Quotes from Andrew Purves

I]t is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice.

A man must himself be cleansed, before cleansing others: himself become wise, that he may make others wise; become light, and then give light: draw near to God, and so bring others near; be hallowed, then hallow them; be possessed of hands to lead others by the hand, of wisdom to give advice. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 2.71

Without incarnation the Word would not have become flesh, and Jesus would not have existed; without ascension our humanity would not have entered into communion with the Father, and Jesus would have no continuing ministry. With the incarnation, God made his "home" in our human place; with the ascension, Jesus, the human one, has made his "home" in God's place, from whence in the Spirit he continues to exercise his mission from the Father.

thinking wrongly about God leads us to live wrongly.

Protestants now recognize that the Reformation itself had deeply pastoral roots. The concern was not for the reformation of doctrine and the church as such, but for the care of people in their lives before God, with the realization that thinking wrongly about God leads us to live wrongly.