The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-12-30
DOWN WITH HE'LL.
THE SERMON THAT Is CONFUSING
LONDON.

Canon FAFFRT OH Gu6 bWgbFAMG w AsHeASss |
Fundamentals Rejects 1t on The
Authority of the Fathers, and Claims
that 1T Is Not the Doctrine of the
Church.
[London Christian World Nov. 2s.l
DR.. Farrar, Canon of Westminster, and
author of the most popular Life Of Christ
Of our time-read and admired OF late years
in thousands of Christian families has been
preaching at the Abbey on subjects relating
TO the future life. Both last Sunday and Sun
day week the minister was crowded with peo-
pie to listen to these discourses.. The throng
was SO great that many had to stand
throughout the services.
In his first discourse, based upon Peter,
iv. 6, DR.. Farrar discussed the subject OF the
future punishment OF the unsodly. In reply !
to questions which he assumed his audience
to be asking, and which he said they had the
fullest right to ask, and which 1t was the
bounden duty of ministers of the Gospel, as
far as possible, to answer, he, for one, 10 gu
deep humility, yet always asking aod i9r
| try to give such answers as he could: LII IL
were but the fragments of an answer, 1t was
because he believed it was Gods will that no
other should be possible Those VINO ;, t2ok
| those who cared more for authority than Tor
reason and conscience, those who pretended
| to dignity with the name of Seriptural arEu-
Of single texts those who talked with the
calls itself knowledge, as though they had
been admitted into what, with unconscious
blasphemy. they called the Council Chamber
OF the Trnity-the perhaps, might speak
readily of fire and birthstone, and might feel
| the consolatory glow OF o personal security,
as they dilate upon the awfulness and
| finaIity of the sufferings OF the damned
But those whose faith must have
| q broader basis than hollow representations,
| than the ambiguousness of opposing texts;
| those who grieve over the dark shadows hung
| by human theologians over Gods light; those
who believed that reason and conscience and
| experience-no less than the Scr1pture-ale
no less the books Of God, and that they, too,
| must have direct voice In these great decls-
IONS they would not be SO ready to snatch
Gods thunder into wretehed and feeble hands.
They would lay their mouths In the dust
rather than make sad the hearts which God
has not made sad. They would take into &C
count the grand principles which dominate
through Scripture, no less than It's isolated
expressions; and, undeterred by the base and
feeble notion that virtue would be Impossible
without the horrors of an endless hell, they
death, through the infinite mercy OF the lov-
ing Father, the dead would be alive. again.
and multitudes. at any rate. OF the lost be
found.
proceeded to state what, after. years OF
thought on the subject, he believed, aud what
he knew to be the belief of multitudes, and OF
mountaineering multitudes, OF the wisest
| and n1OSG IeaTIhu Ill bltb 1lluICH ElbGttJljlS
to examine the subject In detail, he first set
forth the popular notions OF hell, to be found
. in the early theologians-in Dante, In Milton
and in Shakespeare, citing some OF the most
, terrific passages descriptive OF endless tor
, ture. Happily, the thoughts and hearts of
men were often far gentler and nobler than
their creeds, customs and traditions. 1t was
only when these topics were treated by mar
row-minded and loveless hearts that they
were seen in all their intolerable ghastliness.
He knew of nothing SO calculated to make the
whole soul revolt with loathing from every
doctrine of religion as the easy complacency
with which some cheerfully accept the belief
that they are living and moving In the midst
of millions doomed irreversibly to everlasting
perdition. No language could be stern enough
to reprobate the manner in which many
! elder brothers Of the Prodigal had turned
Gods Gospel of plenteous redemption into
!, anathemas and all but universal perdition.
II we were not unaffected when the destitute
perish with hunger, or the dying agonize in
the dignity OF q human being who did not re-
| volt and sicken at the notion Of q world of
worm and flame? II st. Paul again and
again flung from him, with " God forbid"
the conclusions OF an apparently irresistible
logic, we surely, who had no irresistible logic
against us i'm this matter, but only In great
part spiritual selfishness and impenetrable
traditions, do we not in the high name OF
outraged conscience of humanity-nay, in
the far higher name of the God who loves us,
of the Saviour who died for us, of the Holy
Ghost who enlightens us-dO we not hurl
from us representations OF O. doctrine SO hor-
rible that every nerve and fibre OF our intel
lectual, moral and spiritual life revolts at 1t
Ignorance may, If it will, make fetish of
! such doctrine; pharisaism may write it
, broad under its phylaacteries; hatred hatred may
ence of SO many living, and in this
vast mausoleum of the glorious dead.here,
amid the silent memorials OF the men OF fame
| ,hnrso # yhTrl
though not saints, were yet noble, though
erring men, and whom, though they and we
alike shall certainly suffer, and suffer bitter
ly, both here and hereafter, the penalty OF I'M.
as condemned to unutterable fortunes by ire,
versible DEGREES. II repudiate," exclaimed
! the preacher, ''these crude and CHASTITY ira
, vesties of the holy and awful will OF God: l
peach them as falsehood against Christ g
, universal and absolute redemption. |
denounce them as blasphemy against God 8
exceeding and eternal love. More acceptable,
, most uncompromising orthodoxy, Of all the
Pharisees who have ever judged their breth-
rem since the time began-more acceptable by
= far to Him who, on the cross prayed for His
; live--more acceptable | say, than the delight
which amid a deluge Of ruin hugs the plank
! on which alone itself is saved, would be the
/ noble and trembling piety which made st.
Paul declare n1nSelI READY 10 pe aiatHeiua
! from Christ for the sake of his brethren, which
l made Moses cry to God at Sinai, oh! this
: people have sinned great SIM yet now i
: Thou wilt forgive their sin, and If not, blot
me- pray Thee, out of Thy Book which Thou
= hast written
o Dr.. Farrar very earnestly asked his hear
: ers to believe that he spoke not with natural
= passion, but with the most accurate theologi-
5 cal precision when he said that though texts
might be quoted which gave prtma facie
nlai1sibility to such modes of teaching, yet, TIC
say nothing of the fact that the light Of love
which God Himself has kindled within us, re-
D coied from them those texts are in the first
: place alien to the broad, unifying principles
9 of Scripture; that, in the next place, they are
/ founded on interpretations demonstrably
), groundless; and, in the third place, that, for
! every one so quoted two can be adduced on
/ the other side There was an old, sensible
:, admitted rule Of theology that phrases which