The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-02-19
MR.. TALMAGES CREED.
HE DEPRECATES BIBLE DIssECrIN
Christians are Asked 60 Believe 100 Many
Hard Things, He Says.

| Christians are Asked TO Believe 100 Many
Hard Things, He Says.
The Rev. DR.. T. De Witt addressed a
large congregation at the Brooklyn
Tabernacle Sunday morning, on THE
Evils of Theological Discussion" He
took as his text the passage from the
Gospel of ST. Luke, 6, II, "And He came
down with them and stood in the plain. Z"
Among other things, h" Soid:
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 AS
cension, and it is glorious to study him
on these great natural elevations. But,
how is it that never before we have
noticed him on the plains ? Amid the
rocks, high up on the mountain, Christ
had passed the night, but now, at early
dawn, he is coming down with some
especial friends, stepping from shelving
to shelving, here and there lOosened
stone rolling down the steep sides ahead
of him, until he gets in a level place. so
that it can be approached without climb
ing from all sides. He is on the level.
My text says. He came down with them
and stood in the plains"
Now, that is what the world wants to-
day more than anything elsa Christ
on the level, easy to get at, no ascending,
no descending, apprOachable from all
sides-Christ on the plains. The ques-
ton among all cOnsecrated people to-day
is what is the matter with the ministers?
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 build
ing a fence on the wrong side of the
road; not on the side where the preci-
pee is and off which multitudes are fall
ing, but on the other side of the road so
that people will not fall uphill, of which
there is no danger,
There is no more danger of Biblolatry,
or much reverence for the Scriptures,
than there is that astrology will take the
place of astronomy, or alchemy the
place of chemistry, or the canal boat the
place of the limited express malt 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
intidClS on all the earth. The trouble is
our theologians are up in the mountain
in fight above the clouds about things
which they do not understand Come
down on the plain and stand beside
Christ who never preached technicality
or a didactism. What do you, 0, wise
headed ecclesiastics, know about the De-
crees of God? Who cares a fig about
your sublapsarianism or your supralap-
sarianism
What a spectacle we have in our de-
nomination to-day; 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 coal-scuttle bon
nets which your great grandmothers
wore and try to fit them on the head of
the modern maiden? You cannot fix up
a three hundred-year,o old creed so as to
fit our time. Princeton will sew on
little patch, and Union Seminary will
sew on little patch, and Allegheny
Seminary and Danville Seminary will
sew on other patches, 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 all infants dying go to
heavenl | am so glad that the commit
tees are going to let the babies in. Thank
you. So many of them are already in
that all the hills of heaven look like
Sunday school anniversary.
Now, what is the use of fixing up a
creed which left any doubt on that sub
ject? ! was opposed to oveThauling the
old creed at all, but now that it has been
lifted up and its imperfections set up in
the sight of the world, l say, overheard
with it and make new creed. There
are to-day in our denomination five hun
dred men who could make a better one.
| could make better one myself. As
we are now in process 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 | have made a |
creed of my own, which | 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 |
all that is required. To that creed invite |
all mankind. T. De Witt Talmage."
The reason Christianity has not made |
more rapid advance is because the peo- |
pie are asked to believe too many things. |
There are, | believe, to-day, millions of |
good Christians who have never joined |
the Church are not counted among the !
Lords friends, because they cannot be- |
lieve all the things that they are re-
quired to believe. One-half the things a |
man is expected to believe in order to
enter the Church and reach Heaven, have
no more to do with his salvation than
the question: How many volcanoes are
there in the moon ? or, How far apart !
from each other are the rings of Saturn?
or, how many teeth there were in the
iaw-bone with which Samson smOte the
Philistines. / believe ten thousand
Kings, but none of them have anything
% do with my salvation, except these
am a sinner, and Christ came to
save me.
There is great distress in the mining