Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1895-06-15
THE BIBLE AS LII is.

THE BIBLE AS LII is.
REvseR. TALMAeE. ON THE ExPURGA-
fT,oNs OF TIE SCRIPTURES.
lie Shows Why the Good Book Needs No
ReconstructionEN Can Be Added
Nor Taken From. It-An Eloquent Ser
mon: on a Timely Topic.
NEW YORK, June 9.-In his sermon
for today Rev. DR.. Talmage deals with
a subject that is agitating the entire
Christian church at the present moment
viz, g Expurgation of the Scriptures. "
The text chosen was, ".Let God be true,
but eyary man liar" (Romans iii, A.
The Bible needs reconstruction ac-
cording to some inside and outside the
pulpit. 1t is no. surprise that tho world
bombards the Scriptures, but it is amaz-
ing to find Christian ministers picking
Mt this in tho Bible and denying that
untilhmany good people arc left in the
fog about what parts of the Bible they
oughtstos believe and what parts reject.
The Nervousness of finding fault with
the Bible at this. time is most evident.
In our day the Bible is assailed by sour
rilitysfby Misrepresentation, by infidcl
scientists, by all the vice Of earth and
Ill the venom Of perdition, and at this
particular time even preachers of the
gospel fall into line of criticism of the
wordsof God. Why, it makes me think
Of a sflipin q September equinox, the
wayessdashing to the top of the smoke
stack, and the matches fastened down,
and Iali1y prpphesying the laundering
of the steamer, aud at that time some
of the Grew with axes and saws go down
into theshold of the ship, and they try
to sawsoff- some of the planks and pry
out some of the timbers because the tim
Der did not come from the right forest.
1t dpesnotseem to me a commendable
business.for the crew to be helping tho
Withstand storms outside with their axes
and saws inside. Now, this old gospel
ship, whatwith tho roaring Of earth and
hell around the stem and stern and
nutiny on deck, is having very rough
voyage, but have noticed that not one
! of the timbers has started, and the cap
tain says he will see it through. And 1
have noticed that keelson and counter
timber knee are built out Of Lebanon
cedar, and she is going to weather tho
gale, but.no credit to those who make
mutiny On deck
Expurgation Of the Scriptures.
When L see professcd Christians in this
particular day finding fault with the
Scriptures, it makes me think Of for
tress terrifically bombarded and the mea
on the ramparts, instead of swabbing
out and loading the guns and helping
fetch up the ammunition from the mag
azine, are trying with crowbars to pry
cut from the wall certain blocks of stone,
because they did not come from the right
quarry. Oh, men on the ramparts, bet
ter fight back, and fight down the com
mon enemy, instead of trying to make
! III llit W Az!
While Ioppose this expurgation of the
Scriptures, l shall give you my reasons
for sucI opposition. "Whatp' say some
of the theological evolutionists whose
brains hi;As been added by too long
! -..sraod NJ over them by Darwin and
Spencer, "you don't now really pelivy0
all the story of the garden of Eden, do
you:" Yes, as much as I believe there
we're roses in my garden last summer.
"But, !" say they, "you don't really
believe that the sun and moon stood
still?" Yes, and if had strength enough
to create a sun and moon 1 could make
them stand still or cause the refraction
Of the suns rays so it would appear to
stand still. "But," they say, you
don't really believe that the whale swal-
lowed jonah" Yes, and if 1 were
strong enough to make whale I could
have made very easy ingress for the re-
fractory prophet, leaving to evolution to
eject him if he were an unworthy ten
ant! But, " say they, you don t really
believe that the water was turned into
wine?'' Yes, just as easily as water now
is often turned into wine with an adj
mixture of strychnine and logwood!
But, say they, you don't really be-
lieve that Samson slew 1000 with the
jaw bone Of an ass" Yes, and l think
that the man who i'll this day assaults
the Bible is welding the same weapon
There is nothing i'll the Bible That
/ staggers me. There are many things
do not understand, do not pretend to
understand, never shall i'll this world
understand. But that would be very
poor God who could be fully understood
by the human. That would be very
small Infinite that can be measured by
the finite. You must not expect to weigh
the thundorbolts of Omnipotence i'll an
apothecary's balances. Starting with
the idea that God can do anything, and
that he was present at the beginning,
and that he is present now, there is
nothing in the holy Scriptures to arouse
skepticism in my heart. Here stand
fossil of the ages, dug up from the ter
tiary formation, fallen off the shelf OF
an antiquarian, man III the latter part
of the glorious nineteenth century be-
lieving in whole Bible from lid to lid !!
Divincly Protected.
am opposed to the expurgation of
the Scriptures i'll the first place, because
the Bible in its present shape has been
SO miraculously preserved. Fifteen hun
bred years after Herodotus wrote his
history, there was only one manuscript
copy of it. Twelve hundred years after
Plato wrote his book, there was only one
manuscript copy of it. God was SO care
full to have us have the Bible i'll just the
right shape that we have 80 manuscript
copies of the New Testament thousand
years DID, and some of then 800 years