Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1888-08-11
REV. DR.. ThbNAGB.
THE BRooKLYN DIvINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Snbject: us Orthodoxy Stale and Tn
reasonable? --Prcachcd ut the
ChautauQua, N. " Assembly
Of Religious Educators.


hnd lest for your SoutS.-Jeremiah vi, Ii
a great London fog has come down upon
some of the ministers and some Of tho
churches in the shape of what is called '.al-
vanced thought in Biblical Interpretation.
All of them, and without any exception,
deny the full inspiration OF the Bible
Gencss is an aleSory, and there are many
myths i'll the Bible, and they phiosophise
and guess ana reason and evolute until they
land i'll great continent of mud, from
which. fear. for oil eternity they will not
be able to eXtricate themselves
The Bible snot only divnely inspired hut
IT Is ,livinely protected in its present shlpe.
You could as easily, without detection, take
from the writings OF Shakespeare Hamlet
and institute il. place thereof Alexander
Smiths drama. as at any time during the
last fifteen hundred years. q man could have
made any important change in the Bible
without immediate detection. If there had
been an element of weakness, or Of tie
cept'cn. or of dlsnteSration. the
Book would long ago have fallen to
pieces Ii there had been one loose rick or
tracked easement in this cas.clatcd truth,
surely the Gombar,lmcnt of eight centuries
wolld have discovered and broken through
that impcrfecton. The fact that the Bible
stands intact, notwithstanding all the furi-
Gus assaults on all sides upon is. is proof to
M !l'nt IL is 4 miracle, and every miracle is
OF God.
But" says some one "whila we adm
tie Bible is Of God. it has net been un;ler
st"o.t until our time" My answer is, that it
Tie B.lle be 4 letter from God, our Father, to
man, His chi;d, is it not strange that that
letter should have been writer in s.ich a
way that it should allow seventy genera
tons 20 pass away and he buried before the
letter could be understood! THAI would be-
SSacegy bright 70 Tier Me9--sl!..oc;H!df. Wife
lette. for --IIic guidance and intelligence of
HIS children not understandable until
Il thousand wears after they were buried and
forgotten. While as the Years roll on other
beauties and eXcel'eacieS will unfold from the
Scriptures. that the Bible is such dead
failure that all the Christian scholars for
1901 Years were deceived in regard TO
vast reaches of its meaning, is demand
npon my crstiuhty SO great that II found
n.y.;nlt at al dSpo Ell to yield TO it shoald
10 morrow morning apply at some insane
asylum as unit TO 20 alone.
Who make up this precious group OF all
vanccl thinkers to whom God has made eS-
p.cial revelation in our time of that which
He tried To make known thousands of years
ago and failed 10 make ineligible! Are they
81 dis:in Euisl:ed for unworldliness. piety and
s holarship that 1t is to be expected that they
wruld Rave been chosen to Fix up the defec-
tive work of Moses and Isaiah and Paul
and Christ: Is it all possible. Won
clc on WnuU mountains CueSe uptt-
crn cSegctes were TRANSPORTED: L
wonder what pointed down to / heir birth
pa e: Was it tn. North Star or the Even
irg Star, or the Dippar: As they came
through and descended to our world did Mars
blu, h or Saturn lo,e one Of its rings: When
! tn.l these modern .wiSeacres attempting to
improve upon the work OF the Almighty and
tointer!ard it with their wisdom and to suS.
g,>t prophetic ana apostolic errata, [
,yi.l Iii !,
Advanced thoucht. which proposes to
toll the Lord what lie ought 10 have
SAID thousands of years ago. and would have
said if He had been as wise as His nineteenth
Can ury critics! All this comes IF 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.
Tut say some. do You really
think the Scriptures are inspired
throughout: Yes; either as history or
as guidance Gibbon and Josephus and
lr scott record in their histories a great
many things they did not approve Of. When
George Bancroft pats upon his brilliant his
torical page the account of an Indian maSSa-
Gre does he approve OF that massacre: There
ave scores of things in the Eibla which neither
God nor inspired men slnctionsd. Either as
history or as guidance the entire Bible was
inspired of God.
';fut." SAYS some one, don't you think
that he copyistS might have made mistakes
in transferring the divine words from ono
marus r;pt another 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 unsrammatical
structure Of sentence III last Will and
testament affect the validity or the meaning
Is = oil. 1..-s l,.a
co;,yiSts III the Scriptures do not amount to
any more Importance than the difference be.
tween Your spelling in document the word
forty, forty or fourty. This book is the last
will onl testament of God TO our lost world,
and it he1ueaths everything in the right way.
although human hands may have damaged
the grammar or made unjustitiable interpo-
lation.
These men WHO pride themselves in our
day on being advanced thinkers in Biblical
Interpretation will all of them END in atae
i'm i tie: live long enough, and | declare
here to-day they are doing more in the differ
ent denominations of Christians, and through
cut tie world, for damaging Christianity
mil h;nierins The cause Of the worlds
hes ermant than five thousanl Robert
Inscrsoi.s coull do. That mln who stands
ilsid. castle is far more dangerous if he can
lie an cnsmv than five thousand enemies out
s.e che castle Robert c. 1ngersoll assaiiS
t:e castle from the outside. TheS; Ineu wlc
prctcnl to be advanced thinkers in all the
denominations are lighting the truth from
the inside. anil trying to shove lack the
bots and SWIM open the gates.
Cow. l am in favor OF the greater freedom
OF religious thou sht anil discussion would
hare rs nuci, liberty for heterolovy rs for
ortho loxy. Ii should chan 70 my theories
ofreiiSion should preach them out anl ont.
bnt not in the building where ( am accus-
tonad to prea I'll. for that WIS eroctel by
pc,plc who believe in an entire Bloc. an t
would be dishonest for me to promuglte sen-
tinlent' different from those for which that
building was put up. When we enter any
denomination rs ministers Of religion we take
a solemn VOW that we will preach the sent-
ments of that denomination. If we change
our theories. as W. have a right to change
them then there is world several thousand
c.iles in circumference. and ttere are hun
dreds of halls ana hundreds q, academies of
music whore We can veDtilatc our sentiments.
remember that in all our cities in time
of political agitation. there are the Hepuhli-
can head quarters and the Democratic held-
quarters. Suppose | should go into one Of
these headquarters pretending to be in sym
rathy with their work. at the same time
ele:t:oneering for the opposite party would
soon find that the centrifugal force was
greater than the centripetal! Now, If a
man enters demo nination of Christians,
taking solemn oath. as we all do. that we
will promugate the theories of that denom-
nation, and then the man shall proclaim
some other theory. he has broken his oath,
and he is an out-and out periurer Never
theless, ! declare for largest liberty in re-
hgious discussion. I would no more have
the attempt 10 rear a monument to Thomas
Paine nterfered with than would have in
terfered with the lifting of the splendid mon
to Washington. Largest llb.rtv for
the body. largest liberty for ths mind, largest
liberty for the soul.
Now. want to show you as matter of
advocacy for what believe to DO the right,
the s,;lcnlors of orthodoxy. Many have sup
pnsel that lis disciples are peop'o OF dat
skulls. AMI no reading. and behind the
age. and the victims Of gulibi ty. | shall
show you thai the I'd orthodoxy
stanli for the greatest splenlo:s
outside Of heaven. Behold tn, splenlors Of
it. .hiovements All the missionaries of the