Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-11-24

| didn't you walk all round the obelisk95, Took
out for the man who sees only one side of .
| religious truth. Look out for the man who
never walks round about these great theories
| of God and eternity and the dead. He will
| be 0lgot lnevltdbly-the man who only sees
one side. There is no man more to be pltied
| than he who has just one idea in his head no
| more. no less. Better yacuity overthrowinp
| the philosophical theory that an entire
vacuum is an impossibilIty, than just one idea
wandering around about IN perpetual lone
illness and bachelOrhOOd, wailing through the
desert of the mans intellect. Better no idea
at all than only one idea. Run up your
schools and your colleges and your universi-
ties. More light, less sectarianism. There is
nothing that will so soon kill bgOtry as sun
shine-GOd's sunshine.
Now, having shown you the religion of big
otry, Just look abroad in the church and see
the damage bigotry has done. 1t cripples in
vestlgatiOn. The different denominations of
Christians were intended by holy rivalry and
honest competition to keep each other wide
awake. Suppose one denomination of Chris
uans should garble the Word of God; all the
other denominations would fly out in righte-
Gus Indignation. 1t was so intended to be.
Whlle each denomination of Christians is to
present all the truths of the Bible il seems to
me that God has given to each denomination
an especial mission to give particular empha-
sis to some one doctrine; and so the Calvanis-
TIC church must present the sovereignty of
God, and the Armenian churches must pre-
sent mans free agency, and the Episcopal
churches must present the importance
"
Baptist churches must present the necessity of
ordinances and the Congregational church
must present the responsibility of the indi-
Vldual member, and the Methodist church
must show what holy enthusiasm and hearty
congregational singing can accomplish.
While each denomination of Christians must
set forth all the doctrines Of the Bible, / feel
1t Is especially incumbent upon each denomi-
natlOn 10 put particular emphasis on some
one doctrine. But you see that man is a
Dlgot who shuts his eyes to all the lessons he
might learn from other denominations. You
are wrong and am right, and that ends it,.
No taste for exploration, for investigation
No disposition to reason the matter over. And
from the realm of Gods glorious truth, over
which an archangel might fly from eternity to
eternity and never reach the limit, the man
shuts himself out a blind mole under a corn
shock.
Another great damage done by the secta-
rlanlsm and bigotry of the church is that it
disgusts people with the Christian religion
Now, my friends, the church of God was
never intended for a war barrack. People
are afraid of a riot. You go down the street
and you see an excitement and missiles flying
through the air and you hear the shock of
firearms. Doyou, the peaceful and industrious
citizen, go through that street? Oh, no; you
say, "Ill go round the block" Now men
come and look upon this narrow path to
heaven and sometimes see the ecclesias-
tlcal Drlckbats flying every whittier, and
they say, 'Wel, l guess I'll take the broad
road, for there IS so much harp-shoOting on
road" have more admiration for a Spanish
bull fight, and think 1t more useful and hon
orable than the contest of carniYorOus eccle-
siastics. Francis /. so hated the Lutherans
that he said if he thought there was one drop
OF Lutheran blood in his veins, he would
puncture them and let that drop out. just
AS long as there is so much hostility between
denomination and denomination, or between
one professed Christian and another, or be-
tween one church and another, Just so long
Will men be disgusted with the Christian
religion, and say, "If that is religion, want
none of it,"
Again, bigotry and sectarianism do great
damage, from the fact that they hinder the
triumph of the gospel. Oh, how much wasted
ammunition! How many men of splendid in
tellect have given their whole lives to contro-
versal disputes, when, if they had given their
lives to something practical, they might have
been vastly useful. Suppose this morning,
Whlle speak, there were common enemy
coming up the bay through the narrows, and
all the forts around New York began to fire
into each other. You would cry out, ''Na-
tlonal suicide! Why don't those forts blaze
away IN one direction and that against the
common enemy?" And yet l sometimes see
in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ a
strange thing going on: Church against
church, minister against minister, denomina-
tion against denomination, firing away
into their own fort or the forts that
ought to be on the same side, instead
of concentrating their energy and giving one
mighty and everlasting VOlley against the
naVies of darkness riding up through the bay
go out sometimes in the summer and find
two bee hives, and these two bee hives are in
quarrel. | come near enough not to be
stung, but l come just near enough to hear
the controversy, ana one bee hive SAYS: ''That
field of clover is the sweetest" =" and another
bee hive says, ''That field of clover is the
sweetest" L come in between them and /
say, ''StOp this quarrel. If you like that field
OF clover best go there. But let me tell you
that that nlve which gets the most honey is
the best hive" So [ come out betWeen the
.IpGUE n
tomlnatlon OF Christians says. THAT field of
Christian doctrine is the best" and another
says This field Of Christian doctrine is best"
"Wel," l say. Ego where you get the II ost
honey. That is the best church which gets
the most honey of Christian grace for the
heart and the most honey of Christian useful
ness for the life"
Depend upon it, intolerance never Dut down
any denomination. What did it do against
the Methodist church? That church was per-
secuted and nearly all the pulpits of Great
Britain closed against her minister's The
very name of the church was given in deri-
sion. There are in the Astor library. New
York, | am told, 707 books and pamphlets
against MethodIsm, kept there m-rely as a
curiosity. Did intolerance destroy the
Methodist church? She stands either first or
second, L do not know which noW IN numbers
In all the earth, while she has her men not
only IN places OF religious trust, but of secular
trust. Intolerance against the Methodist
church has lifted it up. What is the use of
trying then that spirit of intolerance? Let us
nave uNislOn OF WORK. Let US attend to
Christian work and let Satan do all the work
OF Intolerance. He is lively and he is active
and he is industrious and he understands &C.
clesastical law. He will attend to that.
What did intolerance accomplish against
the Baptist church? If laughing scOTn. if
tlrade and denunciatiOn could have DESTROYED
that church 1t would not have desciple to-
day. Rev. Leonard BernkOp. Baptist min
ister, burned at Salisbury because he was a
Baptist, in his dying moments saying: 81 am
roasted enough on that side; turn me over
now. The fire don't hurt compared with the
eternal glory" Rev. Mr.. James q BaDtist
because he was a Baptist, drawn on a hurdle
from Newgate to Tyburn. His dead body
lifted on the city gates. His head lifted on
pole and set up in front of the place
where he used to preach. Rev. Obadiah
Holmes, Baptist minister, and because he
was Baptist, publicly whipped. and two
men coming up and shaking hands with him
they got whipped, and the surgeon who
dressed MS wounds pursued as a criminal
Four hundred Baptists were put to death in
Flanders and Holland because they were
Baptists. Even Richard Baxter lost his
balance on the subject and he said
that the Baptists were as bad as murderers
because they put people under water and they
caught their death of cold. He wrote these
words: the ordinary practice of baptizing
overhead and in cold water, as necessary, is
plain breach of the Sixth Commandm mt
Therefore 1t is not an ordinance of God but a
heinous SIM" and as Mr.. Craddock shows in
his book of Gospel Liberty" the Magistrate
ought to restrain it to save the lives of his
subjects. In word, it is good for nothing
but TO dispatch men out of the world that are
burdensome and to ranken churchyards. /
conclude II murder be a sin. then dipping or
dlnarllY, overhead in England is a sin; and if
those who make it mems religion to murder
themselves and urge it upon their conscience
as their duty, are not to be suffered in
a commonwealth any more than highway
murderers, then judge how these Anabaptists
that teach the necessity of such dipping are to
be suffered. In New England the Baptists were
nnTgpnntnd Hrfx on fofD ton
and when petition was sent up asking
leniency in their behalf. the men who signed
the petition were fined, and it is a matter of
cnurcn history that after man had been bap-
tized by immersion. weeks having gone by.
and his death occurring, the officiating clergy
man was thrown into prison and indicted for
murder. How near did intolerance destroy
the Baptist church? Well. the last statistics
| saw of that church was they had 10000
churches and about 1000, 900 communicants.
England prosecuted the Jews. England by
law said no jew should hold any official power
in the realm. England thrust back the jew
and thrust down the Jew. Who was for years
the Prime Minister of England2 Who be-
came next to Queen Victoria in power? Who
was higher than the throne, bee ,use its ad-
yer and counsellor? Disraeli, the Jew. In
tolerance never puts down anything; it puts
itup.
But now, my friends. having shown Won the
origin of bigOtry or sectarianism and having
shown you the damage it does, want briefly
to show you how we are to war against this
terrlDle eVl, ana tnInk we ought to begin
our war by realizing our own weakness and
our lmperfecti0ns. If we make so many mis-
takes in the common affairs of life, is it not
possible that we may make mistakes in re-
gard to our religious affairs? shall we take a
man by the throat or by the collar because he
cannot see religious truths Just as we do? In the
light of eternity it will be found out, think
there was something wrong in all our creeds
and something right in ali our creeds. But
since we may make mistakes in regard
to things of the world, do not let us
be SO egOtistic and so puffed up as to have an
idea that we cannot make any mistake in re-
gard to religious theories. And then j think