Connecticut western news., 1892-02-18
WHAT HE BELIEVES.
A SERMON DETAILING THE CREED
 OF DIR. TALkiAGE.

l "Trust, Love and Obey the Lord"
 This Is the Beginning, and the Middle,
 and the End.
 BROOKLYN. Feb. 14. At the TabeT nacle service this morning, after the usual reading of the Scriptures, the congregation sang
 | Jesus shall reign where'er the sun Doth his successive journeys run. The sermon which followed was apparently suggested by the storm of theological controversy now rag ing in the churches. IL these times | when it is quite uncertain what many l of the clergy really do believe, this sermon makes it very plain what the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle believes. His text was taken from Luke vi l7. And he came down with them and stood in the plain" Christ on the mountains Is a ire quent study. We have seen him on the Mount of Olives. Mount of Beati- tudes, Mount Moriah, Mount Calvary. Mount of Ascension, and it is glori- ous to study him on these great nat ural elevations But how is it that never before have we noticed him on the plainl Amid the rocks, high up on the mountain, Christ had passed the night. but now. at early dawn, he IS coming down with some espe- cial friends, stepping from shelving to shelving, here and there loosened 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.
 WHAT THE WORLD WANTS. .
 Now that is what the world wants today more than anything else-a Christ on the level. easy to get at no ascending. no descending. approach able from all sides Christ on the plain. The question among all con- secrated people today is, What is the matter with the ministers2 Many of them are engaged in picking holes in the Bible and apologizing for this and apologizing for that. In an age when the whole tendency is to pay too little reverence to the Bible, they are fighting against Bibliolatry. or too much reverence for the Bible. They are building a fence on the wrong side of the road not on the side where the precipice is and off which multitudes are falling, but on the upper side of the road, so that people will not fall up hill, of which there is no danger
 There is no more danger of Bibi- olatry. or too much reverence for the Scriptures, than there Is that astrol ogy will take the place of astronomy, or alchemy the place of chemistry, or the canal boat the place of the limited express rail train. What a theological farce it IS; ministers fighting against too much reverence for the Scriptures; ministers making apology for the Scriptures; ministers pretending to be friends of the Bible, yet doing the Book more damage than all the blatant infdels on all the earth. The trouble is our theologians 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 technicality or didacticism. What do you, o wise headed ecclesiastlc, know about the decrees of Godl Who cares a fig about your sublapsarianism or your supralapsarianismf
 What spectacle we have in our denomination today committees try ing to patch up an old creed made two or three hundred years ago, so that it will fit on the Nineteenth cen tury. Why do not our millinery es- tabGshments take out of the garrets the coal scuttle hats which your great-grandmothers wore and try to fit them on the head of the modern maideni You cannot fix up three hundred -year-old creed so as to fit our time. Princeton will sew on a little piece, and Union seminary will sew on a little piece, and Alleghany seminary and Danville seminary will sew on other pieces, and by the time the creed is done it will be as varie- gated as Joseph's coat of many col orS.
 Think of having to change an old creed to make it clear that all infants dying go to heavenl 1 am so glad that the committees are going to let the babies in. Thank you. So many of them are already i'll 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 that suL Ljectl No man ever doubted that all infants dying go to heaven, unless he be a Herod or Cha;! Guiteau. 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, say, Overheard with it and make new creed.
 There arc today i'll our denomination five hundred men who could make a better one. l could make better one myself. As we are now i'll process of changing the creed and no one knows what we are expected to believe. or will two or three years hence be ex pected to believe, could not wait. and so have made a creed of my own which 1 intend to observe the rest of my life. wrote it down in my memorandum book some six months ago, and it reads as follows: My creed: The glorious Lord. To trust him. love him and obey him is Ill that IS required. To that creed l invite all mankind. T. De Witt Tal- mage"
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