Their word is enough for me. If they want me to do a
thing, they do not need to come under my roof, to argue with me, to
persuade me, much less to thrust me about, and make me obey them by
force. They say to me, 'Go,' and I go; and I say to those under me,
'Go,' and they go likewise.
And if I can work by a word, cannot this Jesus work by a word
likewise? He is a messenger of God, with commission and authority
from God, to work his will on his creatures. Are not God's
creatures as well ordered, disciplined, obedient, as we soldiers
are? Are they not a hundred times better ordered? A messenger from
God? Is he not a God himself; a God in goodness and mercy; a God in
miraculous power? Cannot he do his work by a word, far more
certainly than I can do mine? If my word can send a man to death,
cannot his word bring a man back to life? Surely it can. 'Lord,
thou needest not to come under my roof; speak the word only, and my
servant shall be healed.'
By some such thoughts as these, I suppose, had this good soldier
gained his great faith; his faith that all God's creatures were in a
divine, and wonderful order, obedient to the will of God who made
them; and that Jesus Christ was God's viceroy and lieutenant (I
speak so, because I suppose that is what he, as a soldier, would
have thought), to carry out God's commands on earth.
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