Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1890-07-11

through it, but in the day OF divine reckon
ing it will be founI that you have no cloak
for your sin.
Furthermore, outward morality will be
no covering for the hidden iniquitY OF the
Spirit. The God Of Christ makes no assault
upon good works They are as beautiful in
Gods eye as in ours. Punctuality, truthful
ness, almsgiving, affection ami many other
exceIleaces OF life that might be mentioned
will always be admired Of God and man, but
we take the position that good works cannot
he the ground OF our salvation. W nat we do
right cannot pay for what we do wrong.
Admit that you have all those traits or
character which give merely worldly re-
speciality and influence, you must at the
same time acknowledge that during the
course OF your life you have done many
things you ought not to have done. how
are the difficult matters to be settled? All,
my friends, we must have an atonement.
No Christ, no salvation. The great Re-
deemer comes in and says: 81 will pay your
indebtedness" 50 that which was dark
enough before is bright enough now. The
stripes that we deserve are fallen upon Christ.
On His scourged and bleeding shoulders he
carries us up over the mountain Of our sins
and the hills Of our iniquities. Christ's good
works accepted are sufficient for US. but they
who reject them, depending upon their own,
Gnust perish. Traits of character that may
make us influential on earth will not necessari-
y open TO Us the gate of heaven The plank that
will be strong enough for house floor would
not do for q ships hulk. Mere morality
might be enough here, but cannot take you
through deaths storm into heavens harbor.
Christ has announced for all ages: Il am tho
way, the truth and the life; him that cometh
unto Ne l will in no wise cast out" But
pitiable in the day Of accounts will De the
condition of that mau, though he may have
given all his estate to benevolent pur-
poses, and passed his life in the visiting of
the distressed, and done much to excite the
admiration OF the good and the great, if he
have no intimate relation to Jesus Christ.
There is a prideanda depravity in his soul that
he has never discovered. A brilliant outside
will be no apology for depraved inside til
no theory of mine, but an announcement OF
God, who cannot lie: by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh living be justified" Open
the door Of heaven and look in. Howard Is
there but he did not secure his entrance by
the dungeons he illumined and the lazzaret-
tOS into which he carried the medicines.
Paul is there but he did not earn his way in
by the shipwrecls and imprlsonments and
scourgings. On throne overlapping per-
haps all others, except Christ's, the old mis-
sionary excla;ms: by the grace of God am
what [ am"
Again, exalted social position will be no
cloak for sin. Men look through the wicket
door Of prisons, aud seeing the lncarceratod
wretcheS exclaim, "Oh, how much vice there
is in the worldw And they pass through the
degraded streets of city, and looking into
the doors of novels and the dens of corrup-
ton they call them God-forsaken abodes.
But you might walk along the avenues
through which the opulent roll in their -four
ishing pomp, and into mansions elegantly
adorned, and find that even in the admired
walks Of life Sat4n works mischief and death.
The first temptation Satan wrought III gar
dem and he understands yet most thorough y
ho % taN iuSOData hinnSalf into anV door OF
ease and splendor. Men frequently judge
of sin by the places in which it is committed,
but iuiquity in satin is to God as loathsome
as lnlquity In rags, and in the Day Of Judg-
ment the sins of Madison avenue and Elm
street will 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 aud Jared sumptuou5ly
every day, but his fine clothes and good dim
ners did not save him. He might on earth
have drunk something as rich as champagne
and cOgnac but at last he asked for one
drop of water. You cannot trade off
your attractive abodeS here for n house
OF many mansions on high, and
your elegant shade groves here will
not warrant you q seat under the tree of
life. When God drove Adam and Eve out
of Eden He showed that merely living in a
garden of delights and comforts will never
save a man or a woman. By giving yOu 50
much earthly luxury and refinement He in
serves, out lie would not have you wrap your
self up in them as a cloak to hide your sins
Col now walks in your garden as He did in
Eden, and He stands by your we'll as He did
by we'll in Safflaria, and He would make
your comfort on earth type Of your rapture
IN heaven.
Furthermore, mere SCUM lneSS Of religious
belief viii not hide iniquites. There arc
mon whose heads are as sound as Jonathan
Edwards's or John Wesley's, whose hearts
are as rotten as Tom Paines or Charles
Guiteau's. 1t is important thai we be theO-
retical 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
cOnverSant with the faith of the different
SectS. An intoxicated man staggered into
my house one night begging for lodging.
He made great pretenSiOns to religion. I
asked where he went to church. He said:
Nowhere; belong to liberal Christianity"
But there are those who never become
Christians, because their obstinacy pre-
vents them from ever taking a fair
view of what religion is. They are
like a brute beast in the fact that
their greatest strength lies i'll their horns.
They are cOmOatant, and 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 and Christ's
atOnement and Gods sovereignty are
theoretically received by them But, alas!
Christianity containing no evangelical life.
Thew stand looking nfn