St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-03-21

/ who in seeking the road to his native
| land buries himself and is lost in
| frightful deserts. In all this he is a
| bundle of contradictions, he can re-
nounce neither his sins nor his God,
while his corruptions chain him to
| this world a mysterious instinct
| cOmpels him to look up and search
! for the unseen. Between these two
opposing forces he makes no choice,
he attempts to reconcile two incom-
patible inclinations, he gets his NOR
ais from his pagan devotions and
which partake of the same degrade
! ton, he makes gods to resemble
| himself in order to offer them a wor-
ship in keeping with his own evil
! thoughts, he erects his vices into di-
whites and makes his religion the
mirror of his corruption; in short, he
accepts an enforced idea of God for
he cannot get along without it, but
in accepting that idea he degrades it,
| for he prefers an infamous deity rath-
er than adore nothing.
Such is man out of place. He is a
! Jacob with dislOCated hip and full
of pain Gods image of him is taken
from the troubled sea. With spiritu-
al and immortal longings he is seek
temporal, which at their best estate
contain only an exhaustible good.
| God has not made any thing good
enough, all created things combined
are not good enough to satisfy the
nature of being created in his-image
and destined to realize an eternal
thought of him. God has reserved
himself as the only inexhaustible
source of satisfaction, and when he
wanders from him and seeks relief i'll
his own devices. he pants like a bird
exhausted on the wing with no place
for the sole of its foot.
Let us now turn from this painful
| spectacle to behold another and a
different. We can hardly call it in
viting, for it is equally at variance
with our ideas of fitness and far more
astounding. You are quick in the
conviction that a holy being can
never get out of place. Let me ask
you to hasten and reconstruct your
conviction. Have you never heard,
hath it never been told you, how God
so loved men out of place that to re-
cover them he required his son to
leave his place in heaven and go
among them in their nature to win
them back? Here is the great mar
vel of this world and of all worlds.
| do not say that we should pray for
ito understand it But Wecan turn
aside and see this great sight, we can
stand in its awful presence and won
der and adore. 1t was a very unnat-
ural thing for man to wander from
his place, but to see the Son of God
absent from his, and among us in a
condition of suffering innocence, is an
event so unnatural that we have
agreed together to call it supernatur-
al. To save men, who, out OF place
were lost the Redeemer was a wander
er among us not having where to lay
his head, while the birds had nests,
no room for him in the inn to begin
with, and as it turned out, no room
for him anywhere, and who finally
gave himself over to suffering so in
tense as to account himself lost. My
God, my God, why hast thou forsak-
en- mel
Let me ask you to name the sym
Dol that stands for this divine agony.
All assent to the answer you give, IT
is the cross. But what is the cross
but the old Hebrew altar, changed
in form but advanced in idea accord
ing as its victim is no longer a bleat-
ing lamb from the shepherds fold
but the Lamb of God from the bosom
of the Father. SO Immediate is the
connection between thecr and the
altar that we affirm their Identified
ton just as we account prophecy and
its fulfilment one Fix now the mind
on these two cOntraSted facts man
like bird, wandering from its nest
and lost, and the Son of God leaving
his place in heaven in pursuit of him,
and to make his pursuit successful
LAYING down his life for him on the
altar of the cross, himself lost for lost
man; a mystery which we announce
but leave unexplained.
Mark now the effectiveness of this
method of saving men in their tOrlOrn
wanderings. We have seen the con
sciOus need of men in their cruel exile
for Il place of rest. From the gates
of Eden down through the ages and
in all lands the guilt-burdened con
|
altar as expressing the idea of blood
expiatiOn Hence the natural value
of the systematically instituted Jew
ish altar, the conscience alive and
burdened with guilt furnishing the
key to unlock its mystery, identifying
its victim of prophetic Significance
with the Lamb of God, the last tC
bleat in the long succession. Hence
the supremacy of the altar in the He
brew service. 1t was its organic and
constructive centre. All worship
was grounded in and justified by it
Without it there was no return tC
God and no communication with
him. 1t was the procuring cause
and source of all temporal and spir
itual blessing to the individual, the
family and the commonwealth. Such
was the psalmist's estimate of its
value when, in the eighty-fourtf
Psalm, he iustifes our use of the
imagery which we have been follow
ing i'll other scriptures. Recall hi:
, words:
How amiable are thy tabernacles
O Lord of hosts: My soul longeth
yea, even fainteth for the courts o
the Lord my heart and my flesh crietl
out for the living God. Yea, TIT
sparrow hath found an house, anC
the swallow a nest for herself wher,
she may lay her young, even thine
affairs, o Lord of hosts, my King
and my God"
You will observe that the Psalms
is not here speaking of sparrows anC
swallows They are not his theme
He is speaking of himself, my sou
longeth, my heart fainteth, and Coo
Is its object Instantly now, in th