Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and still man’s obligations to God would be unchanged. He would have the same path to tread, only his lamp and guide would be gone; the same voyage to make, but his chart and compass would be overboard!

— Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887), Prediger

Topics: The Bible & the Word of God, Wisdom & Understanding

Henry Ward Beecher

Henry Ward Beecher war ein US-amerikanischer kongregationalistischer Prediger, der im 19. Jahrhundert vier Jahrzehnte lang die Plymouth Church in Brooklyn leitete. Er erlangte Bekanntheit als einflussreicher Redner gegen die Sklaverei und vertrat eine liberale Theologie, die die Liebe Gottes und gesellschaftliche Reformen ins Zentrum rückte. Für Bibelleser steht er für die Verbindung von Glaube und sozialem Engagement, dessen Lebenswerk jedoch durch theologische Kontroversen und einen aufsehenerregenden Ehebruchsskandal in den 1870er-Jahren belastet wurde.

All quotes by Henry Ward Beecher (57)

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The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.
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The law is divine and holy. Let the law have its glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in love, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.
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