The World's Great Sermons, Volume 01 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 189 pages of information about The World's Great Sermons, Volume 01.

The World's Great Sermons, Volume 01 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 189 pages of information about The World's Great Sermons, Volume 01.

Also ye say this, As a man may light many candles at one candle, and yet the light of that candle is never the more nor ever the less; so ye say that the manhood of Christ descendeth into each part of every host, and the manhood of Christ is never the more nor less.  Where then becometh your ministrations?  For if a man light many candles at one candle, as long as they burn there will be many candles lighted, and as well the last candle as the first; and so by this reason, if ye shall fetch your word at God, and make God, there must needs be many gods, and that is forbidden in the first commandment, Exod. xx.  And as for making more, either making less, of Christ’s manhood, it lieth not in your power to come there nigh, neither to touch it, for it is ascended into heaven in a spiritual body, which He suffered not Mary Magdalen to touch, when her sins were forgiven to her.

Therefore all the sacraments that are left here in earth are but minds of the body of Christ, for a sacrament is no more to say but a sign or mind of a thing passed, or a thing to come; for when Jesus spake of the bread, and said to His disciples, As ye do this thing, do it in mind of me, it was set for a mind of good things passed of Christ’s body; but when the angel showed to John the sacraments of the woman and of the beast that bare her, it was set for a mind of evil things to come on the face of the earth, and great destroying of the people of God.  And in the old law there were many figures or minds of things to come.  For before Christ, circumcision was commanded by a law; and he that kept not the law was slain.  And yet St. Paul saith, “And neither is it circumcision that is openly in the flesh, but he that is circumcised of heart in spirit, not the letter whose praising is not of men, but of God.”  Peter saith in the third chapter of his epistle, “And so baptism of like form maketh not us safe, but the putting away of the filthiness of the flesh, and the having of good conscience in God by the rising again of our Lord Jesus Christ from death, that we should be made heirs of everlasting life, He went up into heaven, and angels, and powers, and virtues, are made subjects to Him.”

And also the Scripture saith of John Baptist, that he preached in the wilderness and said, “A stronger than I shall come after me, and I am not worthy to kneel down and unlace His shoe;” and yet Christ said that he was more than a prophet.  See also Isaiah xl., Matt. xi.  How may ye then say that ye are worthy to make His body, and yet your works bear witness that ye are less than the prophets? for if ye were not, ye should not teach the people to worship the sacraments or minds of Christ for Christ himself; which sacraments or figures are lawful as God taught them and left them unto us, as the sacrifices or minds of the old law were full good.  As it is written, “They that kept them should live in them.”  And so the bread that Christ brake was left to us for mind of things passed for

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The World's Great Sermons, Volume 01 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.