Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-07-13
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Tbe Weekly Discourses of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject: "NOne Like Jesus"

Iext: Unto you therefore tohich believe
He Is precious" /. Peter H., z.
We had for many years in this country
commercial depression. What was the mat
Ter with the storesi With the harvests!
With the peoplel Lack of faith. Money
enough, goods enough, skillful brains
enough, Industrious hands enough, but
no faith. Now, what damages the COM
mercial world damages the spiritual Our
great lack is faith. That is the hinge on
which eternity turns. CO." says some one in
the audience, 'Ihave faith. believe Christ
came down to save the world" reply that
III worldly matters when you have faith you
always act upon it, For instance, if | could
show you business operation by which you
could make 5000 you would immediately
go into it, You would prove your faith in
what tell you by your prompt and imme-
date a, ton. Now, if what you call faith in
Christ has led you to surrender your entire
nature to Jesus, and to corresponding action
i'll your life it is genuine faith, and if it has
not, it is not faith at ALL
There are some things which | believe
with the head. Then there are other things
which believe with the heart. And then
there are other things which l believe both
with the head and heart / believe for in
stance, that Cromwell lived. That is mat
ter of the head. Then there are other
things which | believe with the heart and
not with the head. That is, | have no es-
pecial reason for believing them, and yet l
want to believe them, and the wish is the
father to the expectation. But there is a
very great difference between that which we
believe about ourselves and that which we be-
lleve about others. For instance, you remem-
ber not great while ago there was disaster
in Pennsylvania, amid the mines; there was
an explosion amid the dampS, and many lives
were lost In the morning you picked up
your newspaper and saw that there had been
great disaster III Pennsylvania. You said:
"Ah, what a sad thing is this; how many
lives lost o, what sorrowm Then you read
a little further on There had been an almost
miraculous effort to get these men out, and
few d been saved. "Oh," you said, "what,
a brave thing, what a grand thing that was
How well it was done!" Then you folded the
paper up and sat down to your morning re-
past Your appetite had not been interfered
with, and during that day, perhaps, you
thought only two or three times of the dis
aster. But suppose you and | had been in the
mine, and the dying had heen all around us,
and we had heard the pickaxes just above us
as they were trying to work their way down,
and after a while we saw the light, and then
the life bucket let down through the shaft,
and, suffocated and half dead, we had Just
strength enough to throw ourselves over into
it, and had been hauled ont into the light.
Then what an appreciation we would have
had of the agony and the darkness beneath,
and the joy Of deiyerapce That is the diff
ference between believing thing about
others and believing it about ourselves.
We take up the Bible aud read that Christ
came to save the world. THAT was beauti-
full you say, "a fine specimen of self-denial.
That was very grand, indeed" But suppose
it is found that we ourselves were down in
the mine of sin and i'll the darkness, and
Christ stretched down his arm of mercy
through the gloom and lifted us out of the
pit, and set our feet on the Rock of Ages,
and put new song into our mouth. Oh,
then it is matter of handclapring; it is a
matter of deep emotions Which kind Of
faith have you my brother.
1t is faith that makes n Christian, and it Is
the proportion of faith that makes the differ
ence between Christians What was it that
lifted Paul and Luther and Payson and
Doddridge above the ordinary level of Chris
briliancy, the power and the spleRdor Of
their faith Oh, that we had more of It'll
God give us more faith to preach and more
faith to hear. Lord! we believe, help Thou
our unbelef!' 'To you which believe He is
precious"
FIRST l remark Christ is precious to the
believer, as Saviour from sin. A man says:
ITO whom are you talking9 | am one of the
most respectable men in this neighborhood;
do YOU call me a sinnerm Yes! VThe heart
| is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked You say: "How do you know any
thing about my heart" know that about
it, for God announces it in His word and
what God says is always right When
| man becomes Christian people say: THAT
| man sets himself above u.s." Oh, no! Instead
of setting himself up he throws himself
down, He cries out: II was lost once, but
now am found. ] was blind once, but now
see. PROSTATE myself at the foot Of the
cross of the Saviour's mercy.'
What grand thing it is to feel that all
the bad words | have ever uttered and all
the bad deeds have ever DONE and all the
bad thought, that have gone through my
mind, are as though they never hal been, for
the sake of what Christ has done. You
| know there is difference IN stains. Some
| can be washed out by water, but others re-
qnire chemical preparation. The sin of the
heart is so black and indelible Q mark that
no human application can cleanse it, while
| the blood of Jesus Christ can wash it out for
ever. O., the infinite, the omnipotent chem.
istry of the Gospel! Some man says: 81 be-
lieve all that, / believe God has forgiven the
most of my sins, but there is one sin ! cannot
forget" What is it? do not want to know
what it is, but l take the responsibility of
| saying that God will forgive it as willingly
as any other sin,
Der sins like moGpiails for their size,
TIE seas OF sovereign GRACE expand,
The seas of sovereign grace arise.
There was very good man about seventy
five years of age that once said: II beiev
God has forgiven me, but there was one sil
which committed when was about twent,
wears of age that never forgave myself for
and can't feel happy when l think of it. ;
He said that one sin sometimes come over hi
heart and blotted out all his hope of heaven
Why, he lacked in faith. The grace that cai
forgive small sin can forgive large sin
Mighty to save. Mighty to save. Who Il
the God like unto our God, that pardonet
iniquity! Q, what Jesus is to the soul tha
believes in himl The soul looks up int
Christ's face and says: ITO what exten
wilt thou forgive meF' And Jesus locks bacl
into his face and says; "To the uttermost
The soul says: "Wil it never be brought u
againp "Never," says Christ ''Won't i
be brought up again in the Judgment Day!
''No," says Christ, "never in the Judgmen
Day" What bread is to the hungry, wha
harbor is to be bestormed, what light is t
the blind, what liberty is to the captive
that, and more than that, is Christ to tn
man who trusts him.
Just try to get Christ away from tina
Christian Put OH that man the thum
screw. Twist it until the bones crack. Pu
that foot into the iron boot OF persecution unit
it is mashed to pulp. Stretch that man o.
the rack of the Inquisition, and louder tha
all the uproar of the prosecutors, you wi
hear his voice like the voice of Alexander l.
Croix, above the cracking fagots as he erie,
out: 80 Jesus! o, my blessed Jesus! O
divine Jesus who would not die for thee2"
Again: remark that Christ is precious t.
the believer, as friend. You haye commer
cial friends and you have family friends. II
the commercial friend you go when you hav
business troubles You can look back t.
some day-it may have been ten or twenty
years ago-when if you had not had tina
friend, you would have been entirely over
thrown in business. But | want to tell yo
this morning of Jesus the best busines
friend man ever had. He can pull yo
out of the worst perplexities There ar
. people in this audience who have got i