The Forrest City times., 1892-02-19
CHRIST ON THE PLAIN.
DR. TALMACE's CREED AND THE
 NEEDS OF THE CHURCH.
Ins toad of Revision of Creeds, e New Creed - The Work to He Done by the Young Men of the sfsn-
 istry Free Salvation.

Jesus shall reign where'er tho sun
 Doth his successive journey run.
 The sermon which followed was appar- ently suggested by the storm of theologic- al controversy now raging in the churches. In these times when it is quite uncerta in what many of tue clergy really do believe this sermon makes it very plain what the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle believes. His text was taken from Luke 6.l7. And he came down with them and stood in the plain.n
 Christ on the mountains is frequent study. We have seen him on the Mount of Olives. Mount of Beatitudes, Mount Moriah, Mount Calvary. Mount of Ascen- sion, and 1t is glorious to study Him on these great natural elevations. But, how is il that never before have we noticed Him on the plaini Amid the rocks..high up on the mountain, Christ had passed the nigth, but now, at early dawn, He is com ing down with some especial friends, step- ping from shelving to shelving. here and there loose stone rolling down the steep sides ahead of Him. until He gets in level place, so that He can be approached without climbing from all sides. He is on the level My text says, "He came down with them and stood in the plain. '
 Now, that is what the world wants to- day more than anything else--a Christ on tue level. easy to get at no ascending, no descending, aprroachable from all sides Christ on the plain. The question among all consecrated people to-day is, what is the matter with the ministersl Many of them are engaged in picking holes in the Bible and apologizing for this and apolo- gizing for that In an age when the whole tendency is to pay too little reverence to the Bible they are fighting against Bibli- olatry or too much reverence for tho Bible, They arc building fence on the wrong side of the road; not on the side where the precipce is and of which mutitudes ara falling but, on tue upper side of the road so that people will not fall uphill, of which there is no danger. There is no more danger of Bibliolatry. or too much reverence for the Scriptures, than there is that astrology will take the place of as- tronomy, or alchemy the place of chem istry, or the canal boat the place of tho limited express rail-train. What a theo- logical farce it is; ministers fighting against too much reverence for the Scrip tures; ministers making apology for the Scriptures ministers pretending to be friends of the Bible, yet doing the book more damage than all the blatant infidels on all the earth The trouble is our theol- ogians are up in the mountain in a fight above the clouds about things which they do not understand Come down on the plain and stand beside Christ, who never preached a technirality or didactcism. I, 0 cd f., know about the decrees of God. Who cares fig about your sublapsarianism or you supralapsarianismi
 What a spectacle we have of our de- nomination today; committees trying to patch up an old creed made two or three hundred years ago. so that it will fit on the nineteenth century. Why do not our millinery establishments take out of the garrets the coaI-scuttle bonnets which your great -grandmothers wore and try to fit them on the head of the modern maidena You cannot fix up three hun dred year old creed so as to fit our time. Princeton will sew on little piece, and Union seminary will sew on little piece, and Allegheny seminary and Danville Seminary will sew on other pieces, and by the time the creed is done it will be as variegated as Joseph's coat of many colors. Think of having to change an old creed to make it clear that infants dying go to heaven! 1 am so glad that the com mittees are going to let the babies in. Thank you So many of them are al- ready in that all the hills of heaven look like Sunday school anniversary. Now, what is the use of fixing up creed which left any doubt on the subjects No man ever doubted that all infants dying go to heaven, unless he be a Herod or a Charles Giteau. I was opposed to overhauling the old creed at all but, now that it has been lifted up and it's imperfections set up in the sight of the world, l say Over. board with it and make new creed There are today in our denomination five hundred men who could make better one l could make better one myself. As we are now in progress of changing the creed and no one knows what we are ex- pected to believe, or will two or three years hence be expected to believe, could not wait and so 1 have creed of my own, which l intend to observe the rest of my life. I wrote 1t down in my memorandum book some six months ago, and il reads as follows: My creed; The glorious Lord To trust him, love him, and obey him is all that is required. To that creed I invite my mankind T. Dewitt Talmage."
 The reason Christianity has not made more rapid advance is because the people are asked to believe too many taings. There are, 1 believe to-day millions Of good Christians who have never joined the church and are not counted among tho Lords friends. because they cannot be- lieve all tae things that they are required to believe One-half the things a man is expected to believe in order to enter the church and reach heaven have no porc to
 do with his salvation than tue q iestion, How many volcanoes are there Il the 1 moonl or How far apart from each other are the rings of Saturn
 or. How many teeth there ere in the jaw bone with which samson
 smote the Philislines. l believe ten thou.
 sand things, but none of them have any
 thing to do with my salvation, except these two I am a sinner and Christ came
 to save me- Musicians tell us that the
 octave consists only of five tones and two
 semi-tones, aud all the Handels and Haydns and Alozarts and Wagners and Schumanns of all ages must do their work
 within the range of these i've tones anc
 two semi-toncs. So l have to tell you
 that all the theology that will be of practi
 cal use in our world is made out of tho I two facts of human sinfulness and divine
 atonement Within that octave swing
 .sThe Song of Moses and the Lamb" ths 1 Christmas chant above Bethlehem and thu Alleluiah of all the choirs standing on seat l of glass
 The Christian church will have to chang i its tack. or it will run op the rocks of de ! uOlition The world $ popuiation annually