by an author whose fame as a writer of the finest modern prose in the English language has eclipsed his reputation as a poet. Nevertheless, he wrote a very great poem, "The Dream of Gerontius"—a poem which the intellectual world admires more and more every year, and which yields its best only after careful study and consideration...

John Henry Newman's sermons enter the human heart easily and with transformative power. Lucid thinking, beautiful English prose, an integrated theology, insightful spiritual psychology, and a meditative biblical focus combine to make his sermons live even though many of them were written and preached almost 200 years ago. A convert to Roman Catholicism from the Anglican Church, Newman was made a Cardinal and had a wide influence on Catholic thought. More recently, his spiritual depth and personal holiness have been recognized, and in 2020 he was canonized becoming Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman. - Summary by Russell Hobbs

The Two Treatises of Civil Government is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise is an extended attack on Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, which argued for a divinely-ordained, hereditary, absolute monarchy. The more influential Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society based on natural rights and contract theory. Locke begins by describing the “state of nature,” and goes on to explain the hypothetical rise of property and civilization, asserting that the only legitimate governments are those which have the consent of the people...

The first of 14 volumes, this book discusses ancient civilization looking primarily at religion and philosophy.

"Jesus of Nazareth, a Biography, by John Mark," recognizes the author of the second Gospel as that "John, whose surname was Mark" (Acts 15:37), whom Barnabas chose as companion when he sailed for Cyprus on his second missionary journey. In making use of the new title, the plan of the Editor is to present "The Gospel: According to Mark" as it would be printed were it written in the twentieth rather than the first century. (Introduction from Forward, by D. Appleton & Co, Publishers, 1922)

This book is a collection of English translations of medieval Latin hymns. It contains interesting historical and/or liguistic facts about each hymn, some of which are still used in one form or other in the modern Christian church.Note: An asterisk implies a belief that the piece so marked has not previously appeared in an English translation. - Summary by Devorah Allen

Magnificent in its scale and scope, this monumental poem by the blind poet John Milton was the first epic conceived in the English language. It describes an omniscient, all powerful God, the Fall of Man, the Temptation in the Garden of Eden, the disgraced angel who later becomes known as Satan, the Angelic Wars fought by Archangels Michael and Raphael and the Son of God who is the real hero of this saga. The poet John Milton was more than sixty years old when he embarked on this immense work of literary creation...

Paradise Regained is a poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton, published in 1671. It is connected by name to his earlier and more famous epic poem Paradise Lost, with which it shares similar theological themes. Based on the Gospel of Luke’s version of the Temptation of Christ, Paradise Regained is more thoughtful in writing style, and thrives upon the imagery of Jesus’ perfection in contrast to the shame of Satan.

Having been publicly acknowledged as God's "beloved Son," Jesus retires to the desert to meditate upon what it means to be the Messiah, about whose coming many conflicting opinions have been circulating among the Jews. Although a learned rabbi, Jesus possesses no knowledge beyond what is available to all human beings. Satan also takes a new interest in this favored "son of God" and seeks to learn what threat he constitutes. The poem consists of a debate between these two adversaries, each seeking the same understanding of precisely what mankind's Savior will do in a world where the way to success typically lies through "wealth ...

The celebrated German-British composer G.F. Handel premiered his now famous oratorio "Messiah" in 1742. In 1785 there was a celebration at Westminster Abbey of Handel's birth 100 years before. It was on this occasion that John Newton decided to preach 50 sermons from the Bible passages that form the libretto of Messiah. The sermons were preached over two years in the Parish Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard-Street - 3 miles from Westminster Abbey. - Summary by InTheDesert

Four Letters to a Minister of an Independent Church by a Minister of the Church of England Quid me alta silentia cogis rumpere? - Virgil Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love — Rom. xiv.19 Gal. v.6 First printed in 1764 - Summary by Title Page

John Owen, in this Puritan classic, writes succinctly of the matters of the heart in dealing with sin in the life of the Christian. In a way that cuts right to the heart of the matter while leaving no room for excuses, Owen encourages the Christian to “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”