St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-01-16
The SUTTON SERMON.
Christian Science as Promul-
gated by the Grand Forks
Teacher.
What Is Taught and Under
stood by Reformation and I
Repentance.
Today's Man-Made Doctrines
Against the Theories OF
the Past.
The Consuming Fire Of God
We Read Of Consumes
Only Evil.

MY subject today is Repentance and
Reformation my text, Repent, for
the Kingdom Of Heaven is at hand
Jesus once rebuked the religious teach
ers Of His day with the accusation that
they rejected the commandments of God
to teach the doctrines of men. There is
great difference between the doctrines
Of man and the commandments of God
an essential difference. Jesus knew
that in the Old Bible Interpretation of
the commandments human sense had
crept into the context and hid the
divine light. He said all the command
ments were contained in two, i. e., Love
thy God and love thy nelghbor as thy
self.
That is very different from the doc
trines taught today. Surely we are hav-
ing man-made doctrines. Jesus always
represented God as love and love only,
and He sought to bring men to repent
ance by instilling into their minds an
appreciation of Him as such a character.
But what have we been taught since?
lie is represented as God OF anger.
wrath and vengeance. But is this the
idea of the saint or sinner? 1t is the
sinners idea of the over-ruling
power. That power which rules him
is surely one of wrath, and pun
ishment, it is his god (ruling poWer).
but we would spell it with small let
ter Instead of capital. 1t is his little
deity; to him al. power; men. SHINING
and suffering, feel just as the prodigal
son did when he was away from his
father living in diS0bedience and sinful
pleasure. He thought mis- father was
justly angry with him, and expected
kind of punishment. AS long as sin
afforded pleasure he cared nothing for
home and father. he loved 1t better than
he loved his father, though he knew it
to be evil; but finally his appreciation
of parents love predominated, and he
came to himself" saying: Il have
sinned," etc.. and he thought of his
father as ready to put him into serv-
ants position, for in sin he could not
think of him only as wrathful. He did
not know his sense OF wrath was the
vindictiveness of sin. 1t had punished
him much already, and turning from
SIN to righteousness is TO turn from the
puniSher to the comforter.
We all know the story how the father
was in exactly the opposite frame of
mind the son had supposed him to be;
how he ran out and welcomed him with
JOY, and showed him he still retained
bis sonship with all the privileges.
This is Gods attitude toward man, to-
ward the sinner, and one that Jesus al
ways taught. We cannot find in His
teachings anywhere the idea that God
is angry with the sinner. The old writ
ers taught this, but which are we to ac-
cept? Jesus said: 81 am the truth"
He came to bring men to repentance
and reformation, and today we are
preaching and teaching for the same
purpose. Preachers everywhere call
ing repent, repent" but
TIey Fail to Discern
that there are two kinds Of repentance;
there is repentance through fear and
there is repentance through love. When
a man does wrong act, and finds he is
to be punished, he certainly repeuts
that act, does he not? How he wishes he
had never done it, because he breads
the punishment. Does that make him
a better man? Does that lead him to
reform? 1t might lead him to reform
in the outward act. but it works no
reformation in the mind. 1t does not
make him love good and hate evil. 1t
simply makes him wiser-that is, he
will commit the same error IN some
other way, and certainly from the same
motive, but in manner TO escape pun
lShment. This is not reformation, yet
this is the kind of repentance religious
teachers are seeking to bring about
fear of God, fear Of punishment God
will bring upon them. We know there
is wholesome fear which makes men
correct their outward actions, but what
we are striving to do is to bring men to
spiritual salvation through repentance.
We must bring them to saving re-
pentance. The repentance which saves
is very different from the repentance l
have described. True repentance unto
salvation is this: TO abhor evil and for
is work before that. Now, when men
dom they always begin In the wrong
place, and they are beginning in the
wrong place today in this work for re-
form, or salvation through repentance.
They imagine repentance is the very
first step. Repentance cannot be the
first step. Then what is? The first
step is. to discern good, to appreciate
true good; Tor to know error good must
first be known. Why? Because
we could not know evil to he
evil unless we first had good to measure
it by. We have known people so ig-
norant of good as to know not good
from evil, committing wrong and think
ing 1t to be right. How shall we I'M
cover evil to them as evil? By giving
them an idea of the opposite good.
Then they are able to make dlstlnc-
ton, saying: "Since that Is good, this
is error; since that is right, this is
wrong" How do we prove to them
what is right? We do not prove it.
Right is self-evident. Truth is self
evident; nothing can prove it. because
it is greater than all else, or, rather, it
admits of no degrees of comparison. Its
proof depends on nothing but itself,
and because truth is Self-evident to
every person it uncovers evil as evil.
Then the first step before repentance
is to discriminate between good and
evil. The next step is to love the good
instead of the evil, and that only will
bring us TO abhor evil. We cannot love
both God and mammon, both good and
evil; to love opposites is impossible. TO
know good and evil is "forbidden"
lHcdllo w hllUW SUOu dllu CIVIL, DIS Icdll-
ties and love both is impossible. We
will not love one and also cling to the
other; so that the second step is to love
good. D
1t is wrong idea to think we can
not discern truth save through the lova
of truth. We can intellectually disco rn
right and wrong (thougn the spiritual
discernment of spiritual knowledge of
truth is to love it). In the intellectual
knowledge of it you may refuse 1t and
oli,,tr .,uil Rut