The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-05-08

be the bride when the Bridegroom COM
eth. Let us make it simpler and plain
er for people to get into the kingdom of
God. Do not hinder people by the idea
that they may not have been elected.
Do not tag on to the one essential of
faith in Christ any of the innumerable
non-essentials. A man who heartily
accepts Christ is a Christian, and the
man who does not accept Him is not a
Christian, and that is all there is of it.
He need not believe in election or
reprobation. He need not believe in
the eternal generation of the Son. He
need not believe in everlasting punish
ment. He need not believe in infant
baptism He need not believe in plen-
airy inspiration. Faith in Christ is the
criterion, is the test, is the pivot, is the
indispensable.
But there are those who would add
unto the tests rather than subtract from
them. There are thousands who would
not accept persons into church member
ship if they drink wine or if they smoke
cigars or if they attend the theater or
if they play cards or if they drive fast
horse. Now, l do not drink wine or
smoke or attend the theater, never
played a game of cards, and do not
drive fast horse, although would if 1
owned one. But do not substitute tests
which the Bible does not establish.
There is one passage of Scripture wide
enough to let all in who ought to enter
and to keep out all who ought to be
kept out: believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved" Get a
mans heart right and his life will
be right. But now that the old
creeds have been put under public
scrutiny something radical must be
done. Some would split them, some
would carve them, some would elOngate
them, some would abbreviate them. At
the present moment and in the present
shape they are hindrance. Lazarus is
alive, but hampered with the old grave
clothes. If you want one glorious
church, free and unincumbered, take
off the cerements of old ecclesiastical
vocabulary. Loose her and let her go.
Again, there are Christians who are
under sepulchral shadows and hindered
and hoppled by doubts and fears and
sins long ago repented of. What they
need is to understand the liberty of the
sons of God. They spend more time
under the shadow of Sinai than at the
base of Calvary. They have been sing
ing the only poor hymn that Newton
ever wrote:
IT'S q point long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought
Do love the Lord orno,
Am His or am not?
Long to know, do you? Why do you
not find out? Go to work for God and
you will very soon find out The man
who is all the time feeling of his pulse
and looking at his tongue to see wheth-
er it is coated, is morbid and can not be
physically well. The doctor will say:
go out into the fresh air and into act
i've life and stop thinking of yourself and
you will get well and strong" So there
are people who are watching their spir-
itual symptoms, and they call it self-ex-
animation, and they get weaker and
sicklier in their faith all the time. Go
out and do something nobly Christian.
Take holy exercise and then examine
yourself, and, instead of Newton's satur-
nine and bilious hymn that I first quot
ed, you will sing Newton's other hymn:
Amaz ing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now see.
What many of you Christians most
need is to get your grave clothes off.
rejoice that you have been brought from
the death of sin to the life of the Cos
pei, but you need to get your hand loose
and your feet loose and your tongue
loose and your soul loose. There is NO
sin that the Bible so arraigns and punct-
ures and fiagellates as the sin of unbe-
lief, and that is what is the matter with
you.
'Oh," you say, 'if you know what ]
once was and how many times 1 have
grievously strayed, you would under
stand why do not come out brighter.
Then l think you would call yourself
the chief of sinners. l am glad you hit
upon that term, for 1 have a promise
that fits into your case as the cogs OF
one wheel between the cogs of another
wheel, or as the key fits into the laby-
rinths of a lock. A man who was once
called Saul, but afterwards Paul, de-
clared:
This is faithful saying, and worthy
of all acceptation; that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners, OF
whom L am chief" Mark that-''of
whom I am chief !"
Put down your overcoats and hats
and l will take care of them while you
kill Stephen"-so Saul said to the
stoners of the first martyr-''I do not
care to exert myself much, but 1 will
guard your surplus apparel while you
do the murder"
The New Testament account saws:
''The witnesses laid down their clothes
at young mans feet whose name was
Saul" No wonder he said: sinners,
of whom I am the chief" Christ is
used to climbing. He climbed to the
top of the temple. He climbed to the
top of Mount Olivet. He climbed to the
top of the cliffs about Nazareth. He
climbed to the top of Golgotha. And to
the top of the hills and mountains OF
your transgression He is ready to climb
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