The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-06-30

POSITION from a view that YOU have OF
Christ and your need of Him, rejoice with
iov unspeakable and full of glory and clap
your hands for glsdness, but If you find
yourself with nothing but the name of life,
while dead in treSpasses and sins, arouse
l,afore the door Is shut That gilded pro-
fession-the world may not be able TO see
through it-but in the day of divine reckon
ing il will be found that you have no cloak
for your sin
Furthermore: Outward morality will be
no covering for the hidden iniquity of tho
spirit. The gospel of Christ makes no as
sault upon good works. They are as beautl-
fnl in Gods eye as in ours. Punctuallty,
trTthfulness, alms-giving, affection and
many other excellences of life that might
be mentioned will always be admired or
God and man, but we take the position that
good works cannot be the ground OF our
salvation. What we do right cannot pay
for what we do wrong. Admit that you
have all those traits of character which
give merely worldly respectablllty ard
influence, YOU must at the same
time acknowledge that during the course
of YOUR life you have done many things
YOU ought not to have done. How are THESE
dificult matters to be settled2 All, my
friends. we must have an atonement. No
Christ. no salvation. The great Redeemer
comes in and SAYS, II will pay your indebt-
eduessn So that which was dark enough
before is bright enough now. The stripes
that we deserve are fallen upon Christ. On
his scourged and blesding shoulders he car
ries US up over the mountain OF our sins
and the hills or our inlquitles Chrlst's
good works accepted are sufficient for
us. but they who reject them, depend
ing upon their own, must perish. traits
of character that may make US lnfinen-
fial on earth will not necessarily open to us
the gate of heaven. The plank that will be
strong enough for house floor would not
do for ships hulk. Mere morality might
be enough here, but cannot take you
through deaths storm into heavens harbor.
Christ has announced for all ages, II am
the way. the truth and the life, him that
cometh unto me l will in no wise cast out"
But pitiable in the day of accounts will be
the condition of that man, though he may
have given all his estate to benevolent pur
poses and passed his life in the visiting of
the distressed and done much to excite the
admiration of the good and the
great if he have no intimate
relation to Jesus Christ. There
is pride and depravity in bis SOUL that
he has never discovered. A brilliant out
side will be no apology for depraved in
side 1t is no theory of mine, but an an
nouncement of God, who cannot lie, "By
the deeds Of the law shall no flesh living be
justified" "Open the door of heaven and
look in" Howard is there, but he did not
secure his entrance by the dungeons he illu-
mined and the lazzarettos into which he
carried the medicines. Paul is there. but
he did not earn his way by the ship wrecks
and imprlsonments and scourgings. On
throne overtoppin perhaps all Others,
except Christ's, the old missionary ex-
claims: "By the grace of God l am what
am"
Again: Exalted social position will be no
cloak for sin. Men look through the wicket
door of prisons, and, seeing the incarcerated
wretches, exclaim: "Oh, how much vice
there is in the worldw And they pass
through the degraded streets of a city, and,
looking into the doors of novels and the
dens of corruption, they call them God
forsaken abodes But you might walk
along the avenues through which the opu-
lent roll in their fourishing pomp and
into mansions elegantly adorned, and
find that even in the admired walks
of life Satan works mischief and death. The
first temptation Satan wrought in garden,
and he understands yet most thoroughly
how to insinuate himself into any door of
ease and splendor. Men frequently judge
of sin by the places in which it is COM
mitted, but iniquity in satin is to God as
loathsome as iniquity in rags, and in the
day of Judgment the sins of Madison ave-
nue. and Elm street will all be driven in one
herd. Men cannot escape at last for being
respectfully sinful. You know Dives was
clothed in purple ana fine linen and Jared
sumptuously every DAY, but his fine clothes
and good dinners did not save him. He
might on earth have drunk something as
rich as champagne and cognac, but at last
he asked for one drop of water. You
cannot trade off your attractive abode
here for house of many mansions on high,
and your elegant shade groves here will not
warrant you a seat under the tree of life
When God drove Adam and Eve out OF
Eden he showed that merely living in a
garden of delights and comforts will never
save man or woman. By giving you so
much earthly luxury and refinement he in
timated that he would have you enjoy
yourselves, but he would not have you
wrap yourself up in them as a cloak to hide
your sins. God now walks in your garden
as he did in Eden, even in the cool of the
day, and he stands by your well as he did
by well in Samaria, and he would make
your comfort on earth type of your rapt-
ure in heaven.
again: Mere soundness of religious be-
LIST will not hide our iniquities L here are
men whose heads are as sound as Jonathan
Edwards or John Wesley. whose hearts are
as rotten as Tom Paine's or Charles Gui-
teau's. II is important that we be theoreti-
cal christians. 1t is utter folly in this day
for a man to have no preference for any one
form Of faith, when it is so easy to become
COuVoTSdub Win JD6 ldlUl Oh LQ6 Qlu0r6Qu
sects. An intoxicated man staggered into
my house one night begging for lodging He
made great pretensions to religion. / asked
where he went to church. He said: mo
where; belong to liberal christianity" But
there are those who never become christians
because their obstinacy prevents them from
ever taking a fair view of what religion is.
They are like brute beast in the fact that
their greatest strength lies in their horns
They are combatant, and all they are ever
willing to do for their souls is to enter an
ecclesiastical fight. l have met men who
would talk all day upon the ninth chapter
of Romans, who were thoroughly helpless
before the fourteenth chapter of John. But
there are those who, having escaped from
this condition, are now depending en-
tirely upon their soundness of religious
theory. The doctrines of mans depravity
and Christs atonement and Gods
sovereignty are theoretically received
by them. But, alas! there they stop.
1t is only the she'll of christianity, contain
ing no evangelical life. They stand looking
over into heaven and admire its beauty and
its song, and are SO pleased with the looks
from the outside that they cannot be in
duced to enter. They could make a better
argument for the truth than ten thousand
christians who have in their hearts received
it If syllogisms and dilemmas and sound
propositions and logical deductions could
save their souls they would be among the