The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1890-02-27
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvI MES SUN
DAY SERMON
Subject, The Glorious Christi
TEXT: "He that cometh from above Z
above aU,"--John ill.,, 81

TEXT; 'He that comeih from above Is
above aU"--John ILL.,, 81.
The most conspicuous character of history
steps out upon the platform. The finger
which, diamonded with light, pointed down
TO Him from the Bethlehem sky, was only q
ratification OF the finger Of prophecy, the
iiuger OF genealogy, the finger OF chronology,
the finger of events-all five fingers pointing
in one direction. Christ Is the overlapping
figure of all time He is the vox humane in
all music, the gracefulest line in all sculp-
ture, the most exquisite mingling of lights
and shades in all painting, the acme of all
climaxes, the dome of all cathedraled gram
deur, and the peroration Of all splendid Ian
guage.
The Greek alphabet is made up of twenty
four letters and when Christ compared Him
self to the first letter and the last letter, the
alpha and the omega, He appropriated
to Himself all the splendors that you
can spell out either with those two let
tcrs and all the letters between them. ~
am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the end, tho first and the last.n Or, il
you prefer the words Of the text, 'above
al"
What does it mean9 1t means, after you
have piled up all Alpine and Himalayan
attitudes, the glory Of Christ would have to
u
leagues to touch those submits. Pelion, a
high mountain of Thessaly; Ossa, a high
mountain, and Olympus, high mountain;
but my thology tells us when the giants
warred against the gods they piled up these
three mountains, and from the top of them
proposed to scale the heavens; but the height
was not great enough, and there was COM
plete failure. And after all the giants
Isaiah and Paul, prophetic and apostolic
piants. RanhaeI and Michael Anoelo artistic
giants; cherubim and seraphim and arch
angel, celestial giants-have failed to climb
to the top Of Christ's glory they might all
well unite in the words of the text and say:
HE that coneth from above is above all"
First, Christ must be above all else in our
preaching. There are so many books on
homiletics scattered through the country
that all laymen, as well as all clergymen,
have made up their minds what sermons
ought to be. That sermon is most effectual
which most pointedly puts forth Christ as
the pardon Of all sin and the correction of all
evil-indvidual, social, political, national.
There is no reason why we should ring the
endless changes on few phrases. There are
those who think that it an exhortation or a
discourse have frequent mention of justi--
fication, sanctificaton, covenant of
works and covenant of grace, that
therefore it must be profoundly evangelical,
while they are suspicious of discourse
which presents the same truth, but under
different phraseology. Now, | say there is
nothing in all the opulent realm of Anglo
Saxonism, of all the word treasures that we
inherited from the Latin and the Greek and
the Indo-European, but we have a right to
marshal it in religious discussion. Christ
sets the example. His illustrations were from
the grass, the flowers, the spittle, the salve,
the barnyard fowl, the crystals of salt, as
well as from the seas and the stars; and we
do not propose in our Sabbath-school teach.
ing and in our pulpit address to be put on the
limits.
know that there is great deal said in our
day against words, as though they were
nothing. They may be misused, but they
have an imperial power. They are the
bridge between soul and soul, between Al
mighty God and the human race. What did
God write upon the tables OF stones? Words.
What did Christ utter on Mount Olivet?
Words Out of what did Christ strike the
spark for the illumination of the universe?
Out of words. "Let there be light" and
light was. OF course, thought is the cargo,
and words are only the ship; but how fast
would your cargo get on without the
ship? What you need, my friends,
in all your work, in your Sabbath
school class, in your reformatory
institutions, and what we all need is to en-
large our vocabulary when we come TO speak
about God and Christ and heaven. We ride
few old words to death when there is such
illimitable resource. Shakespeare employed
fifteen thousand different words for dra-
matte purposes Milton employed eight thou
sand different words for poetic purposes;
Rufus Choatc employed over eleven thou
sand different words for legal purposes; but
the most of us have less than thousand
words that we can manage, less than five
hundred, and that makes us so stupid.
When we come to set forth the love Of
Christ we are going to take tenderest
phraseology wherever we find it, and if it
has never been used in that direction before
all the more shall we use it. When we
come to speak of the glory Of Christ, the
Conqueror, we are going to draw our SMILES
from triumphal arch and oratorio and
everything grand and stupendous. The
French navy have eighteen flags by
which they give signal, but those
eighteen flags they can put into sixty-six
thousand different combinations. And
lave to tell you that these standards of the
cross may be lifted into combinations infinite
and varieties everlasting. And let me say
to these young men who come from the the.
illogical seminaries into our services every
Sabbath, and are after while going to
preach Jesus Christ, you will have the
largest liberty and unlimited resource. You
only have to present Christ in your own way.
cuIdtudil l2uhuluS 1ul III Iile
severest arg ment ever penned, and John
bunyan preached Christ In the subIimest al
legory ever composed Edward Payson, sicl
aud exhausted, leaned up against the side o
the pulpit and wept out his discourse, Will
George Whitfield, with the manner and tn
voice and the start of an actor oyerwhelmei
his auditory. 1t would have been differen
thing IL Jonathan Edwards had tried t.
write and dream about the pilgrims progress
to the celestial city, or John Bunyau had at
tempted an essay on the human will.
Brighter than the light, fresher than the
fountains, deeper than the seas, are all these
| Gospe themes. Song has no melody, flower
have no sweetness, sunset sky has no color
| compared with these glorious thomas. These
harvests Of grace spring up quicker than we
can sickle them. Kindling pulpits witt
their fire, and producing revolutions witt
their power, lighting up dying beds witt
| their glory, they are the sweetest thought
| for the poet, and they are the most thrilling
illustration for the orator, and they oifel
| the most intense scene for the artist
| and they are to the ambassador of tn
| sky all enthusiasm. Complete pardon fol
| direst guilt Sweetest comfort for ghastl,
agony. Brightest hope for grimmest death
| Grandest resurrection for darkest sepulchre
| Oh, what Gospel to preach! Christ over al
in it, His birth, His suffering, His miracles
| His parallels, His sweat, His tears, His blood
| His atonement His intercession-what go
rious themes! Do we exercise faith? Chris
is its object. Do we have love? 1t fasten
on Jesus. Have We a fondness for the church
1t is because Christ died for it. Have we
hope of heavenS 1t is because Jesus wen
ahead, the herald and the forerunner.
The royal robe Of Demetrius was so costly
so beautiful, that after he had put it off no
one ever dared put it on; but this robs Of
| Christ, richer than that, the poorest and the
wannest and the worst may wear. ''Wher;
sin abounded grace may much more abound
"Oh, my sins, my sins . said Martin Luther
to Staupitz, my sins, my sinsm The fact
is that the brawny German student had
found a Latin Bible that made him quake
and nothing else ever did make him quake
and when he found how, through Christ
he was pardoned and saved, he wrote
to a friend, saying; 'Come over and
join us great and awful sinners saved
by the grace of God. You seem to b,
only slender sinner, AMI you don't
much extol the mercy of God; but we that
have been such very awful sinners praise His
grace the more now that we have been re
deemed" Can it be that YOU are SO des
perately egotistical that you feel yourself in
first rate spiritual trim, and that from tn,
root of the hair to the tip of the toe you are
scarless and immaculate? What you need i:
n 1ontip, aIac- anl hare IL iS in tho Ribla