Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1892-03-03
.TALMAGE'S CREED.
The Great Brooklyn Divine Tells His
Congregation What He
Believes.
The Church Will Have to Change Its
Tactics or It Will Run on the
Rocks of Demolition.

from Luke GILT, "And he came down
with them and stood in the plain"
Christ on the mountains is a fire.
quenu study. We have seen him on
the Mt. OF Olives, Mt. of Beatitudes,
Mt. Moriah, Mt. Calvary. Mt. of AS
cension, and it is glorious to study
elevations. But, howis that never be-
lore we have noticed him on the plain?
Amid the rocks, high up on the noun
tain, 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 a loosened stone rolling down
the steep sides ahead of him, until he
gets in q level place, so that he can be
approached without climbing from all
sides. He is on the level. My text
says, "He cams down with them and
stood in the plain.'
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 conse-
Grated people today 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 lit
tie reverence to the Bible, they are
fighting against Bibliolatry or too
much reverence for the Bible. They
are building 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
uphill, OF which there is no danger.
There is no more danger of Bibliola-
try, 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 fight above the clouds
about things they do not understand.
Come down on the plain and stand be-
side Christ, who never preached a
technicality or didicticism. What do
you, O wise headed ecclesiastic, know
about the DEGREES ofGod? Who cares
fig about your sublapsarianism or
your suplapsarianism?
What 9, 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 10th century. Why do
not our millinery establishments take
out OF the garnet the coal scuttle
bonnets which your great grand
mothers wore and try to fit them on
the head Of the modern maiden? You
cannot fix up 800 year old creed so
as to fit our time. Princeton will sew
on a 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 all infants dying 60 to heaven! !
am 80 glad that the committees are
going to let the babies in. Thank you.
So many of them are already in that
all the hills of heaven look like
AsUNDAY SCHOOL ANNIVERSARY.
Now, what is the use of fixing up
creed which left any doubt on that
subject? As we are now in 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, 1 could not wait and
SO haye made a creed OF my own,
which intend to observe the rest of
nv life. wrote it down in my men,
orandum 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 I
invite all mankind. T. Dewitt Tai
mage"
The reason Christianity has not
made more rapid advance is because
the people are asked to believe too
many things. There are, believe, to-
day millions of good Christians who
have never joined the church, and are
not reckoned among the Lords
friends, because they cannot believe
all the things that they are required
to believe. One-half the things 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 in the moon? or, How far apart
are the rings of Saturn? or How many
teeth were there in the jaw-bone with
which Samson smote the Philistines.
/ believe 10, 900 things, but none of
them have anything to do with my
salvation, except these two, l am a
sinner and Christ came to save me.
Is there not some mode of getting
out of the way OF these nonessentials,
these superauities, these Emergencies
from the main issue? Isthere not some
way of bringing the church down out
of the mountain of controversy and
'I.---- i. IT,. o,,l ~ ,,,,t II IN tho