The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1888-10-12
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's sun
DAY SERMON
Subject; rs Orthodoxy Stale and
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS at the
Chautauqua IN. " Assembly
CT Religions Educators.



TExr: ASK for the old paths, tshere is
the good tray. Gni tndils therein, dHdJ shall
I ind rest for vOur SoulS.-Jeremiah vi, 10
A great London fog has come down upon
some OF the ministers and some OF the
churches in the shape Of what is called I'D
vanced thought in Biblical Interpretation.
( All Of them, and without any exception,
deny the full inspiration OF the Bible.
! Genesis is an allegory, and there are many
myths in the Bible, and they philosophize
and guess and reason and evolute until they
/ land in n great continent of mud, from
which. fear. for all eternity they will not
be allie to extricate themselves
The Bible IS not only divinely inspired, but
I il is divinsly protected IN its present shape
You could as easily, without detection, take
I from the writings OF Shakespeare Hamlet,
and institute in place thereof Alexander
I 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 II there had
been an element Of weakness, or Of de-
ception, or Of disintegration, the
Z Book would long ago have fallen 10
pieces II there had been one loose trick 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 all sides upon it. is proof to
me that il IS a miracle, and every miracle is
Of God.
But says some one, ''while we admit
the Bible is of God, it has not been under
stood until our time" Ny answer is, that il
| the Bible be a letter from God, our Father, to
man, his child, is it not strange that that
letter should have been written in such .
way that it should allow seventy genera
10 ND rfs.I
letter could be understood That would be
very bright Father who should write q
] letter for the guidance and intelligence Of
| His children not understandable until
a thousand years after they were buried and
forgottenl While Us the years roll on other
beauties and excellencies will unfold from the
/ Scriptures, that the Bible is such q dead
failure that all the Christian scholars for
1900 years were deceived in regard to
vast reaches of its meaning, is a demand
upon my credulity so great that if | found
myself at all disposed TO yield to it l should
tomorrow morning apply at some insane
asylum as unfit to go alone
Who make up this precious group OF i'd
yanced thinkers TO whom God has made es-
pecial revelation in our time of that which
| He tried to make known thousands Of years
ago and failed TO make inteiligiblei Are they
SO distinguished for unworldliness, piety and
scholarship that it is to be expected that they
0
tive work Of Moses and Isaiah and Paul
and Christi Is it all possible. 1 won
der on what mountains these mod
ern exegetes were TRANSFORMED l
wonder what star pointed down to their birth
placei Was it the North Star, or the Even
ing Star, or the Dipper, As they came
through and descended 70 our world did Mars
blush or Saturn lose one of its ringsi 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, |
am flied with a disgust insufferable
Advanced thought, which proposes to
tell the Lord what He ought TO have
said thousands OF years ago, and would have
said If He had been as wise as His ninitenth
century criticsl All this comes of living
away back in the eternities instead Of 1855.
have 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 Gibhon 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
torical page the account OF an Indian massa-
ere, does ne approve Of that massacrei 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.n says some one, don't you think
that the eopyists might have made mistakes
in transferring the divine words from one
manus ript o anotherf' Yes, no doubt there
were such mistakes; but they no more affect
the meaning of the Scriptures than the mis-
spelling OF word or the ungrammatieal
structure Of 4 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 III document the word
forty, forty or fourty. This book is the last
will and testament Of God TO our lost world,
and it bequeaths everything in the right way.
although human hands may have damaged
the grammar or made unjustifiable interpo-
latiOn.
These men who pride themselves in our
day on being advanced thinkers in Biblical
Interpretation will all of them end in athe-
ism Il they live long enough, and ! declare
here to-day they are doing more in the differ
ent denominations OF Christians, and through
and t bGs 9Ts t se d caa th sri MoTa
betterment than five thousand Robert
Ingersolls could 10. That man who stands
inside castle is far NOR dangerous If he can
- z han H#.
So ~. s'-Ai 49,. y, e'e,ies ous
- .i 80 ". A NJ assdiis
,,,o,..,,4 =, - ~ ~ ~ oI.s these men "no
ie - pe auNaneeu thinkers IN al tne
denominations y, are nghting the truth from
me INSIDE. and Trying 10 SHOVE back the
Do.es an, swing open tine gates
NOW, am IN favor OF the greater freedom
OF religious Thought and discussion would
nave as nuch liberty for heteroioxy as for
ortho ioxy. II should change my theories
~ rellsl9n should preach them out and out.
Jun, ". No, IN .ne ouliling where am eccus-
hDilsd 20 preaeh, Tor tnat was crested by
P.1T ~ u, an eiitlre bioit, ana IL
.s 9.li - S.9nonest IoT me 70 promuiglte SEN
from t115s LOT "hich ina
Se.,~,,i;s va Pue " Nhen we enter any
s a. '.'.ls.eiS OF relglon we take
-..,ut -. ~. .hit W VIII preach the senti-
-, - 10 we chahge
ST., g. 49, =, = -, a Ilgne 70 cnahSs
,,,;i j., > ~orlu seyerai thousand
5rois ~ baIi. III h,,,si aii saere are nun
,', ,t VI OF
=, ~ a.. els'iaue our sentiments
NJ roitiaI a go, u, a.. oua LIE IN TINE
- . .t aIe tne hepuoi-
- -. s.iou,i - iIVo one OF
NJ. aL pretsndlng 70 be IN sym
li,,l t. se H'rk, AZ the same uIne
-, a. ~, ~ t'ie opi,osise party. would
s,-ea,a - -, e"e sorce was
-, a,,, LII, Wv,
tsi-5,,,- -. ~ SuIistians,
Ill ,,,s,,,,ist = ~ az ~, tnat we
ination AMI tna rna man 81 s,. .nat aenoni
some Other ,bao-v IL has heIIna,, .
and he Is an ont ana ont r,arinr,, No,.e-
.h.I,.. 5..f - = - - go