The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1878-01-24

nave ever judged their brethren
since time began-more acceptable
by far to Him who, on, the cross
prayed tor His murderers, and who
died that they might live-more &C
ceptable, | say, than the delight
? which amid deluge of ruin hugs
the plank on which alone itself is
saved, would be the noble and trem.
bling piety which made st. Paul de
clare himself ready to be anathema
from Christ for the sake of his breth-
rem, which made Moses cry to God
at Sinai, ''Oh, this people have sin
ned great sin; yet now, if Thou
wilt, forgive their sin, and if not,
blot me, | pray Thee, out of Thy
Book which thou hast written"
DR.. FarrRr very earnestly asked
his hearers to believe that he spoke
not with natural passion, but with
most accurate theological precis
ion when he said that though texts
might be quoted which gave prima
iacie plausibility to such modes of
teaching, yet, to say nothing Of the
tact that the light of love which
God himself has kindled within us,
recoiled from them, those texts are,
in the first place, alien to the broad,
unifying principles of Scripture;
that, in the next place, they are
founded on interpretations demon
strably groundless, and, in the
third place, that for every one so
quote d two can be adduced on the
other side. There was an old, GEN.
sible admitted rule of theology that
phrases, which belong to metaphor,
to imagery, to poetry, to emotion,
are not to be formulated into dog
mas or crystalized into rigid creeds.
If this rule be used to test them,
nine tenths of the phrases on which
these views are built fall utterly to
the ground. But even were it 9TH
erwise, once more, in the name of
Christian light and Christian llber-
ty; once more, in the name of
Christ's promised Spirit, he protest
ed against the ignorant tyranny Of
isolated texts, which had been the
curse of Christian truth, the glory
of narrow intellects, and the cause
of the worst errors of the worst
days of the most corrupted church.
Ignorance had engraved texts upon
her sword, oppression had carved
them upon her pillars, cruelty had
tied texts upon her faggots, and ig-
norance, again, had set knowledge
at defiance with texts woven on her
flag.
"If this awful doctrine had to be
decided by texts, then the original
language must be appealed to, and
interpreted in it's proper and histo-
rical significance. They would have
to be Interpreted not in that sense
which makes them convey a thou
sand different notions which did not
originally belong to them. Now l
ask you," continued the preacher,
very solemnly, "where would be the
popular teachings about hell if we
calmly and deliberately eraced from
our English Bibles the three words;
'damnation,' HELL and 'everlast
ingY Yet 1 say unhesitatingly-I
say, claiming the fullest right TO
speak with the authority of knowl
edge-I say, with the calmest and
most unfinching sense of RESPONSE
bility-I cay, standing here in the
sight of God and of my Savior, and
1t may be, of the angels and the
spirits OF the dead-that not one of
those words ought to stand any
longer in our English Bibles; and
that being, in our present accepta-
ton of them, simply observation-disclosures
they most unquestioaably will not
stand in the revised version of the
Bible if the revisers have under.
stood their duty"
After explaining the original
meaning of the words, he closed by
saying that finding, neither in Scrip.
ture nor anywhere, anything to
prove that the fate of every man is
at death irrevocably determined, he
shook off the hideous incubus of
atrocious conceptions attached by
false theory to the doctrine of final
retribution. But neither could he
speak dogmatically on the other
side. He could not preach the GER
tainty OF what was called Universal
ism-that all will finally be saved
though that doctrine did, indeed,
derive much support from many
passages of Scripture, and had been
held by some of the early Fathers.
Neither could he accept the spread
ingbelief in conditional immortality,
His belief was fixed upon the living
God, and ais answer to the ques-
ton, What is the fate of dead sin
ners? was, with Thomas Erskine,
that we are lost here as much as
there, and that Christ came to seek
and to save the lost. His hope was
that the vast majority OF the lost
would at length be found.
If any hardened sinner, shame
fully loving his sin and despising
the long suffering of his Savior, tri-
fed with that doctrine, 1t was at his
own deep and awful peril; but to
those longing and anxious souls
who were striving to keep nearer
to the light, he would say: Have
faith IN God. There is hope for
you-hope for you, even if death |
overtake you before the final vic |
tory is won. "Say We 10 the right
eous that 1t shall be well with him,
for they shall eat the fruit of their
doings. Woe unto the wicked; IL
shall be i'll with him, for the reward |
of his hand shall be given HIM"
But say also as Christ's own apos-
ties said, that there shall be a resti
tuition of all things-that God will
eth not that any should perish
that Christ both died, and rose, and
revived, that He might be the Lord
both Of the dead and of the living
that as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive; and 4
that the day shall come when all
things shall be subdued unto Him,
that God may be all in all.
In the second sermon Canon Far
rar sought to answer the question,
"Are there few that be savedY' TAX
ing for his text Luke xiii, 1924.
This passage, he remarked, gives us
the very essence of the Lords
teaching respecting the present and