Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-10-23
GRAND RAPIDS WIS., THURSDAY, OCT. g. 1873
"Our Father, which art i'll Hea.
ven.
ABSTRACT Of Sermon by r. III. Web
ster, Grand Rapids, Oct. 12th, 1873:

When the first pair went forth from
the creative hand of God, and began
to live upon the new and beautiful
earth, it appears they knew their maker
AMI recognized him, in the fullest sense
as father Whatever name they called
hin, by, it must certainly have meant
to them all that we ordinarily mean by
our word, father. They regarded him
as Creator, as their author, as the pre-
server, as proprietor Of the earth and
heavens, as possessed Of all authority.
and, as able to do anything for them.
They could have felt no fear or care,
save fear to disobey him and a care
to please him. Moreover they saw
him he was revealed to their bodily
senses. As the apostles, by their very
eyes and ears, apprehended in Jesus
Christ, the attributes Of "the mighty
God, the everlasting Father,' so was
the Father revealed to the FIRST Of the
human race.
| Though they knew but little Of him.
lust as children know little Of their
parents, yet they knew HIM, even as a
child knows its mother, and though
not even conscious of it, just as chill
dren are not, yet they trusted and re-
vered their Father and had they been
content with the simple trust and obe-
dience of their first days, the Father
would never have hid his presence
from them. But they became curious,
were tempted to doubt his wisdom and
goodness, and they choose to trust
their own wisdom and to follow the
counsels of the serpent. They forsook
The Father; and their children follow
ed them in the bad way, aud He, see
ing them fully set to do after the i'm
agination Of their own hearts, hid his
face from them. He did not forsake
his children, nor cease to love them,
but he withdrew his manifested per-
sonal presence, and left them to try
fully their own way, and they learned by
experience that safety and peace lie only
in the way of trustful obedience to the
Father. The world finds it long and
terrible lesson. At the first, it went
straight away from its Father, and be-
fore many centuries it had wandered
away from even the recollection OF
him. And SO the children of men
.'become vain in their Imagination and
their foolish heart was darkened ; pro-
Tossing themselves to be wise they be-
came fools, and changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into an image,
made like to corruptible man, and to
four-footed beasts, and creeping things ;
they changed the truth of God into a
lie and worshipped and served the
creature more than the creator who is
God blessed forever"
Yet did not their Father forsake
them. He gave them, still Grain from
heaven and fruitful seasons filling their
hearts with food and gladness,' and
though, obliged to let them have their
own way, for only so could they learn
where it would lead to and where end, vet
he gave them counsel as he could, and
sought; eyermore, to persuade them
into the way of peace. Though, in
their blindness and self-sufficiency they
could not appreciate his fatherhoods
yet he made known his judicial author
|ity, his kingly power, his inhexible
righteousness, and many feared and
served him. As fast as they could un-
derstand it and be blessed by it, he re
vealed too, his fatherly character, and
when the world had learned the folly
and sin of it's voluntary orphanage anC
felt its need, he sent his sou, fully tt
reveal hat the world had forgotten
and Jesus Christ taught men to say
"Our Father."
Again in forgetting its Father, the
world had run after great variety o
gods, and "there gods many and lords
many and men were divided, and Sc
they lost sight of the brotherhood o.
the race; but Jesus Christ in reveal
ing the one universal and everlasting
Father revealed also anew the one-ues
of the great family and taught men t.
say ssOur Father
Once more-we use the term as be
longing to our earthly and tempora
relationship, and so common and famil
lar is the same as connected with veal
and selfish and ignorant men, that w,
need something added, suggestive O