, 1876-11-18

When announced my subject for this
morning it was my purpose to have dis
au>sed several Of the phases of the rcIa
tion>hip in which we stand as children
Of God; but, rs | thonght more and
more Of it. the first one of those relation.
ships grew dpon me so that found my
self compelled to coniinc myself simply
to that one so that the subject an
nounccd does not quite accurately cX.
press the topic which | wish to bring he.
fore you.
| have taken my text from the 18th
chapter of Pauls second letter TO the
Corinthians, part of the 14th verse. |
will read all Of Ii, and then emphasize
in a second reading the part which | take
for my text: Behold, the third time |
am ready to come to you that is, to
visit this church." and | will not be
burlensomc to you; for seek not yours,
hut you; for the children ought not to
lay up for the parents, but the parents
for the children This last part Of the
verse is my text: "F0r tie clH,irca ovgAt
not to Say mp Jar the parents, Int tie pa-
rents Jor tile HH,iren."
The oldest name in the written rclig.
ions records of the world, the oldestname
attributed to God, is that Of "Fathcr'
| used to think as | read the New Tcsta.
ment that this was an idea revealed to us
for the first time in history by Jesus
Christ that he first gave uttcrance to the
grand conception--"Our Father, which
art in heaven But if you will turn to
the records of the religious thought of
the most ancient nation that we know of
as occupying India, the nation from
whose thought as well as along whose
physical line of descent we have come.
IN their scriptures, the Rig Veda, you will
find that the oldest name on record for
% God is Heaven Father; the same name
which was afterwards translated and used
among the Greeks and Romans and is
known to us as "Jupiter." Jupiter is
simply another way of saying "Our
Father, which art in ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Father And as this is one of the old
est names for God so it is the one that
the thought and the heart of humanity
cling to and seem most fully to Justify;
and it is the name, probably, which will
live as long as any applied to him--the
object of our aspiration, of our love and
our worship. There have been names of
fear, of terror, or OF beauty, of strength,
of greatness, of majesty, applied to God;
but there is no one of them that com.
prises the justice, the tenderness, the
majesty and the love SO completely as
does this name of father, as given to him
who has made and who rules all things
But we have great many experiences
in our lives that seem to us utterly in
. consistent with our being able 10 attrib-
ute the character of Father to Him
who has ordered those lives; and there
is large school of thought, very promi-
nent at the present day, which is ready
to deny our right to argue from our hu-
man relations up to the divine. One of
the prominent representatives CT this
school OF thought is John Stuart Mill.
tie says: We simply know what exists
here. We know that, rs far as this world
is concerned, two and two make four:
but there may be a planet somewhere in
the deeps of space, and there may be in
habitants of that planet, and if we could
transport ourselves to them we should
find that two and two there make five.
That is, he denied the right to argue
from what we know toward the infinite,
the high, the distant, which we do not
know. So that the representatives of
this school of thought are ready to say,
I'VE have no right to claim that God is
anything like human father: that he
has anything of the love for humanity.
as his children, which father ought to
nave; that he feels anything of a fathers
tenderness; that he is ready to exercise
anything like fathers care, or to feel
himself bound by fathers obligations" "
But one thing | feel sure of: Here are
fathers and mothers having just this
father and mother love, this tenderness,
this care, toward the children Of their
bodies and their hearts. This father-love