St. Paul daily globe., 1891-05-18
CREEPING THE FAITH"
Sermon by w. j. Lhanon, of the
Church of Christ.

Sermon by w. j. Lhamon, of the
Church of Christ.
Among his last words the Apostle
Paul says 81 have kept the faith.'' The
Christian faith of his time was the hold
ing to Jesus as savior. Peter expressed
it by saying, Thou art the Christ,
the son of the living God"
Thomas, when convinced, eX-
claimed, "My Lord and my God"
Christian faith is a personal matter
friendship between the feebIer
soul that trusts and the stronger
soul that saves. He who follows
Christ finds God, and that is saliva
ton. Paul had kept his friend
ship for Christ, his love of Christ, his
loyalty to Christ-that is. he had kept
the faith". Tried by PauPs standard
many hereto would be eXonerated.
The great army of martyrs have been
as rule the orthodox lovers of
Jesus, and the real heretics have been
the cruel theologues who drove the
stakes, and piled the faggots, and piled
the flames. Prof. Briggs claims only to
be tearing away the barriers from
around the Bible that people generally
may understand it more easily and
love it better. He comedies that
Bible, your traditional Bible, must
go, but that the real Bible will
only be brought thus to the
hands and the hearts of rational, prac-
teal people. If he speaks bravely
against traditionalism he speaks also
with the utmost reverence of the Bible.
He says: The reformers brought the
Bible from its Obscurity for a season,
but their successors. the scholastics and
ecclesiastlcS of Professionalism pur-
sued the old error and enVeloped
siastical decisions and dogmat-
ic systems, and substituted for
the authority of God the authority of
Protestant rule of faith. His hard hits
at the creedS, dogmas, traditionalism,
and eccleSlaSticiSm are as noteworthy as
his advanced views of the Bible, and
may have quite as much to do with the
hail storm he now enjoys. Is the pro-
fessor hereto? He would be if these
are his convictions ard he failed to
speak them. Should he stay where he
is, or should his denomination tolerate
him? Perhaps that is not for an out
slder to say, but one thing is plain; any
denomination that ridS itself of such
men as he casts away goodly portions of
its own best brains.
This suggests that the old way of
keeping the faith was by surrounding
it first with a wall of orthodoxy en-
bodied in creeds, etc. Whoever staid
humbly and dumbly inside of this wall
was orthodox: whoever was bright
enough or brave enough to get out was
hereto, and for HIM a second wall
was formed Of stakes and faggots and
racks and thumbscrews and papal bulls
and accommodations. The Roman
Catholic church has an infaliibe pope
to guard its faith, and Professionalism
has its creedS which are also infallible,
and kept so by revision in each sue
ceeding generation.
These methods are all mistake; they
are altogether one huge, lamentable
blunder. Christian faith is as natural
and spiritual thing as music or mathe-
mates, and it IS to be kept as they are
kept If the Christian will practice his
faith, if he will play the role of the
"Good Samaritan" if he can trust
Christ's word that God is Father, and
that heaven is home he will in all
this keep the faith. No faith is worth
keeping that does not get into the mans
heart and make it holier. Christian
faith is certain character, and it
must be kept as character; it is
life, and must be kept as life Christian
faith is partnership with Christ; 1t must
Uo hepG DIS partnerships can De kept, by
due attention on the part of all the
partners to the business interests of the
firm. When we know what Christ's real
business was on earth and enter heartily
into it we will be keeping the faith.
Christ rebuked the "Sons of Thunder"
and disarmed the apostle Peter and
went about doing good, and after his
resurrection he instructed his disciples
to tell of him through all the world. In
short, faith is kept by faithfulness.
Christians need not fear for the faith.
The gospel is its own defense, and when
once it is proved to be so good as it
really is, the world. knowing a good
thing when it finds it, would sooner dis
card civil engineering and navigation
and literature and science and art
than the gospel, for it is the in
spiration of these at their best.
The Bible, the church, the believing
man must be tried. The truth, like gold.
must be tested; how else should we
know that it Is true? Each age will do
its own thinking, will bring its own ex-
periments, and apply its own tests. And
why should it not be so? The Bible will
stand. and Christ in ia A,-d raa...-iAls r-iu