The Indianapolis journal., 1885-05-26
mily. That is all nothing to them The light

that stands upon some jutting point, to throw
its cheer and guidance far out over the stormy
waters-it is nothing that it guides fleet after
fleet safely past the peril into the harbor II 1t
be found that there is a crack in an abutmeDt
or some scratch in the light or some other defect
in the structurel These are pretty, miserable,
ungenerous grounds of objection to the word OF
God
l would not have left out anything Of the Old
Testament, for while men by false construction
undertake to justify the corresponding elements
in our times, they are to the true reading merely
landmarks and stages through which man has
come up. The footsteps Of antiquity are all
revelatory. There was a time when men sacri-
feed TO idols. That is gone. There was time
when men enjoyed, or not, as the case may have
been, plurality of wives. That has long ago
gone There was time when women had no
rights in the presence of their husband. lie
could divorce them by word. Christ decreed
that women should not be divorced except for
the cause that destroyed the household, and
should be given writ. The Bible shows many
steps of men in their relations to time. They
are of transcendent Importance. They are not
models any more than my shoes at SIX are
models for my shoes when am sixty.
Nor has the principle upon which God Eas
force. There are thousand OF sand things to day that
we are asserting by the force of moral conscious
ness. There are dogmas being inveighed against
and reformed, but there are multitudes OF dola-
tors of the book who say the Bible is the revela-
one revelation carried on down until it was so
far disclosing the method by which God makes
Himself known, as that it was left to the human
consciousness now to unfold still further, and
declare that the moral consciousness of universal
Christian life is the tribunal before which all
theology must come and acqut itself of all
charges against it. And this is in striking anal
ogy to the method by which the truth of God
blossom Of the Old and New Testament; it is re-
produced in the life of every Christian, this
method of the development of God, and every
man that begins to be Christian begins at the
alphabetical forms, and day by day grows in
grace and in the knowledge Of the Lord and
Savior.
The process of sanctifcaton in the Christian
is the application Of this great truth, which in
terprets the very genius of Scripture, that men
come to higher and higher knowledge of God
through their experiences. And while the indi
vidual experience interprets to the individual
the thing that is true of God and holiness, the
collective experience of any generation, and
among all nations and classes, becomes signif-
cant of the divine thought itself Goo never re-
vealed anything except through the foregoing
| experience of men in regard to moral quality,
and now whatever grows out of or results from
the application of the highest truths to moral
| observation-disclosures has been tried in null
titudes of ages and under all circumstances-be-
comes a canon, law The Roman Church rec
ognizes this, and, with exception, / agree
with them for they teach us that inspiration is
pleted, but that God is using the church
to interpret His nature and will; but they say
He is using the Roman Church, and that
all outside of that get none of that
light except they borrow it at their candles.
say God employs the Roman Church and the
Protestant, and all of them, to get here, with a
little vehicle thrown in, think, from the more
intelligent idolatrous people-great moralities
have thriven among them in later ages-and
the average consent and experience of al, Chris
tian men, or those that are so allied to them as
the Roman centurion was allied to Peter and
the earlier apostles-all these elements of hui
man experiences are as authoritative as if spoken
on Mount Sanai or enacted from Mount Cal
vary.
The age of inspiration has not perished. 1t is
running broader streams. 1t was before special
torches lit To-day tits the Sun of Righteousness,
arising with healing in his BEAMS and the result
Of long and sufficiently tried judgment as
regards humanity, justice. purity. rectitude.:
The judgment of the whole experimental
Church of God on earth is substan-
TALLY the decree and revelation of Goo,
and an inspiration from God is authoritative
upon the conscience Every development, then,
of piety, humanity, harmony, is gathering ma
terial for a clearer view OF God and nober hui
manity. The unwritten Bible, as the exhalation
is out of sight but the perfume of it is in all the
atmosphere. The word of God stands secure,
but there is besides that an exhalation of it in
the air, a luminousness that comes from it. 1t
veal
And there are higher stages Of knowledge and
experience yet before the Christian church and
the world. God is working on the world yet.
Mere scientific research can never discover God,
except so far as he is capable of material rep
resentation.
There is tendency among scientific men to
be either agnostic or atheistic They seem to
say that as reason can't descry God therefore
nothing can be accepted as to Him which has not
had its probation in the school of reason; they
don't believe or don't know, either of them
amounts to the same thing substantially-no
God ;n,n They look o on .o,;e5 enthusiasm na as
a fantasy of faith, beautiful thing, but
without validity. Now, so far as the diameter
of the sun. OF the nature of cosnic materials. or
the history of rock and soil are concerned feel
ing has nothing to do with it: but when you
ness and affection, those cannot be discerned by
the intellect acting simply. There is where we
say to the intellect Let the heart put its glasses
on your eyes, and then you shall see truths in a
different color and different relations" Nay,
while we are indebted to the spirit of inves tiga-
ton for much and increasingly, there are some
spheres mightier than the mere intellect of man.
There are experiences that make man what he
is as distinguished from the bruteS and from
matter. There are qualities effiorescent that
rise up and reach like the smoke of accepted
sacrifices into the very presence of God, and as
to those mathematics has nothing to do, and no
INSTRUMENTS Oh meaSureiuent Wnen IHe queS
ton is as to moral truths and dispositions, the
heart sits as chief justice, and reason simply
an advocate before its bar.
So far forth for this morning with only one
more thought After all this long unfolding of
the human thought of God. and after al the ben
eficial fruits from the boughs of the tree of
knowledge, yet the apostle says we see dimly.
We are in relation to the reality of that which
we are approaching as child is in relation to
the manhood he is coming to. When that which
is perfect is come. all this fragmentary knowl-
edge which we have been collecting shall all pass
away, because we shall see the whole of every
thing in the clearer light of the other world. So
in this life we are grinding pigments, we are col
lecting materials. We essay with imperfect
hand to employ them to round ort some concep-
ton of our glorious God. But there will come
the day when life and all its attributes have
nassed away-Mhen I shall knox even as ] am