True Words for Brave Men: A Book for Soldiers' and Sailors' LibrariesKingsley, Charles
Religion
True Words for Brave Men: A Book for Soldiers' and Sailors' Libraries
Kingsley, Charles
Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English
Then--there is a sign--there is the sign which has stood stedfast and
sure to you--and to your fathers--and your forefathers before them--back
for eighteen hundred years, over half the world. There is the bread of
which He said, "Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you."
There is the wine of which He said, "This cup is the New Covenant in my
blood, which is shed for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins."
There is His sign. Don't ask _how_. Don't try to explain it away, and
fancy that you can find fitter, and soberer, and safer, and more gospel-
sounding words than Jesus Christ's own, by which to speak of His own
Sacrament. But say, with the great Queen Elizabeth of old, when men
tried too curiously to enquire into her opinion concerning this blessed
mystery--
"Christ made the Word and spake it,
He took the bread and brake it,
And what His Word did make it,
That I believe, and take it."
He said, "This bread is my body which was broken for you." He said,
"This cup is the New Testament in my blood." Is it? or is it not? And
if it is, is not Christ among us now, indeed? Is not that something
better than all the preaching in the world? Jesus Christ, the King of
kings--the Saviour--the Deliverer--the Lamb of God--the Everlasting
Son--the Word--the Light--the Life--is here among us ready to feed our
souls in the Holy Sacrament of His body and blood, as surely as that
bread and wine will feed our bodies--yea--to feed our souls and bodies to
everlasting life. "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters
and drink. Come, buy wine without money and without price."
III. IS, OR IS NOT, THE BIBLE TRUE?
"If I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?"--JOHN viii. 46.
Is, or is not, the Bible true? To this question we must all come some
day or other. Do you believe that that book which lies there, which we
call the Bible, is a true book, or a lying book? Is it true or false? Is
it right or wrong? Is it from God, or is it not from God? Let us answer
that. If it is not from God, let it go; but if it _is_ from God, which
we know it is, how dare we disobey it?
That _God_, the maker of heaven and earth, should speak to men--should
set His commands down in a book and give it to them--and that they should
neglect it, disobey it--it is the strangest sight that can be seen on
earth! that God in heaven should say one thing, and a human being, six
feet high at most, should dare to do another!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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