The Brookhaven leader., 1889-06-06
SPIRITUAL CLEANSING.
Mankind's Need of the Purging
Influences of Religion.
Little Hope for Apologize sinners-The
Depravity of Others No Excuse for
Us-Retribution Sure to Fol-
low Wrong Doing.

| ing" His text was:
| IfIwash myself with snow water, and should
| cleanse my hands in alkali. yet shalt Thou
| plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes
shall abhor me.-Job tx. 3O3l.
Albert Barnes-honored be his name on
earth and in Heaven-went straight back
to the original writing of my text, and
| translated it as have now quoted it, Civ
ing substantial reasons for Sd doing. AL
though we know better, the aucients had
an idea that in snow-water there was a
| special power to cleanse, and that gar
ment washed and rinsed in it would be as
clean as clean could be; but If the plain
snow-water failed to do it's work, then
they would take lye or alkali and mix it
with oil, and under that preparation they
felt that the last impurity would rtainly
be gone. Job, in my text, in most force
full figure, sets forth the idea that all his
attempts to make himself pure before God
were a dead failure, and that unless we
are abluted by something better than
earthly liquids and chemical prepara-
tions, we are loathsome and in the ditch.
'If l wash myself with snow water, and
! should cleanse my hands in alkaE, yet
shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch, and
mine own clothes shall abhor me-" You
are now sitting for your picture. l turn
the camera obscura of Gods word full
upon you, and | pray that the sunshine
falling through the skylight may enable
me to take YOU just as you are. Shall it
be fattering picture or shall 1T be a
true onei You say: LET it be true
one." The first profile that was ever
taken was taken three hundred and thirty
years before Christ of Antigonus. He
had a blind eye, and he compelled the art
ist to take his profile so as to hide the de-
feet in his vision. But since that inyen-
tion, three hundred and thirty years be-
fore Christ, there have been great many
profles.
Shall to-day give you one-sided
view of yourselves, a profile, or shall it
be full-length portrait showing you
Just what you are? If God will help me
by His almighty grace, shall give you
that last kind of a picture. When l first
entered the ministry | used to write my
sermons out and read them, and run my
hand along the line lest / should lose my
place. ! have hundreds of those manu-
scripts. Shall | ever preach them:
Never; for in those days was somehow
over mastered with the idea | heard
talked all around about of the dignity of
human nature, and 1 adopted the idea,
anu L tNolNtu IT, anu mus IL dtcu II, anu
l argued it; but coming on in life, and
having seen more of the world and studied
better my Bible, | find that that early
teaching was faulty, and that there is no
dignity i'll human nature until it is recon
structed by the grace of God. Talk about
vessels going to pieces on the Skerries,
off Ireland! There never was such a
shipwreck as in the GhiOn and the Hid
| dekel rivers of Eden, where our first par
ents fOundered. Talk of steamer 60
| ing down with five hundred passengers
! on board! What is that to the shipwreck
| Of one billion four numbered million
| souls: We are by nature mass of un-
cleanness and puterfactiOn, from which
it takes all the omnipotence and infni-
tude Of Gods grace to extricate us. "If
! wash myself with snow water, and
should cleanse my hands in alkali, yet
shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch, and my
own clothes shall abhor me-"
Iremark, in the first place, that some
people try to cleanse their soul of sin in
tn. snow-water Of fine apologies. Here
is one man who says; II am sinner;
confess that; but | inherited this. My
father was sinner, my grandfather, my
great great grandfather, and all the way
back to Adam, and | couldn't help N.Y.
self" My brother, have you not every
day in your life, added something to the
original estate of sin that was bequeathed
to your Are you not brave enough to con-
fess that you have sometimes surren-
dered to sin, which you ought to have con-
quered? l ask you whether it is fair
pfay TO put upon our ancestry
things for which we ourselves are
personally responsible? If your nature
was askew when you got it, have you not
sometimes given it an additional twist?
Will all the tombstOnes of those who
have preceded us make a barricade high
enough for eternal defenses? l know a
devout man who had blasphemous parent
| age. know an honest man whose father
was a thief. l know pure man whose
father was waif of the street. The
hereditary tide may be very strong, but
there is such thing as stemming. The
| fact that l have corrupt nature is no
reason why l should yiel9 to it. The deep
stains of our soul can never be washed
out by the snow water of such insufficient
apology.
| Still further, says some one: "If have
gone into sin it has been through my COM
panions, my comrades and associates:
| they ruined me. They taught me to drink.
They took me to the gambling hell. They
| plunged me into the house of sin. They
rained my soul" I do not believe it.
God gave to no one the power to destroy
| you or me. If man is destroyed he
is self-destroyed, and that is always so.
Why did you not break away from them?
If they had tried TO steel your purse, you
would have knocked them down; if they
had tried to purloin your gold watch, you
would have riddled them with shot; but
when they tried to steal your immortal soul
you placidly submitted to it. Those bad
! fellows have a cup of fire to drink; do not
pour your cup into it. In this matter of
the soul, every man for himself. That
those persons are not fully responsible
| for your sin prove by the fact that you
still consort with them. You can not get
off by blaming them. Though you gather
up all these apologies; though there
were great food of them; though they
should come down with the force Of the
melting SHOWS from Lebanon, they could
not wash out one stain of your immortal
soul.
Still further, some persons apologize
for their sins by saying: 1--WE are a
| great deal better than some people. You
see people all around about us that are a
| great deal worse than we." You stand
/ up columnar in your integrity, and look
| down upon those who are PROSTATE in
their habits and crimes. What of that,
my brothery If l failed through reck-
| lessness and wicked imprudence for ten
thousand dollars, is the matter alleviated
at all by the fact that somebody else has
| faila1 for ope hnodred fhnuSaud dallarS