The Opelousas courier., 1890-05-17

fortunate way. Logic has Its use and meta
physics mas ITS use, but they are not good ct
hh,ahlng cfeeds. A gardener hands you a
ootanlst comes to you with q rose
and says: II will show YOU the struct,re
OF this rose" And he proceeds to take
it apart and pulls off the leaves and
ne says: There are the petals" and he
taxes out the anthers and he saws: "Just
look at the wonderful structure or these
norai pillars" and then he cuts the stem to
snow you the juices of the plant. So logic
or metaphysics takes the aromatic rose of
the Christian religion and says: 81 will Just
snow You how this rose of religion was
fashioned" and it pulls off of it a piece and
says: That Is the human will" and another
piece and says: "This is Gods will" and an
other piece and SAYS: This is sovereignty"
and another piece and says: This is 1ree
agency" this is this and that is that. And
while l stand looking at the fragments of
therose pulled apart, one whom the Marys
took for a gardener comes in and presents me
with q crimson rose, red as blood, and says:
''Inhale the sweetness Of this, wear it on your
heart and wear it forever" I must confess
that | prefer the rose in. full bloom to the rose
pulled apart.
What a time we have had with the dogma
tics, the apolosetics and the hermeneutics.
The defect in some Of the creeds is that they
try to tell us all about the DEGREES of God.
Now the only human being that was ever
competent to handle that subject was Paul,
and he would not have been comretent had
he not been inspired. l believe in the So
vereignty of God and [ believe in mars free
agency, but no one can harmonic tho two. 1t is
not necessary that he harmonic them. Every
sermon that | have ever heard that at
tempted such harmonization was to me as
clear as a LONDON fog, as clear as mud. My
brother of the nineteenth century, my
brother Of the sixteenth century, give us
Pauls statement and leave cut our own.
Better one chapter Of Paul on that subject
than all of Calvin's Institutes, able and honest
and mighty as they are. Do not try to
measure either the throne of God or the
thunderbolts of God with your little steel
pen. What do you know about the DEGREES:
Il, You cannot pry open the door Of Gods
eternal c~ounsels. You ann explain
the mysteries of Gods government
now, much less the mysteries of His
government five hundred quintillion of years
ago. move for a creed for ali our deiionli-
nations made out of Scripture tions
pure and simple. That would take the earth
for God. That would be i~mpragnable against
infdelity and Apollyonic assault. That
would be bevond human criticism. The de-
nomination., whatever its name be, That can
rise up 20 that will be the church Of The mil
lennium, will swallow up all other denoinl-
nations and be the one that will be the bride
when the Bridegroom cometh. Let us make
it simpler and palmer for people to get into
the kingdom of God. Donot hinder people by
the idea that they may not have been elected.
Do not tag on to the one essential of faith III
Christ any of the innumerable ronessentlals.
A man who heartily accepts Christ is a
Christian and the man who does not accept
Him is not a Christian. and that is all there is
of it. He need not believe in election or rep
rotation. He need not believe in the eternal
generation of the Son. He need not believe
in everlasting punishment. He need not be-
in plenary inspiration. Faith in Christ
is the criterion, is the test, is the pivot.
is the indispensable. But there are those
who would add unto the tests rather than
subtract from them. There are thousands
who would not accept persons into church
membership if they drink wine or il they
smoke cigars or il they attend the theater
or if they play cards or il they drive a fast
horse. Now / do not drink wine or smoke or
attend the theater, never played a game OF
cards and do net drive a fast horse. although
/ would if l owned one. But do NOT
substitute tests which the Bible does
not establish. There is one passage Of
Scripture wide enough to let all IN
who ought to enter and TO keep out all who
| ought to be kept out: "Believe in the Lore
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" Ge'
q mans heart right and his life will BE-
right. But now that the old creeds have
been put under public scrutiny, somethins
them, some would carve them, some would
eIongate them, some would abbreviate theDl.
At the present moment and in the present
shape they are q hindrance. Lazarus is
alive, but hampered with the old grave
clothes. IL you want one glorious church
free and u~nencumbered take off the cerements
of old ecclesiastical vocabulary. Loose her,
and let her gol
Again, there are Christians who are under
sepulchral shadows and hindered and hoppled
by doubts and fears and sins long ago re.
pented 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
ing the only poor hymn that Newton ever
wrote:
TITS a point l long to know,
| Oft It causes anxious though
Do i love the Lord or mo,
Am i His or am / mott
Long to know, do you? Why do you moi
find out? Go to work for Goo 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 it is coated is morbid
and cannot be physically well: The doctor
will say: $50 out into the fresh air and into
active life, and stop thinking OF yourself and
you will get wei n strong" 80 there art
people who are watching their spiritual
SYMPTOMS. and they call it self-examinatior
and they get weaklier and sieklier in their
faith all the time. Go out and do some thing
nobIy Christian. Take holy exercise and
then examine yourself, and, instead Of New
ton's saturnine and bilious hymn that L first
anoted. Won win sing Newton's other hymn:
Amazing grace. how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like mel
once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now / see.
What many of you Christians most need
is TO ret 0 u grave clothes off. rejoict
that you have been brought from the aea eau
70 GET, vour hand loose and your feet looss
and YOU tongue loose and your soul loose
J There isDo sin that the Bible 50 arraigns ana
nunctures and dagellates as the sin OF unbe
iief. and that is what's the matter with you