The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-01-27
FIFTH AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH.
LIFE ABoUNDING IN CHRIsT-sERMoN BY REV.
ARMITAGE

LIFE ABoUNDING IN CHRIsT-sERMoN BY REV.
DIR. ARMITAGE.
The Rev. DIR. Armitage took his text from John <.
1O-'I came that they may have life and that they
may have it abundantly." Nothing excites quick
and hearty response from the heart of man. said the
preacher. life. The lofty mountain. the laboring
and the sketching sky, all challenge his admira-
ton by their sublimity; but they do not stir his
whole nature like things of life. And in ex-
act proportion to the abundance Of life is its stirring
effects. school of fish, drove of animals. flock
OF birds a crowd Of men arouse our sympathes as
individual Of these species cannot Largeness Of
life either commands our love alarms fears.
But we are charmed also with the strength and full
of life in the individual. We say of the young
lamb leaping in the field in the spring Of the year.
the trout leaping in the brook after its insect food
of the frolcsome boy and his dog and the thousand
other things, GLOW full of life!" and they give de-
light We pity the weakly, struggling for life,
but succeeding only in making out dwarfed. feeble.
chilly existence; but cannot admire their weak
We like life that is restless exuberant,
ming over brimful laughing and running over again,
crying, and again running over In any way the full
of life is heavenly note breaking the heart.
1t is this that makes the june forest delicious Its
widespread branches, its large leaves, with their
Deep glossy beauty its happy songsters. its graceful
ferns and new fowers-even its scarlet winter ber-
ness has outiived all the frosts and SHOWS
make you happy by their abundance of life
The same is true of man. with profounder
emphasis. In him there is nothing that we love
little slowness, inertness, stupidity which makes
him first cousin to a tortoisc-haf alive people,
who talk so slowly that you can anticipate them,
sentence by sentence, sing drawlingly that you
think of a belated October wind crawling through
so sluggishy through life that you locate their
birthplace in salt marsh, the time of their birth
being low tide We feel somewhat the same about
obtuseness Of intellect, when men have no life in
first utterance figure of speech facetious
mark must be all taken apart and explained before
they can comprehend its bearings We naturally
turn to the man who sees out of open eyes, has
quick perception. throws off the weights from his
soul and evinces something of that true human
greatness which rejoices in the fulness of life.
These Illustrations help us to understand the
statement in the text. He speaks here of deeper,
diviner life than we have spoken of, but He adopts
the same great practical principle There are times
when even the Redeemer seems to labor under
sense of the poverty OF human language in His at
tempt to express His fulness Of meaning.
kind He not only declares that He
to give life, but he taxes words to their utmost to
convey infinite meaning by the word rendered
here .'abundantly." He bestows life. but in a
greater endowment than man has known it.
His words carry a measure Of comparison respecting
the argeness and fulness of his gift in contrast with
all ordinary modes of knowledge This being
assured, next duty is to find wherein this differ
consists we shall not go far astray if we say
that the life which he imparts is first abundantly
more in its measure.
The Apostle Paul gives us key to the sense of
text when he says, where sin abounded grace did
much more abound" However ruinous the sin Of
has been III its consequences the scheme of
demption makes the results of his grace superabound
over those consequences. With this interview the
same apostle says, ''The first Adam made living
soul, the last Adam lifegiving spirits the first
of earth earthly, the second man is the Lord
from Heaven" by which he means that Adam a
man, created out of the EARTH but that Christ
coming down from heaven was not created, but con-
tanned in Himself the fulness of life intrinsicaly
The Saviour never began His life aud because He
has become Head He is life eternal. Because
His life is in us, His members, therefore, though
we wander from Him and grieve Him He will still
abide with us, to plead alarm, convince and draw
us; to guide and rule to enlighten and inspire u.s.
to uphold against ourselves, and to stay our
weakness upon His strength our mortality upon His
life. 'sHe that believes on Him that sent Me has
domination; but is passed from death into life."
Your life In Christ will run into the abundance of a
perfect destiny. Thousands OF years may pass with
out much change over the broad features of this
world. The sun will rise every morning and run his
race-the same stars VIII greet every evening and
deck the midnight sky One set OF men will celebrate
the efugence of birthday and another will weep at
the tomb; but while your visible life will disappear
from the EARTH your real life will flow and on,
increasing with the increase Of God, more and more
abundantly. oh. what an eternal progression there
will be in the ilimitable expandings of the souls
faculties in life that has bound but nnity, and
no end but eternity.