Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-03

are thousands who would not accept
persons into church membership if they
drink wine, or if they smoke cigars, or If
they attend theater, or if they play cards +,
or if they drive q fast horse. Now, L
do not drink wine or smoke or attend the
theater, never played game of cards
and do not drive fast horse, although
would If owned one. But do not sub
| stitute tests which the Bible does not
establish. There is one passage OF
scripture wide enough to let al in who
| ought to enter and to keep out all who
ought to be kept out: Believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ aud thou shalt be
saved. - Get q 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, sUme
would carve them, some would
elougate 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 uneuCumbeTed /,
take off the cerements Of old ecclesiasti-
cal vocabulary. Loose her, and let her
go!
DOUBTS AND FEARS.
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 CAL
vary. They have been singing the only
poor hymn that Newton ever wrote:
IT'S point long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought
Do / We the Lord or no,
Am His am 1 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 whether
il is coated is morbid, and cannot be
physically we'll. The doctor will say:
EGO 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
spiritual symptoms, and they call it self
examination, and they get weaker and
sickiier in their faith all the time. Go
out and do something nobly Christian.
Take holy exercise and then examine
yourself, and instead of Newton 8
saturnine aud bilious hymn that first
quoted, you will sing Newton 3 other
hymn:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved wretch like mel
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 Gospel;
that 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 punctures and
fagellates as the sin of unbelief aud that
is what is the matter with you. 'tOh, -
YOU say, eff you knew what l once was
and how many times l have grievously
strayed, you would understand why I do
not come out brighter. Then / think
you would call yourself the chief of sim
neTs. l am glad you hit upon that term,
for l have q premise that fits into your
case as the cogs of one wheel between the
cogs OF another wheel, or as the key fits
into the labyrinths of lock. A man
who was once called Saul but afterwards
Paul, declared: "This is a faithful say
ing and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
that-'tof whom 1 am chief put
down your overcoats and hats aud I will
take care OF them while you kill
Stepheu''-so Saul said 10 the stoners of
the first MARTYR do not care TO exert
myself much, but will guard your sur
plus apparel while you do the murder. -
The New Testament account says: 1.-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 the mountains of
your transgresson He is ready to climb
with pardon for every one of you. The
groan of Calvary is mightier than the
thunder of Sinai. Full receipt is offered
for all your Indebtedness. Ii one throw
d stone at midnight into bush where
the hedge bird rooSts, it Immediately be-
gins to sing; and into the midnight
hedges of your dependency these words
l hurl. hoping to awaken you to anthem.
Drop the tunes in the minor KEY and take
the major. Do you think it pleases the
you the debris and carcasses of old trans
gressions? You make me think OF some
ship that has had q tempestuous time at
sea, and now that it proposes another
voyage Keeps on Its davits the dam
aged lifeboats and the splinters OF a
shivered mast and the broken glass
or a smashed skylight. My ad-
vice is: Clear the decks. overheard with
all the damaged rigging. brighten up the
salted smoke stacks, open 8 new log
book, haul in the planks, lay out new
course and set sail for heaven. You
have had the spiritual dumps long
enough. You will please the Lord more
by being happy than by being miserable.
Have you not sometimes started out in
the rain with your umbrella and you
were busy thinking, and you did not
notice that the rain had stopped, and
though it had cleared off you still had
your umbrella up, and when you dis
covered what you were doing you felt
silly enough? That is what some of you
are doing IN religious things. You have
got so used TO sadness that though the