The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-09-21
THE FREEDOM OF CHRISTIANS.
Rev. Wallace Nutting Says It Is the
BONDAGE of Christ.

Rev. Wallace Nutting, at the Plymouth
Congregational church, yesterday morn
ing. preached from the text:
Corinthians VIA: "The love of Christ con-
straneth US
His theme was Liberty" "The French
novelist" he said, ''tells us how a projec-
file was shot from the earth to the moon.
While this projectile was near the earth
there was no fluctuation in the steady
force of gravity. But there was a neutral
ground where the attractions of the two
spheres balanced each other. Thus it is in
many men-in a sense different than the
poet intended when he said: Between
two worlds life hovers like STAR He is
not under the unchalIenged thralldom of
the earth, and so earthly; nor yet is he
seeking better country. He hesitates
on the verge of both attractions,
With an airy balance. like butterfly, al
most dcfying supreme attractions: it just
fits.
"The best thing that can happen to any
such man is to have the government of
oyer-mastering affections. How often we
see that men make nothing of themselves
and work to no purpose until they marry.
For the FIRST time in their lives they have
begun to feel a steady motive power. The
life without ruling love in it is altogether
wasted The magnetic needle, by which
alone navigation is possible, is perpetual
Illustration of the blessedness of unchang-
ing law.
I'll is pitiahle to notice the aimless fiuctu-
atoms of life without supreme love.
There is friend of yours who is afraid to
give himself up to the sweeping influences
Of Divine love. He hovers by the eddies
and along the shore, and dares not venture
out into the deep. The independence
which he Is unwilling to surrender results
In inaction. He never gets anywhere;
never bears the freight of the worlds bur-
dens; never feels the greatest ecstacies-
those ecstacies that are felt when we know
that we are sweeping on gloriously with
the trend of Gods own life, and toward
the ends of His own blessed purposes.
"The highest form of liberty is an uneon-
scious bondage. God is more subject to
law than any of His creatures. Every ac-
ton of His is inspired, and begun and car
rled out by the most fixed of all laws, the
love of a holy character. There is no lib
erality in love. Love is tyrant. Paul,
abond-servant of Jesus Christ. as he sub
scribes himself, tells us more about free
dom than John Stuart Mill and all the
rest Of them. To be free is to be ruined.
Free the engines from the rails and you
have wreck. Free the electricity from
the wire and you peddle out death. Free
the steam in the boiler and there is an ex-
plosion. Free my soul from God and the
result is a devil. Freedom is the most
frightfuI conception of our minds. 1t is
an impossible, choatic thing. 1t is
world waste and empty, and needing the
spirit OF God to brood over it.
"The love of law is the only freedom from
the law. And when its bond is strongest
We shall not know that it binds u.s. The
law Of supreme love becomes the glory
Of our thought. There is nothing so fas-
cinating as a strong government, except a
strong government of love. Vast I'M
guided powers are monstrous and repul-
sve. They are like wild engine without
mengineer. There is only one thing bet
Ter than liberty and that is law-the law
oflove.
Among all the mechanical achievements
OF TIE age what charms us more than the
giant Of complex steel in the deep
hold of great ocean steamer A
ieyiathsn of 1900 horse power
mere whirls the mighty shafts and
speeds the vessel along at rate rivaling
the railway. But up there in the pilot
house the master just touches bell. and
,he struggling, pounding monster in the
nod ceases in an instant from his labors.
Not liberty, but law, is the higher passion
OF the heart. For liberty itself is subject
70 law. The liberty of the great mass of
inc iron ship. holding in her heart the
treasures of human life, her liberty, dash
ing through trackless sea is the liberty of
osnefcence, of hope, of utility. of cement
ng the bonds of the nations-the liberty
controlled power.
Jacobs ladder was perhaps narrow and
limited in every direction except upward.
there is no law against loving. Up. up,
up. We may climb and never cease. Wind
another and another cord around your
heart and Christ's. Bind yourself ever
more by the supreme law of affection for
Mn Then those whom Christ makes
nee shall be free for all that is hottest"