Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1889-01-11
TALMAGES SERMON.
The Weekly DISCOURSE Of che Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject. "a Bad boil Cured.''

XIX, D,
Luxurious living is not healthy The sec
ond generation of Kings, and Queens, and
Lords, and Princes is apt to be brainess and
invalid The second crop of grass is almost
always short Royal blood is generally
scrOfu!ous Eou will not be surprised, then,
70 hear that King Hezekiah had disorders
which broke out in a carbuncle, viruent and
deathful The Lord told him he must die;
he did not want to die He turned his face
to the wall, so that his prayer would not
be interrupted, and cried to God for his life
God heard the prayer and answered it, say
ing: Behold, | will heal thee" But there
was human instrumentality TO be EN-
ployed. This Carbuncle needed "cata-
plasm.n That is a tough word we use TO
show how much we know. IL in the pull
pit we always used words the people under
stood, we never should have any reputation
for learning. Well, this carbuncle needed a
''catapasm,n which is poultIce. Your old
mother, who doctored her own children in
the time when physicians were not so plenty
as they are now, will tell you that the very
best pOultce is a fig and that was what she
used upon the carbuncle of King Hezekiah.
The power of God, accompanied by this
human fundamentally, cured the King
If sickness comes to your household, it will
depend entirely upon ventilation, good diet,
and the skill of the DOCTORS as to whether
your child gets we'll The father might pray
all day. and the mother might pray all night
III WOulu nOb nave any elleCU upon Jue CdSe-
If squlS, belladonna, paregorlc and cruel do
the work, your child will get well; if not,
not There is cast iron God seated at the
bead of the universe, holding in the cold
grasp of his metal fingers IA band Of law from
which r~<hing can break away.
Men ana women of God, at this point the
great battle of Christianity is TO I've fought
The great foe of Christianity to day is ration
alism. that comes out from our schools, and
universities, and magazines and newspapers,
TO scOff at Bible truth and caricature the old
religion of Jesus. 1t says Jesus is not God,
for it is impossible TO explain how He can be
divine and human at the same time. The
Bible is not inspired for there are things in
it that they don't like Regeneration is a
farce; there is good enough in us, and the only
thing is to bring it out. Development Is the
wOrd-developmen The Garden of Eden is a
fairy story and no more to be believed than
the tArabian Nights or "Gulliver's Trav
els" or "RObnson Crusoe" We all started
as balloons and are blood relations to that
monkey squirming about on the top OF that
hand organ. Lazarus was not dead when
Christ pretended to raise him; he was only
playing dead The water was not changed
into wine at the wedding, but Christ brought
in some wine that He had found elsewhere to
make up the deficiency. Christ did not walk
on the sea- but on the shore, so near that it
seemed as if He really were on the water.
What is still more alarming is, that Chris
tian men dare not meet this rldlcule There
is not one Christian man in five that can, I'M
blanched, stand in the presence of all this rail
1ery, saying: 81 believe in the whole Bible,
and in every single statement that it makes "
Christian men try to soften the Bible down
to suit the skeptics. The skeptcs sneer at he
dividing Of the Red Sea; and the Christian
goes to explaining thatfhe wind blew hur'
rcane from one direction a good while,
until all the water piled up; and besides, that
it was low water anyhow, and so the Israel
ties went through without any trouble
Why not be frank and say: 81 believe the
Lord God Almighty came to the brink of the
Red Sea, and with His right arm swung back
the pillows on the right side and with His
left arm swung back the pillows on the
left side, and the ahashed water stood
up hundreds of feet high, while
through their CLASSY wall the sea
monsters gazed with aifrighted eyes on the
passing Israeites!" The nationalist comes
to YOU saving: Chow about Jonah and the
whale! DO you really believe that fish
story?" There never were so many Nan.
tucket fisherman after one whale as there
have been rationalists 6inging harpoonS at
the Mediterranean sea monster, and from
that one whale they have got oil enough to
light ten thousand souls to perdtlon.
skeptic tells you that Jonah would have been
killed in the process of swallowing, and that
he could not anyhow, have lived three days
in such close quarters, but would have been
smothered by the poor ventilation. How
the good CnrlSUlanS lnlIleQlabeIy go 10 WORK.
and try to explain the whole thing by natural
laws, so as to please the rationaliSts, and
say that a whale is an air breath
ing fish; that every little while it
comes to the surface and that the whale
that swallowed Jonah did the same
thing, and thus got supply for itself and
for the prophet. Why not rather say that
God can do anything; and He could take
Jonah through the whales throat, although
the throat would not have been half large
enough ordinarily to let him pass, and could
have kept him alive in the whale five years
without any air, if He had chosen to! Who
made the whale? God. Who made Jonah
God. Then He could do anything He pleased
with either of them.
The moment you begin to explain away
the miraculous and supernatural you surren.
der the Bible. Take the supernatural out OF
the Bible, and you make it a collection OF
lies and humbugs, in preference to which
choose "Hsops Fables" They are what they
pretend to be-fables But if, after all thai
the Bible declares, Jesus is not God, ant
Lazarus was not raised from the dead, ant
the water was not turned into wine, and the
Red Sea was not divided, and in answer to
prayer Hezekahs boil did not get well, then
the Bible is the worst fraud ever perpetrated
in Gods universe.
All my friends, have we been mistakenl
Does God hear and answer prayer, or does
lie not3 Hezekiah was sick unto death; he
prayed for his life; God heard him, and
added fifteen years to that lifetime. The
prayer saved him-the lump of figs applied
being merely the God-appointed human in.
strumentality.
''But." says some one, 81 don't believe the
Bibleo Ali then we will have to part COM
pany for four or five minutes, for it is useless
to try to argue with any man with whom
you cannot stand upon common ground In
any argument, if you would be successful
there must be some common data to star
ic 1icl, tn trvt TO To
that twice three are six, provided he doe
not admit the multiplication tables, or that
two and two are four, if he does not admit
the addition table.
My first address, therefore, is to those WHIT
do believe in the Bible | want to tell yor
and that the allopathic and homeopathic
and the electric schools will yet acknowledge
it. Here are two cases of sickness precisely
alike; the same kind of medicine is given t.
both of them. and in the same quantities
The one patient recovers and the other does
not Why. God blesses the one remedy
and does not bless the other. Prayer ha
helped many a laundering doctor through
with case that would have otherwise become
completely unmanageable. There is such {
thing as Gospel hygiene, as Christian phar
macy, as divine materia medica. Tha
is a foolish man who, in case of sick
ness, goes only to human resources, whel
we have these instances of the Lord
help in the sick room. Before you cal
the doctor while he is there and after h
goes away look up to Him who cured Heze
kiah. Let the apothecary serd the poultice
but God makes it draw. Obi | am glad t.
have a doctor who knows how to pray. Co
send salvation to all the doctorsl Sicknes
would be oftener baked death would b
oftener hurled back from the door sill if med
zeal men came into the sick room like lsaia
of the text, with prescription in their hand
and the word of the Lord in their mouths.
John Abercrombie, the most celebrate
physician of Scotland, PRAYED when he wen