W.R. Inge
William Ralph Inge (June 6, 1860 – February 26, 1954) was an English preacher, Anglican priest, and scholar whose intellectual ministry as Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and prolific writings earned him the nickname “The Gloomy Dean.” Born in Crayke, Yorkshire, to Rev. William Inge, a curate and later Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, and Susanna Churton, daughter of an archdeacon, he grew up in a staunchly high-church family. Educated at Eton College as a King’s Scholar, where he won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1879, Inge excelled at King’s College, Cambridge, earning first-class honors in the Classical Tripos. Ordained a deacon in 1888 after teaching at Eton (1884–1888), he married Mary Catharine Spooner in 1905, finding personal stability in middle age that eased his earlier melancholy. Inge’s preaching career blended academic rigor with pastoral influence. After serving as a tutor at Hertford College, Oxford (1888–1904), he became vicar of All Saints, Knightsbridge (1905–1907), then Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (1907–1911). Appointed Dean of St. Paul’s in 1911 by Prime Minister Asquith, he served until 1934, drawing large congregations with sermons that fused Christian mysticism and neoplatonic philosophy—most notably in The Philosophy of Plotinus (1918), his Gifford Lectures. His Outspoken Essays (1919, 1922) and Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1926, 1931), alongside a long Evening Standard column (1921–1946), showcased his sharp critiques of Roman Catholicism, social welfare, and naive progressivism, earning three Nobel Prize in Literature nominations. A proponent of experiential faith over institutional authority, he opposed dogma while defending reason in religion.
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W.R. Inge preaches about the incomparable value of God's grace in the lives of believers, emphasizing that all human works and earthly riches are nothing compared to even the smallest work of grace in the soul. Grace, given by the whole Trinity, frees believers from temptations, worldly burdens, and elevates their spirits to heavenly realms. It has the power to transform sorrows into sweetness, change desires from worldly to spiritual, and make the soul find delight in humility and detachment from earthly things.
The Efficacy of Divine Grace
ALL works which men and all creatures can ever work even to the end of the world, without the grace of God--all of them together, however great they may be, are an absolute nothing, as compared with the smallest work which God has worked in men by His grace. As much as God is better than all His creatures, so much better are His works than all the works, or wisdom, or designs, which all men could devise. Even the smallest drop of grace is better than all earthly riches that are beneath the sun. Yea, a drop of grace is more noble than all angels and all souls, and all the natural things that God has made. And yet grace is given more richly by God to the soul than any earthly gift. It is given more richly than brooks of water, than the breath of the air, than the brightness of the sun; for spiritual things are far finer and nobler than earthly things. The whole Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, give grace to the soul, and flow immediately into it; even the highest angel, in spite of his great nobility, cannot do this. Grace looses us from the snares of many temptations; it relieves us from the heavy burden of worldly cares, and carries the spirit up to heaven, the land of spirits. It kills the worm of conscience, which makes sins alive. Grace is a very powerful thing. The man, to whom cometh but a little drop of the light of grace, to him all that is not God becomes as bitter as gall upon the tongue. (86) Grace makes, contrary to nature, all sorrows sweet, and brings it about that a man no longer feels any relish for things which formerly gave him great pleasure and delight. On the other hand, what formerly disgusted him, now delights him and is the desire of his heart--for instance, weakness, sorrow, inwardness, humility, self-abandonment, and detachment from all the creatures. All this is in the highest degree dear to him, when this visitation of the Holy Ghost, grace, has in truth come to him. Then the sick man, that is to say the external man, with all his faculties is plunged completely into the pool of water, even as the sick man who had been for thirty-eight years by the pool at Jerusalem, and there washes himself thoroughly in the exalted, noble, precious blood of Christ Jesus. For grace in manifold ways bathes the soul in the wounds and blood of the holy Lamb, Jesus Christ. (22)
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William Ralph Inge (June 6, 1860 – February 26, 1954) was an English preacher, Anglican priest, and scholar whose intellectual ministry as Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and prolific writings earned him the nickname “The Gloomy Dean.” Born in Crayke, Yorkshire, to Rev. William Inge, a curate and later Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, and Susanna Churton, daughter of an archdeacon, he grew up in a staunchly high-church family. Educated at Eton College as a King’s Scholar, where he won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1879, Inge excelled at King’s College, Cambridge, earning first-class honors in the Classical Tripos. Ordained a deacon in 1888 after teaching at Eton (1884–1888), he married Mary Catharine Spooner in 1905, finding personal stability in middle age that eased his earlier melancholy. Inge’s preaching career blended academic rigor with pastoral influence. After serving as a tutor at Hertford College, Oxford (1888–1904), he became vicar of All Saints, Knightsbridge (1905–1907), then Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (1907–1911). Appointed Dean of St. Paul’s in 1911 by Prime Minister Asquith, he served until 1934, drawing large congregations with sermons that fused Christian mysticism and neoplatonic philosophy—most notably in The Philosophy of Plotinus (1918), his Gifford Lectures. His Outspoken Essays (1919, 1922) and Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1926, 1931), alongside a long Evening Standard column (1921–1946), showcased his sharp critiques of Roman Catholicism, social welfare, and naive progressivism, earning three Nobel Prize in Literature nominations. A proponent of experiential faith over institutional authority, he opposed dogma while defending reason in religion.