Morning journal and courier., 1890-07-14
\ sKrLruLIx WROUGHT SERMON.

A SKILFULLY WROUGHT sERmON Rev. '. Lee Mitchell Presents Time-
 Iy Topic In His Fair Haven Pulpit
 ssThe Failure of Natural Laws tO
 Account for ChrisI''-Jesus,the Life-
 A Highly Interestins Discourse.
 At the First Congregational church, Fair Haven, yesterday morning Rev. J. Lee Mitchell preached to a large congregation, the third in special series of sermons. His topic was ''The Failure of Natural LAWS to Account for the Christ" The preacher said: sI know men," said Napoleon, "and Jesus Christ was no man." have been endeavor- ing in the two former sermons not to offer you any highly spiced arguments to tickel your logical palates, but to call your atten- tion to certain self-evident facts about the Bible which give to it reverence and power which no mere doctrine of inspiration could ever do. I have claimed for it that it has been the educator and leader of men, destroyer of cruelty, llcentiousness and superstition, the ono steadily progressive force in the world, and all this in way which is utterly without parallel in human history. It is the offspring of another world than this one, the develop- ment of purer intelligence than ours, ever in advance of ours, yet ever striving with Q patience for which we have no name but God to lift ours to it's own.
 The Bible, the voice to men of their leader, God, about to close it's pages forever, pre- ssnts men with one browning revelation, one peerless ideal, one completely successful re- deemer, Jesus Christ. Jesus of Nazareth Is no fiction, no dream, no ideal, no eathusiast. He is the coolest, calmest, most indisputable adamantine bit of history this world con- tains. Cicero, Martin Luther, Benjamin Franklin, the battle of Bunker Hill, Lees surrender are but legends compared wish such history as the thirty-three years' ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The only a"ssSa sws tSat wifi account for 5esuss Is bs ks Virgil, like Luther, like Shakespeare, like George Washington. the natural offsprisg of the centuries brought to delivery by the lm. minence of the timei Or does he stand alone a meteor from another world, natural enough in his own sphere, but belonging 60 another sphsre9 Is he of the earth earthly, or is he the point of tangency of the circle of earth with the circle of spirit9 The au- thor of Hebrews agreed with Napoleon. He Is made "not after the law of carnal but after the power of an endless life" Life, you biologists, you geol- cgists, you evolutionists, know something about, but what do you know about an end- less lifei The power of an endless life, that is no nature power, no horse power, no life power that we know anything about. The author in speaking of that dim, lustrous figure in history to whom even Abraham paid tribute, Melchisedec, king of righteous ness, says, as was he, so is Christ priest forever after his order.
 For no known laws will account for Jesus Christ. wish evolution were perfectly established and defined system and all men accepted it, then would all men have to fall down and worship Jesus.
 No laws of heredity will account for Jesus. The fundamental plan or doctrine of Jesus is without ancestry. Men know noth- ing of those very laws of sequence and de- velopment of which they boast so much when they say that India or Greece could have suggested to Jesus the idea of the king dom of God. Like no other system does he develop it. Confucius, Socrates and Mo named develop their plans as they go along, adapting them to circumstances, and are more surprised than anybody else at their success, but the system of Jesus, the king dom of God, springs forth complete and full grown at once, like Minerva from the head of love. He is never surprised, he never changes it, he never adapts 1t. The advantage of worldwide success immediately never for moment tempts him to change his system.
 The effort is continually being made to prove that, though no one race could have developed a Jesus, Jesus may be the result, the cross, the composite of the best of all races, meeting as they did in the east at that time. Effort is made, for instance, to show that the moral teaching of Jesus is called from all the sages of the race. The very highest of earth's teachers hardly got 50 far as to make truth 6 summit and end of wis., dem. But Jesus would not have it for an end. Truth is valuable with him only be. cause 1t is the way of life, and while the common people were hearing him gladly and
 understanding and believing, the thinkers ot
 his age held that no uneducated man could easily avoid sin, and no man of the people could be pious. He opens up on the world with statement as startling as a flash of lightning out of clear sky, "Ye must be born again."
 The more ignorant a man is the less he realizes what task he has before him if he is going to explain Jesus. Men unhesitar-' ingly put him first of all men, and do not realize that that does not account for him. Shakespeare and Franklin are far ahead of their fellow men, but still men easily enough. All the leaders of the race have on some side or other been very many. Jesus is no more extraordinary man than he is ordinary man. 4uht u0 lb uOb oAuiAoky AAoA 0hy DoNy S"AA see, but until men actually try to prove it they don't realize how impossible it is that he should be extraordinary man. The brighest stone never grows, the tallest tree never walks. The most intelligent animal never becomes man. The most extraordi- nary man never would be Jesus. To man who knows the facts of evolution, mental science and history, Jesus Christ the man is miracle.
 say not, however, that Jesus is miracle in his own sphere. The question simply if "Is man and matter all, or is there sph ers of God and spiritq If man and matter is all then Jesus is utterly unascountable. A mir acle which is Q name for an impossibility y. But if there be also God and spirit, there is Jesus, natural to that nature, miraculous only to us. Then what could be more req sonabls than to believe Jesus' own words that he is the point where man, nature and God-uature, touch: "I in them and thou ir
 me-" 60 he eaid. You can't account for hin any other way, that is certain.
 In fact, if a man cannot see the divine ir Jesus, I would not trust him to see the hu
 man in men. He knows nothing of human nature who calls Jesus human
 He knows nothing of natura science who can make natural science
 account for Jesus. True science is nt
 patent medicine which will cure everything
 True science Is SO 6Klll1ul 6peclall5t tudu l
 keenly recognizes what it cannot do. Tru
 science pauses reverently before the mango
 and tomb of Jesus, and says couclusively
 s'He was not of us. A man who does no
 know the difference between God and law
 would not trust in science any more thai
 religion.
 The practical conclusion which l brin from these studies is that 1t is not enoug for . man to know God. He must kno' Jesus. too. All men practically believe in God. You all conceive of some relation i which you stand to God. That is not enoug to constitute man @ member of the highe kingdom. He must also abide in Christ a the branches abide in the vine. What me did long ago, what men believed long age has nothing to do with it.. We live now. ! man would not succeed in business wh l made no use of the telegrap | and railroad, though once freigh was carried in OK teams. A man would nc l succeed in morals now who practiced polye amy, though Jacob was a polygamist. : l man would not succeed in society now wh refused to learn to read, though once no ger tleman could read. A man will not succee in religion now, will not succeed wit | God and eternal life who refuses to com | into personal relations to Jesus Christ, for b filings himself in the face of providence an | progress. By his own law of survival of tn | Attest he is not fit to survive. Thank Go l survival of the Attest is mans law, and nc Gods. Gods law is the record that Go