Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-07-05

ease and spIendor. Men frequently iudge
OF sin by the places in which it is committed,
but iniqufty in satin Is to God as Ioathsome
as iniquity in rags, and in the Day of Judg-
ment the sins of Madison avenue and Elm
street viii all be driven In one herd Men
cannot escape at last for being respectfully
sinful You know Dives was clothed in pur-
pie and fine linen and Jared sumptuously
every day, but his fine clothes aud good din
ners did not save him He might on earth
have drunk something as rich as champagne
and co2nac, but at last he asked for ono
drop CT water. You cannot trade off
your attractive abodes 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 drc-e Adam and Eve out
OF Eden He showed that merely living in
garden OF delights and comforts will never
save man or a woman. By giving you 50
much earthly luxury and refinement He in
timated that He would have you enjoy your
selves, but He would not have you wrap YOUR
self up in them as cloak to hide your sins.
Tod now walks in your garden as He did in
Eden, and He stands by your well as He did
by well in Samaria, and He would make
your comfort on earth a type of your rapture
In heaven.
Furthermore, mere SCUM lness of religious
belief will not hide our iniquities. There are
men whose heads are as sound as Jonathan
Eiwards's or John Wesley's, whose hearts
are as rotten as Tom Paines or Charles
Guiteau's. 1t is important that we be theo-
reticai Christians 1t is utter folly in this
day for man to have no preference for any
form of faith when it is 50 easy to become
conyersant with the faith of the different
sects. An intoxicated man staggered into
my house one night begging for lodging
1la aaAa
asked where he went to church. He said:
Nowhere; belong to liberal Christianity
But there are those who never become
Chr stians, because their obstinacy pre-
vents 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, ami all they are ever
willing to do for their souls is to enter an &C.
clesiastical fight. l have met men who
would talk all day upon the ninth chapter of
Romans, who were thoroughly helpless be-
fore the fourteenth chapter of John. But
there are those who, having escaped from
this condition. are now depending entirely
upon their soundness of religious theory
The doctrines of mans depravity aud Christ's
atonement and Gods sovereignty are
theoretically received by them. But, alasl
there they stop. 1t is only the shell of
Christianity containing 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 induced to enter. They
could make better argument for truth
than ten thousand Christians who have in
their hearts received it. If syllogisms and
dilemnlaS and sound propositions and logical
deductions could save their souls they would
be among the best of Christians They could
correctly define repentance and faith and
the Atonement, while they have never felt
one sorrow for stu nor exercised a moments
confidence in the great sacrifice. They are
almost immovable in their position We can
not present anything about the religion of
Christ that they do not know. The Saw
Jour described the fate of such q one in
His parable; "And that servant which knew
his Lords will and prepared not himself,
neither did according to His will, shall DO
beaten with many stripes" Theories In reli-
gion have beluty of their own, but if they
result in no warmth in Christian life it is tho
beauty of hornblende and feldSpar. Do not
call such boldness and hardness religion. Tho
River of Life never freezes over. Icicles
never hang on the caves of heaven. Sound
ness of intellectual belief is beautiful
Cloak, well woven and well cut but in the
hour when God shall demand oer souls it
will not of itself DO sufficient to hile our in
EQUITIES.
My friends, can it be that l have been uN,
kind, and torn from you some hope upon
which you were resting for time AMI etar-
nifty? Verify, would be unlIind if, having
taken away your cloak, did not offer you
something better. This is cold world and you
want something to wrap around your spirit.
Christ offers you a robe to-day. He woye it
Himself, and He viii now with His own
haul prepare it just TO fit your soul.
The Righteousness He offers is like the coat
lie used to wear about Ju lea without seam
FROM top TO bottom. There is a day of
doom. Coward would be If did not dare
tell you this. 1t shall be a day of uuutter-
able disappointment to those who have
trusted in their official dignity, in their
elegant manners, in their outward morality,
in their sounduess of intellectual belief But
| see q soul standing before Col who once
was thoroughly detile1. Yet look at him
and you cannot find a single trans erosion
anywhere about him. How is this, you ask
Was he not once Sabbath breaker, bias
phemer a robber a perjurer a thief a muir
derer? Yes, but Christ hath cleansed him.
Christ hath lifted him up. Christ hath rent
OF his rags. Christ hath clothed him in a
spotleSS robe of righteousness. Tint Is the
reason why you cannot sec his former degra-
dation. This glorious hope in Christ's naInc
is proffered to-day. Wandering and way
ward soul, is not this salvation worth
coming for, worth striving for? Do you
wonder that So many with bitter weeping
have besought it, and with very enthusi-
assn of sorrow cried for divine compassion?
Do you wonder at the carnestness of those
who stand in pulpits beseeching men to be
reconciled to God? Nay do you wonder at
the importantly of the Holy Ghost who
the palaces of Europe the walls are mosaic.
Fragments of shells and glass are arranged
by artists and aggregated into a pictorial
splendor. What made out of broken shells
and broken glass; Oh, yes; God grant that
by the Transforming power OF His Spirit we
may all be made a part of the eternal
palaces, our broken and fragmentary natures
polished and shaped and lifted up to make
part of the everlasting splenGors Of the
heavenly temple!
For sinners, Lord, thou cam'st to bleed,
And Pm a sinner vile indeed
Lord, beve Thy grace is free;
oh, magnify Thy grace in me.