This volume contains sermons delivered during Newman's post at Oriel College, Oxford. Most of the sermons in this collection include the date of delivery, making it easy to compare the practical, homiletical presentation of Newman's theories to the more intricate nuances of his argument in a corresponding essay.
“Thus the Spirit does not take the place of Christ in the soul, but secures that place to Christ.” (Page 126)
“The Son of God then took our nature on Him, that in Him it might do and suffer what in itself was impossible to it” (Page 79)
“what is the Christian interpretation of this world? What is given us by revelation to estimate and measure this world by” (Page 84)
“but they do not tell this to all men; they leave others to find it out as they may” (Page 88)
“atever He says, whatever He designs, whatever He works, He is just and loving when He thus says, designs, or works.” (Page 65)
The quality of his literary style is so successful that it succeeds in escaping definition. The quality of his logic is that of a long but passionate patience, which waits until he has fixed all corners of an iron trap. But the quality of his moral comment on the age remains what I have said: a protest of the rationality of religion as against the increasing irrationality of mere Victorian comfort and compromise.
The philosophical and theological thought and the spirituality of Cardinal Newman, so deeply rooted in and enriched by Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Fathers, still retain their particular originality and value.
—Pope John Paul II
Newman placed the key in our hand to build historical thought into theology, or much more, he taught us to think historically in theology and so to recognize the identity of faith in all developments.
—Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)