The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1870-06-01


mslefactor, who rose from the dead and as
cended to the throne of all power in heaven.
There was nothing inherently revolving to
any cultivated pagan mind in the story that
God had come to earth, and men by mistake
had maltreated him. For the old religions
of every land had given utterance to the
longings of humanity for the coming God
among men, in the legends of many theo-
phany. And had the Apostle come claim,
ing the discovery of this story of Jesus, as
among the legends of the long past ages, In
stead of the history of what had occurred
within fifty years past, amid the splendors of
the highest age of philosophy, his story
might have stirred the heart of all Rome for
time. Or had he merely asked for Jesus
a place, even conspicuous place, among the
thousands of gods in the Pantheon, Roman
liberalism might have been ready enough to
vote Jesus, niche number thirty thousand and
one. But what would Rome think of the
very effroDtery of intolerance ia4Alved in the
declaration: ''Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none other name, given
under heaven among men, whereby we must
be saved" Aside from this intolerance and
its character as nOvus superetio, the real
stumbling block was the three great funda-
mental truths involved in the story of Jesus,
each equally hateful-the truth that God
hath spoken by his son in the last times, re
vealing God to man and man to himself, or
the doctrine of Christ the Prophet; the
truth that God hath provided way of res
toration of man, conscious of his depravity,
and impotence, and guilt, through the vicari-
Gus substitute obeying and dying for him, or of
the doctrine of Christ and Priest the truth
that God, through this prophetic and priestly
work, is gathering an elect people, out of the
wreck of humanity in all nations and kin
dred, under Jesus as its head and ruler, or
the doctrine of Christ the King. How alb
surd seemed to the educated Roman and the
philosophers this claim that no man can
know God except as the Son reveals Him /!
How hateful the declaration that, instead of
coming merely to make better something not
quite so good, this religion sweeps away all
there is in men of moral and spiritual good
ness to prepare for new creation, its foun-
dation resting wholly upon the obedience
and suffering of another How offensive to
the ethical pride of the stoic How prepos-
ferrous to the goddess epicurean! How re-
voting to the frivolty, self-love and selfish
ness of the people And above all, when it
came to proclaiming the third great elemen-
tary gospel truth of spiritual community
and kingdom of which Jesus is King, and
which asks no leave of Caesar to be as uni
versal as Caesars, but yet assimilating in one
spirit as we'll as under one rule, Jew or
Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free,
how does this gospel seem to shut the door
upon itself. and expose itself to be dragged
as "reEgio izzicita before the civil tribu-
nails.
These few hints must suffice concerning
the insuperable obstacles to such a gospel.
Nevertheless, the gospel came to Rome and
there made the "erperimentatm " crucis' and
triumphed. And here stands the history of
that triumph to protest, through all the fol-
lowing ages, against the cowardice which,
looking at external prospects rather than at
the inherent power of the gospel, would
seek to avoid difficulty by striving to declare
the whole counsels of God; against the
faithlessness that, in despair of Christ's ap-
pointed means and agencies, would profusely
seek to supplement them by human devices
and expediencies to give the gospel success;
against the shallow self.conceit which, to Sc
cure the patronage of the wise and the great,
would have gospel stalk in the pompous gait
and swelling airs of science falsely so called;
against the unworthy conception that, in her
great emergency, the Church of God can be
saved only by the strategy of flank move
ment on the gates of hell, which seem to pre-
vail against her.
The preacher then proceeded to show the
remarkable analogy between this tendency
of religious thought at the elimination, and
incipient decay of Roman civilization, and
the tendencies of religious thought now at
the elimination, and possibly incipient decay,
of the modern Protestant civilization. He
remarked that in the organization of the in
stitutions of pure gospel by the error of
uniting religion with the civil power, "the
fathers had eaten the sour grapes, and now
their children's teeth were set on edge. -
And that owing to the sympathy between
the religious thought of America and Eu-
rope the effect of that error is seen here also.
Here the preacher presented the following
picture of the modern skepticism:
The one grand popularity of modern
scepticism is its tendency to disguise itself
under the mask of respect and even zeal for
the religion of Christ. Even the Atheism
of our day, while denying practically the
Divine existence. takes care to substitute for
God some sort of shadow of Him to conceal
the infinite vacuum in His universe. The
Pantheism of the modern age, while denying
the Divine personality, yet provides some
idol of the Imagination to amuse and quiet
the terrors of a conscious orphanage. The
Naturalism of this day, while denying, as
of old, the existence of Divine Providence,
vet personifes some blind eternal law by way
Of providing keeper of the universe. The
Spiritualism of this age, while denying the
need of any personal Divine Redeemer,
carefully provides opiates to lull the con-
science to sleep while it steals away the re-
deeming sacrifice from human thought The
Secularism of this day masks itself to per-
senate the gospel philanthropy, while it
SCOTS at the laggard Church, and insists that
man shall "live by bread alone without
every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God," and persistently endeavors
to silence the cry of souls still hungry after
"feeding on the husks that the swine do eat, "
only with more husks. But still more dan
gerous than any, or all these foes in the field
of speculative philosopy are the masked as
sassins that emerge in rapid succession from
the cavernous wooden horse which the mod
ern Church has allowed to be brought within
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