Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1874-05-29

make Christ only frail human is to strike
Christianity in its hearts life, and hence
among the great laws Of the Christian relig-
ion, selected by the measurement in our text,
We must include the divineness of our Lord.
As result Of the principle here given,
that the doctrines Of Christianity are such
as may be tried by experience, hundreds Of
what the world calls dogmas are excluded
from any enumeration Of essentials, aud
must staud only among the facts, or alleged
facts Of Christian history, and not among re-
ligion's laws of life and salvation. God does
not ask you to taste the tasteless, nor TO ex
perience that which lies beyond sight or
sense but to cast yourself into the laws of
faith and conversion, and repentance, and
love and hope, and of the divine Lord, and
upon these be carried by a new, recreative
experience over to a new world called new
heart here--called heaven hereafter. If we
base our religion upon a revelation, we must
find in it not only the existence of doctrine
but the relative value of doctrine. We
need not go to the Bible for truth and to
man for an estimate Of the value Of the
truth. The comparative value Of truth is
to be learned from the guide that pretends
to lead the human race. For example, if
the doctrine of faith plays a more prominent
part in the Bible than the doctrine of infant
baptism, such also will be the order Of their
usefulness and il the three offices Of God,
as Father and Redeemer and Split, are
made more prominent than the idea that
these three persons are one God, then what
mankind will need most, and use most, will
be the three influences, God as Father, God
as Savior, God as Holy Spirit, and what he
may make secondary is the enigma Of the
three in one, for why make prominent things
which are not conspicuous in the inspired
guide BY this estimate Of Christianity, il
lustrated in this DISCOURSE you who are afar
off and unwilling to come nearer to this
Savior, may at least find method of dis
eliminating between a Church weighed down
by hundred declarations, and that simple
religion of Christ which announces but few
laws, and those all measurable by your own
experience. Two hundred years ago pietest
left the world this couplet:
Lutherans, Papists Oalvlnsts abound,
But toll me, where are Christians to DO foundi
The answer is easy, if any one will take as a
guide the words of Christ, which limit the
doctrines to those which the soul can taste.
A thousand sects may all be Christians, it,
far away from their Papacy or Calvinism,
the myriad hearts are daily living amid
those doctrines of experience W ich are few
in number, but which are the modes of life,
the soil, and rain and sunshine of. religions
fowery fields. If yeu, my friend, are giving
your daily thought to the facts of Christian
ity and are standing bewildered to-day amid
the statements of science and Genesis about
earth, or its swarms Of life, recall the truth
that your soul cannot taste any theory OF
mans origin, cannot experience the origin OF
man whatever that origin may have been
but when you come TO the law Of love t
man, aud to the highest sell-love, then yoU
have come to a realm all responsive to your
touch realm all beyond the reach and in
qury of science and the same yesterday, to
day, and forever Thus, turning from onl,
events to the laws of Christianity, you vii
find in faith and love and hope, and in tn
presence of u divine Lord, world that will
every year yield thee such harvest Of vir
tue and Joy as nothing else can ever bring
. Oh, skeptical friend oh, Christian, too A.
each day from the debate over simple events
or entities in religion, to the laws of bein!
that may be tasted like sweet fruit, anC
which confess themselves at once to belong
to the nature OF God aud man. 1t is in thi
realm of experience the millions OF earth be
a come one. From this sea of feelings tn
, spirits of men rise to heaven from ever,
shore. Like golden mist up from it ascend
. ed tho form of Enoch aud the chariot of Eli
f jah. Magdaen, aud John; up from this liv
ing wave went the dark African, and tn,
, Catholic and the Protestant martyrs ant
, lifted by these arms OF a sweet experience
our children who have wholly escaped reig
, ions isolated ideas, rise both in life and il
, death toward God, the immortal trophies
not of dogmas, but Of the laws of faith, AM
p love and worship.