St. Paul daily globe., 1892-12-19
CREEDS AND HERETICs.
Rev. w. j. Lhamon on the Trials OF
the Two Glasses.


the Two Glasses.
At the Church of Christ yesterday.
Rev. w. j. Lhamons topic was !:
"Creeds and Heretics Oh Trial." and his
text, I'VE have a law, and by our law
he ought to die because he made him
self the son of God," from John, XIX, Z.
He said:
There is an everlasting conflict be
tween dogma and life. The phariSeeS
demanded that Jesus should be shaped
like themselves. into poor, miserable,
blind and llfeless cog in the wheel of
ritualism, or else, If He persisted in be-
ing somebody original, that He should
die. They never asked whether the
man might not be right and their law
wrong, or whether the time had not
come for new law to be spoken by
mightier voice than that of their IA
theirs; they simply condemned the man
who dared to think and speak as their
fathers never did. Invariably time vim
dlcateS the martyr and condemns the
spirit and the law by which he dies.
The hereto is an original teacher born
generation too soon. The Jews built
monuments to the prophets that their
fathers had killed.
I'VE are almost forced by the lessons
Of history to take sides with DR.. Briggs
and DR.. Smith, and to feel that they are
not so much on trial as old systems of
faith and thought against which they
have uttered protest. For three OF four
years theological literature has been
full of the revisonNof the Westminster
confession, while opinions about it ran
all the way from the extreme of rev
erence, which says Hands Off, to the
other extreme, which says, Throw the
whole thing overheard and get brand
new creed made in heaven But what
to some people seems the queereat of
all things is that while the creed itself
is on trial, men are being tried by it, or
what is the same, on trial with refer
ence to the Bible as interpreted by the
creed. If the measuring creed be faulty,
how can the real length of the man be
taken?
He who made the Bible made the
minds of men, and intended that they
should use them. Prof. Briggs evidently
thinks the Bible is on his side, for he
offers it in his own defense, in the Or
iginal language and in several tranSla-
ti0nS, with all of his own writings and
a theological library besides, and is only
restrained from reading his mass of evil
dence because they would not permit it.
1t seems funny, but maybe the professor
is right.
''It happens that we hear the dying
groans of the Westminster confession,
but how many creeds have slipped away
silently, or are silently dying-the play
things or necessities or former times,
but forgotten or ignored amidst the
pressing problems and the practical
questions of today. There are half a
dozen Lutheran confessions, and score
or more of CalvlniStic confessions, be-
sides Papal confessions, and Arminian
confessions, and Socinian coRfeS-
sionS, and Greek confessions, and
many others to represent the
140 or more SectS that are abroad. And
they all have this lesson for us that they
all are as useless to the man that has
Christ as crutches to the man that is not
lame. Make Christ your creed. He
needs no revision. The Apostle Paul
said:
81 know whom (not WHAT have be-
lieved'
The Apostolic church had its creed in
q single sentence:
81 believe that Jesus the Christ is the
Son of God.'
Among Christians the orthodoxy of
Jesus is not in doubt, or, if it were, most
of us would gladly rank with Him in
heresy rather than stand with realistic,
cruel-hearted, sometimes bloody-hand-
ed, orthodox bigots, who cry out. 1--WE
have law, and by our law he ought
to die' Throw open the doors
of investi cation. Truth can not suffer
thus. If ever there was heresy on
earth it is that religious truth or any
other truth must be guarded by human
watch-dogs. Racks and fagots and
thumb-screws and inquisitions can no
more help to protect religious truth
than they can to keep the multiplication
table. Wisdom is justified of all her
children, and so is truth. Throw open
the doors of the temple of truth and let
the whole world enter with such ears
and eyes and hearts and heads as it has.
Faculties are God-giyen, and so is truth.
Let them meet"