The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1889-06-12
ABOUT PURIFICATION.
Sermon ty Rev. T. Dewitt Tai
mage, D. D.
How DifyerrlA People Try to Cleanse Their
Souls frSa1 Sin-But Little Good in
Humanity Until 1t is Recon-
stNrted by Gods Grace

| DR.. Talmast's recent sermon at the Brook
| lyn Taherna lie was upon the subject of
| Publication, and his text Job tx, 30-3i: "lf
! / wash myss,f with snow water, and should
| cleanse my hands in allSali, yet shalt thou
| plunge me ID the ditch, and mine own clothes
shall abhor ale" The eloquent diyiae spoke
as follows: N--
Albert Ba nes-honored be his name on
earth and in heaven--went straight back to
| the original writing Of my text, and trans
lated it rs aaye now quoted it, giving sub
stantial rea .ons for so doing. Although we
know bette', the ancents had an idea that
in snow WAGER there was special power to
cleanse, aYd that a garment washed and
rinsed in it would be as clean as clean could
be; but if tie plain snow water failed to do
it's work, chen they would take I've or alkali
and mix il with oil, and under that prepare
ton they fslt that the last impurity would
certainly be gone. Job, in my text, in most
forcefui figure sets forth the idea that all
his attempts to make himself pure before
| God wers dead failure, and that, unless
we are aaIuted by something better than
earthly liquids and chemical preparations,
we are lsathsome and in the ditch. "lf l
wash myself with snow water, and should
cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt thou
plunge lac in the ditch, and mine own clothes
shall abAor me-"
You Hre now sitting for your picture.
turn the camera obscura of Gods word full
upon you, and pray that the sunshine fall
ing through the skylight may enable me to
take you just as you are. Shall it be a fiat
tering picture, or shall be a true ones You
say, ."Let it be true one." The first pro-
file that was ever taken was taken three
hundred and thirty years before Christ, Of
Ambiguous. He had blind eye, and he COM
PEELED the artist to take his profile so as to
hide the defect in his vision. But since that
invention, three hundred and thirty years
before Christ, there have been great many
profiles. Shall l to-day give you one-sided
view Of yourselves, profile, or shall it be a
full length portrait, showing you just what
you area If God will help me by His al
mighty grace shall give yon that last kind
of a picture.
When first entered the ministry used
to write my sermons all out and read them.
| run my hand along the line lest l should
lose my place. l have hundreds of those
manuscripts. Shall l ever preach them /!
Never; for in those days l was somehow
overmastered with the idea heard talked
all around about, of the dignity Of human
nature, and adopted the idea, and evolved
it, and illustrated it, and 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 in human nature un.
| til it is reconstructed by the grace of God.
Talk about vessels going to pieces on the
Skerres off Ireland There never was such
shipwreck as in Gihon and the Hiddel1el,
rivers of Eden, where our first parents
foundered. Talk of steamer going down
with five hundred passengers on board !!
What is that to the shipwrecl1 of fourteen
hundred million souls! We are by nature u
mass of uncleanness and putrefaction, from
which it takes all the Omnipotence and in
! finitude of Gods grace to eXtricate us. "1f
wash myself with snow water and should
I cleanse my hands in alkali yet shalt thou
plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes
shall abhor me-"
remark, in the first place, that some peo-
| pie try to cleanse their soul of sin in the
snow water of fine apologies. Here is one
| man who says: 81 am a sinner; confess
that; but inherited this. Ny father was a
sinner, my grandfather, my great-great-
grandfather, and all the way back to Adam,
and couldn't help myself" My brother,
have you not, every day in your life, added
something to the original state Of sin that
was bequeathed to you' Are you not brave
enough to confess that you have sometimes
surrendered to sin, which you ought to have
conquereda l ask you whether it is fair
| play to put upon our ancestry things for
which we ourselves are personally respon-
siblel If your nature was askew when you
| got it, have you not sometimes given it an
additional twistl Will all the tombstones
of those who have preceded us make bar
ricade high enough for eternal defenses?
know devout man who had blasphemous
parentage. l know an honest man whose
father was thief. know pure man
whose mother was a waif of the street. The
hereditary tide may be very strong, but
| there is such thing as stemming it. The
fact that have corrupt nature is no rca-
son why should yield 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 ruined my
soul" l do not believe it. God gave to no
one the power to destroy you or me- II q
man is destroyed he is selfdestroyed, and
that is always so. Why did you not break
away from thema If they had tried to steal
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 i'm
mortal soul, YOU placidly listened 10 it.
Those bad fellows have 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 of
by blaming them. Though you gather up
all these apologies; though there We're a
great food of them; though they should
come down with the force of 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: eve are great deal
better than some people. You see people all
around about us that are 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 brotherl If failed through
recklessness and wicked imprudence for ten
thousand dollars. is the matter alleviated at
all by the fact that somebody else has failed
for one hundred thousand dollars, and some
body else for two hundred thousand dollars
o, no. If have the neuralgia, shall I re-
fuse mcoical attendance because my neigh
Dor has Nculent typhoid fever! The faci
that his disease is worse than mine-does
that cure miael Ill, through my foolhard