New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1890-03-12
TALMAGE ON CREEDS.
lie Does not Believe in Infant
Baptism and Neither
Did Calvin.

Nor the Substitution Of Tests
in Religion Not Warrant
ed in the Bible.
BROOKLYN, Special The subject of Mr.. Tai,
IMAGES discourse was 'sRevison Of Creeds, !"
and he took for his text j ohm XII A: Loose
him, and let him go" DR.. Talmage said:
My Bible is, at the place of this text, writ
ten all over with lead pencil marks made
last December at Bethany on the ruins OF the
house of Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
We dismounted from our horses on the way
up from Jordan to the Dead sea. Bethany
was the summer evening retreat of Jesus.
After spending the day in the hot city of Je-
rusaiem he would come out there almost every
evening to the house OF his three friends L
think the occupants of that house were or
phans. for the father and mother are not NELL
toned But the son and two daughters must
have inherited property.
For it must have been, judging from what
saw of the foundations and the size OF the
rooms an opulent home. Lazarus, the
brother, was now the head of the household
and his sisters depended on him and were
proud of him, for he was very popular and
everybody liked him, and these girls were
splendid girls. Martha a frst-rate house
keeper and Mary spirituelle, somewhat
dreamy, but affectionate, and as good o girl
as could be found in all Palestine But one
day Lazarus got sick The sisters were in
CONSERVATION. Father gone and mother
gone, they feel very nervous lest they lose
their brother also. Disease did its quick
work. How the girls hung over his pillow!
Not much sleep about that house, no sleep
at all. From the characteristics otherwhere
developed, / judge that Martha prepared the
medicines and made tempting dishes of food
for the poor appetite of the sufferer, but
Mary prayed and sobbed. Worse and worse
gets Lazarus, until the doctor announces
that he can do no more. The shrek that
went up from that household when the last
breath had been drawn and the two sisters
were being led by sympathizers into the adj
joining room, all those OF us can i'm agine who
have had our own hearts broken. But why
was not Jesus there as he SO often had been?
Far away in the country districts preaching,
healing other sick, how unfortunate that
this omEipotent doctor had not been at that
domestic crisis at Bethany. When at last
Jesus arrived in Bethany Lazarus had been
buried four days and dissolution had taken
place. In that climate the GREATNESS body
disintegrates moro rapidly than in ours. 1t,
Immediately after disease, that body had
have said that he was only in a comatose
state, or in q sort of trance, and by some
vigorous manipulation or powerful stimu-
lant:vitality had been renewed. Mol Four
days dead. At the door Of the sepulchre is a
crowd of people, but the three most
memorable me are Jesus, who was the family
friend, and the two bereft sisters.
We went into the traditional tomb in Deem
Der, and it is deep and dark, and with torches
we explored it. We found it all quiet that
afternoon of our visit, but the day spoken Of
In the Bible there was present an excited
multitude. I wonder what Jesus will do. He
orders the door of the grave removed, and
then he begins to descend the steps. Mary
and Martha close after him, and the crowd
after them.
Deeper down into the shadows and deeper
! The hot tears OF Jesus roll over his checks
and plash on the backs of his hands. We're
ever SO many sorrows compressed into so
down after Christ, all the time bemoaning
that he had not come before? Now all the
whispering and all the crying and all the
sounds of shutting feet are stopped. 1t is
the silence Of expectancy. Death has con-
quered, but now the yanquisher of death con-
fronted the scene. Amid the awful hush of
the tomb the familiar name which Christ has
often had upon his lips in the hospitalities of
the village home came back to his tongue,
and with a pathos and an almightiness of
which the resurrection of the last day shall
be only an echo, he cries: Lazarus! come
FORTH The eyes OF the slumberer open
and he rises and comes to the foot of
the steps and with great difficulty begins to
ascend, for the cerements of the tomb are vet
upon him, and his feet are fast and Stands
are fast and the impediments to all his move
ments are so great that Jesus commands:
Take off these cerements; remove these
ahindrances; unfasten these grave clothes;
loose them and let him go!'' Oh, i am SO
glad that after the Lord raised Lazarus he
went on and commanded the looaening otthe
cords that bound his feet so that he could
walk, and the breaking off Of the cerement
that bound his hands SO that he could stretch
rout his hands in salutation, and the tearing
of of the bandage from around his jaws SO
that he could speak. What would resurrected
ilite have been to Lazarus if he had not been
freed from all those supplements ofhis body?
am glad that Christ commanded his com
fplete emancipation, saying: Loose him.
:anddet him go.
The unfortunate thing now is that so man Y
Christians are only half liberated. They
), have been raised from the death and burial
of sin into spiritual life, but they yet have
the grave clothes on them. They are like
Lazarus, bling up the stairs Of the tomb,
bound head and foot, and the object of this
sermon is to help free their body and free their
soul, and ] shall try to obey the Master COM
fmand that comics to me and comes to every
minister OF religion, ose him. and let him
go. First, many are bound hand and foot
by religious creedsa Let no man misinter-
pref e,as antagonizing creeds. have eight
or ten OF them; a creed about religion, AGREED
about art, creed about social life, a creed
about government, and so on. creed is
something that a man believes, whether it be
written or unwritten. The Presby terrain
church is now agitated about it's creed.
Some good men in it arefor keepingit be-
cause it was framed from the belief of ] ohm
Calvin. Other good men in it want revision.
lam with neither party. Insteado of revision
want substitution. Twas sorry ito have the
question disturbed at all. ). The creed did not
hinder us from offering the pardon and the
comfort of the gospel to all men. and the
Westminster con fession has not interfered
with me one minute. But now that the cleo
trio lights have been turned on the imper &c
tions OF that creed every thing that
man fashions is imperiect-let us put the old
creed respectfully aside and get brand new
one. It is impossible that people who lived
hundreds of years ago should fashion an APP
propriate creed for our times.
John Calvin was a great and good man.
but he died 326 years ago. The best centu.
of f(n Rib1o al, 70 cs,,cn bov,