The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-08-18
Worthy and Worthless Sermons.

Worthy and Worthless Sermons.
Plymouth pulpit has been charged with
issuing an emasculated theology. The charge
has been denied by it's pastor, who claims
tor himself as much orthodoxy and as
much personal Independence IS Can be
conveniently or consistently yoked together.
During his vacation his congregation, or that
portion Of it which belongs to the home guard.
has had some little opportunity to compare
Mr.. Beecher's theology with that of his
temporary supplies and to render YER
dict accordingly. Whatever we may have
thought or said heretofore concerning the
theology Of Plymouth pulpit or its pastor, we
must confess, from the specimen before us
to-day, that Mr.. Quint, of New Bedford, can
take the prize for presenting the very best
skeleton-the most emasculated the
ology-that has ever yet appeared
in that place. Our faithful representa-
tive declares that it was string of anec-
'dotes told in an after-dinner kind of talk, but
with no indication that he was preaching
living gospel to dying or even to thinking
men. Nor indeed was he His gospel was
dead, and not living, and we have no doubt
that any right-thinking man, not in the same
business, will readily agree with our verdict.
The text was one of the grandest in the Bible
from which to preach thoroughly practical
Gospel sermon. But we have instead mass
of twaddle and silly anecdotes to illustrate the
great doctrine of Christ's sympathy with
h,,vo nit ho Go MI IIa "a: 4
all, ought to pray to be delivered from such
friends. "What is the chaff to the wheat,
saith the Lord9 He that hath dream, let
him tell it; and he that hath My Word, let him
declare it." But why should any man pre-
Stunning to be minister of Christ present such
nonsense to Christian audience as the
gospel of Christ =? We are sick of it and the
people are tired Of it, and hence the complaint
that the churches cannot be filed nor kept
full.
DR.. -Duryea, we are told, described the
proper methods to be adopted in leading
others to salvation, and, in doing SO, it is
intimated that he denounced the preaching of
hell and damnation to sinners. "In order to
quicken o man towards his own salvation
it will depend great deal upon the
simplicity, the manliness and the natural
everyday way of our expression the
number of souls we save" But all
men ore not made alike, nor are
they Influenced alike. While, therefore
some men may be moved towards God by
His manifested love and goodness, others may
require the terrors Of the law and the old
Methodistic idea of hell and damnation to
drive them Godward. It must be ad-
mitted that comparatively more souls
were saved under that old un-
polished style Of preaching than are now
brought into the kingdom of grace or of God
by the silver-tongued, smooth-worded, cush-
toned and padded or emasculated theology of
the present day. 1t will not do therefore, to
discard all old ideas or forms simply because
they are old, any moro than to cling tena-
ciously to them, for the same reason,
DIR. J. B. Wakely corrected the erroneous
little what they believe SO long as they are
sincere in their belief; but, as the Doctor re-
marked, sincerity does not sanction error"
and yet the men who so loudly and strenu-
ously insist upon the sincerity of their belief
as all-suficient are the men, in nine cases out
of ten, who either believe in nothing or in
lie. Christianity has its positive side as well
as its negative. There are things in it to be be-
heved as well as things that look like it to be
cast aside and disbelieved, And al q man