St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-11-11
A RATHER POINTED SERMON
a Greed That Does Not stand In
Need OF Revision.


Text: "Then Simon Peter answered
and said, Lord, to WHEN shall we 90?
Thou hast the words of eternal life.
And we believe and are sure that Thou
art that Christ. the Son of the Living
God. John VII, 6S.
There was a creed-creating age.
From the Augsburg confession, made in
1880, down to the Cambridge and BOs-
ton, and Saybrook platforms, made in
the last half of the segenteeth century,
theOlogians did little else than fabricate
creeds. Christians now wonder what
these creeds were for. and how they
ever came about. 1t is only when we
remember the ''Odlum theOlOgi-
cum' inherited by the Protest
ants from the Romanism that we
can understand the creation Of the
creeds. The old Roman spirit was not
yet dead in the world. 1t was sup
posed that the sword, the spear, the
fagot and the rack had more pc wer over
the minds of men than truth, love and
reason. From the assaults of reason
and of Gods word Rome protected or
thodOxy with the fagot. The same
spirit that in Minneapolis is confined to
the c0wardly role OF anonymous letter.
writing then piled the InuuisitiOn; it
arrested. tortured and murdered its in
nOcent victims by the thousand. Roman
Catholicism may rewrite history to suit
its present day tastes. but the blood
Stains of the InquisitiOn will forever
stick to it. Romanism has bloody
record, and if it dared would make 1t
bloodier still.
Now, while the early Protestants sell
dom resOrted to force, they WerenOt
entirely free from the feeling that faith
is matter subject to cOmpulsiOn. They
thought that majority votes in councils
ought to settle the conSciences of minor
tiles. Though the PrOteStantS of the
sixteenth century had outgrowD the in
quiSitorial method of guarding OrthO-
doxy, they still kept about it the police
of confessions. and symbols, and great
names, and church councils, and royal
edicts; they still used nick-names, and
were not above personal abuse. The
heroes of the Reformation had not
learned, in that age could not learn,
that Christ is the only essential in the
Christians creed, and that unity in Him
means charity for a multitude of Opln-
ions. They were conscientious in their
creed creations, but this age prOnOunceS
them mistaken. AS they moved away
from them. We are drawing nearer to
Christ.
Not to name other creedS that are up
for revision. or that have been recently
revised, there is the Westminster con-
fesSiuil, the confesSOrS of which have of
late been filling the world with the
noise of their dissent from it. The
readers of the dailieS have seen what
the New York synod thinks of it. The
great fuss about it seems funny, coming
from people who refuse to join an
evangelical alliance with others who dv
not like the creedS that they themselves
cannot agree upon. When our dear
DR.. Burrell gets his creed revised to
suit his dear Brother Pax ton, then per-
haps Drs. Burrell, Paxton, and the rest
of us can go into an evangelical ALI
ance together. If any past system
cramps any present age let it be revised
out of existence.
What is the creed that does not need
revising? Divine truth is like the null
DUPLICATION table; to revise it would spoil
it. That Jesus is the Son of God and
the Savior of men is simple state
ment of fact. 1t is the statement of
fact; it is expression of divine truth; it
is the creed of the apostles and of all
the early Christians. On that truth as on
rock Jesus founded His church; on
that truth He promised it should stand
forever. That truth needs no revision.
1t is the simplest, soundeSt. sublimest
creed ever presented to the human
mind.
The creed-creating age has gone.
The creed-reviSifig age is at hand. The
physician is called even when there is a
sickness unto denth. But no hand can
stay the life that Is doomed. The
ereed-5urying age will come, hastily,
let us hope. Creeds are being revised
because they are on hand, and are out
worn, and their owners do not know eX-
actly what to do with them. Christ on
the other hand is risen from the dead,
and He lives, the same yesterday. to-day,
and forever. In Him law is transformed
into love; canons take the form of
character; abstract DEGREES are eX-
changed for personal guide and Savior.
He is the word made flesh, and that
marvellous metaphor of the Apostle John
covers the whole ground.