West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1888-08-16
THE BIBLE.
SERMON BY DIR, TALMAeE
The IncxhaustibIe Wealth OF Mean
ing I'm tho Book of Books.

TEXT: "AsIs for the old paths. Vrhere Z,
Lhegood tody, and tcais therein, andIJe shall
P'ad rest for your sOuts.--Jeremiah vi, 10.
great London fog has come down upon
eQnle o. the ministers and some OF the
cnurcnes In the shape OF what Is called lad
vanced thought in Biblical Interpretation.
All OF them, and without any execution
deny the full inspiration of the Bible
GENESIS Is an allegory, and there are many
mytns IN the Bible, and they phiIosophize
ana guess and reason and eyolute until they
Iand In a great continent of mud, from
winch. fear, for all eternity they will not
DC able TO extricate themselves
.. Inc Bible is not only divinely inspired, but
~ - ulslnely protected in its present shane.
You could as easily, without detection, take
from the writings of Shakespeare Hamlet,
ana institute in place thereof Alexandra
smiths drama, as at any time during the
last fifteen hundred years, a man could have
made any important change in the Bible
without immediate detection. IL there had
been an element OF weakness, or OF de-
ception, or OF disintegration. the
BOOK would long ago have fallen 10
pieces IL there had been one loose brick or
cracked easement in this castellated truth,
surely the bombardment of eight centuries
would have discovered and broken through
that imperfection. The fact that the Bible
stands intact, Notwithstanding all the furi-
GUS assaults on oil sides upon IL, is proof TO
me that It is a miracle, and every miracle is
OF God. -
But" says some one, "while we admit
the Bible Is of God, IL has not been under
stood until our time.n My answer is, that IL
the Bible be letter from God. our Father 10
man, His child, is it not strange that that
letter should have been written In such a
way that it should allow seventy genera.
tions 70 pass away and be buried before the
letter could be understoodl That would be
IrnNls u. \
letter for the guidance and intelligence OF
his children not understandable until
thousand years after they were buried and
forgotteni While as the years roll on other
beauties and excelencies will unfold from the
Scriptures, that the Bible is such n dead
failure that all the Christian scholars for
1870 years were deceived in regard to
vast reaches of its meaning, is a demand
upon my creduity so great that IL found
myself at all disposed to yield TO it should
tomorrow morning apply at some insane
asylum as unfit to 90 alone.
Who make up this precious group OF adj
Vanced thinkers to whom God has made es-
pecial revelation in our time OF that which
lie tried TO make known thousands OF years
ago and failed TO make intelligiblel Are they
80 distinguished for unworldliness, piety and
scholarship that it is to be expected that they
would have been chosen to fix up the defec-
tive work of Moses and Isaiah and Paul
and Christi Is it all possible7 Won
ern exegetes were transfiguredl 1
wonder what star pointed down to their birth
placef Was it the North Star, or the Even
ing Star, or the Dipperl AS they came
through and descended to our world did Mars
blush or Saturn lose one Of its ringsl When
find these modern ..wiseacres attempting to
improve upon the work OF the Almighty and
TO interlard it with their wisdom and to sug-
gest prophetic and apostolic errata, 1
am hlled with disgust insufferable
Nvhf A..
tell the Lord what He ought to have
said thousands OF years age, and would have
said II he had been as wise as His nineteenth
century criticsi All this comes of living
away back in the eternities instead of 1888. l
nave Two wonders in regard TO these men.
The first is how the Lord got along without
them before they were born. The second
wonder is how the Lord will get along with
out them after they are dead.
But" say some, do You really
think the Scriptures are inspired
throughout Yes, either as history or
as guidance. Gibbon and Josephus and
Prescott record in their histories a great
many things they did not approve of. When
George bancroft puts upon his brilliant his
toricat pogs tho account OF an Indian InaaSa-
ere, does he approve of that massacrel There
are scores of things in the Bible which neither
God nor inspired men sanctioned Either as
history or as guidance the entire Bible was
inspired OF God.
But" says some one, "don't you think
that the copyists might have made mistakes
in transferring the divine words from one
manuscript 10 anotherr Yes, no doubt there
were such mistakes; but they no more affect
the meaning of the Scriptures than the mis-
spelling of a word or the ungrammatical
structure of a sentence in a last will and
testament affect the validity or the meaning
of that will. All the mistakes made by the
copyists IN the Scriptures do not amount to
any more Importance than the difference be-
tween your spelling in a document the word
forty, forty or fourty. This book is the last
will and testament Of God to our lost world
and 1t bequeaths everything in the right way
although human hands may have DAMAGED
the grammar or made unjustifable interpo-
lation.
These men who pride themselves in cur
day on being advanced thinkers in Biblical
Interpretation will all of them end in athe-
Ism II they live long enough, and / declare
mere to-day they are doing more i'm the differ
ent denominations of Christians and through
out the world, for damaging Christianity
and hindering the cause OF the worlds
be1terment than five thousand Robert
ingersolls could do. That man who stands
ilde castle IS Tar more dangerous IL no can
ce an enemy than five thousand enemies out
SIDE the castle. Robert G.. Ingersoll assails
the castle from the outside. These men who
pretend To be advanced thinkers in all the
denominations are fighting the truth from
t the inside, and trying TO shove back the
Now, l am in favor Of the greater freedom
OF religious thought and discussion would
nave rs much liberty for heterodoxy as for
orthodoxy. If / should change my theories
OF religion should preach them out and out
but not in the building where I am aecus.
toned 70 preach, for that was erected bv
people who believe in an entire Bible. and K
would be dishonest for me TO prOmuI0ate can
tlments different from those for which, that
building was put up. When we enter any
denomination as ministers Of religion we take
a solemn vow that we will preach the senti-
ments OF that denomination. IN we change
our theories, as we have n right to change
thefn. then there Us n world several thousand
mules IN circumference, and there are hun
dreds OF halls and hundreds Of academies Of
music where we can ventilate our sentiments.
remember that in all our cities. i'm time
OF political agitation. there are the Rennbli-
can headquarters and the Democratic heat
quarters. Suppose ! should 20 into one Of
tnese headquarters pretending % be ina sym
Iathy with their work, at the same time
eiectioneering for the opposite party. would
soon ma that the centrifugal force was
greater than the ceutripatall Now. II n
man enters n denomination Of Christina
taxing n solemn oath. ~ we all do that wa
VIII promuigoto the theories Of that denous-
nation, and thon the man shall proclaim
some other theory. he has broken his oath.
ana ne is an Out-and out periurer. Never
theieasi ! declare for largest liberty in re-.
l4iOus discussion. I would no more have
inc attompt 90 rear n monument TO Thomas
faino nteriered with than I would have in .
teriered with the lifting Of the splendid MON
unent 20 Washington. Largest liberty for
iii 1ody largest liberty for the mind largest