The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-05-10

annie what is the process that makes a
peach tree here and an apple tree there!
Does anybody know? No; but nooouy
thinks of saying the apple Is a peach
THE EyOLUTIONISTS THOUGHT.
'.What the evolutionist thinks Is this: That
God has always been inspiring the human
race. and always unvailing Himself to ear
nest human souls. and when the human race
had reached in it's moral elimination that
stage of development in which It was posi-
BILE for God to appear in a human life, and
not be grossly and hopelessly misunderstood,
He did appear in a human life that He might
make perfect that revelation Of Himself
which He had been earring on from the be-
ginning I am perfectly well aware OF the
hazard which one runs in speaking on these
subjects, of making himself misunderstood,
even If he be not unsupported, but, II the
preacher can make people think On the SUD-
ject of religion ne has done something even
If ne himself thinks wrong. The controversy
one hundred and odd years ago in New Eng
land between the Unitarian and the orthodox
turned on the nature OF Christ Inc Unfair
an said: He IS not God, He is man. the
orthodox said: He is not man, He Is God;
and both seemed TO agree that there was a
clear antithesis between God and man, and
that He could not be God If He were man,
nor man If He were God. But the funda-
mental teaching CT the Hebrew prophets
from the beginning Is this: That God made
man in His own image The difference be-
tween man and God is twofold God is holy,
man has snned; God is Infinite, man Is nm,
perfectly holy. and he would be the equal or
God. Let God come into life and take on
man. For the difference between God and
man is a difference not in essential nature.
That is the very fundamental teaching OF the
Bible. God and man are, in Their essential
nature, the same What, therefore, the evo-
luticnist believes concerning Christ, is not
that He IS God and man mysteriously
joined together. not strange. inexplicabie
being who was neither God nor man, not.
being who went through life doing some
things as God and some things as man, but
God in man, God so perfectly possessing one
unique human soul that in that soul We see
| reflected at once the image of God and the
perfection Of manhood.
There are two great questions for the ear
nest soul to ask itself. One is this: w no am
| |? The other: To whom am l Responsible?
| ries you down into the slun1s or into what he
| is pleased to call society, and he sketches
| with his charcoal all forms Of vanity, pride,
| seifishness, ambition. and we say: What a
| knowledge of human nature. No. That is
not true human nature. Christ Is human ma
| ture: and these others are but the diseased
| specimens that tarry for a little while in
| Gods hospital till they are cured. Sin is not
natural, it is contra-natural. ii Is against ma
ture. If any think that unorthodox. then
will quote almost the words of st. Augustine,
| whose orthodoxy nobody doubts. at least in
this age: Nothing is violation Of the laws
1 of nature except sim Nature, mans own
nature. as God means him TO be: that is,
| Christ And the other question is this: Who
| and what is God? What do 1 owe to Him?
| How does He treat me when / am in sorrow?
| How does He feel toward me in my life
| struggles? The answer TO that is Christ. As
1 Christ sorrowed with the sisters at the
grave, as Christ strengthened Peter and
| made of that svacillating soul rock. as
| Christ said TO the woman that was the sin
ner of whom all had rejected and cast out,
| Go and sin no more. / do not condemn
| thee. SO God says to us in the eternal realm.
| God weeps beside the bier strengthens us in
| our temptations. freely forgives us when we
| turn from wrong6oing to Him. Christ is
| God manifest in the flesh; that is such a
manifestation of God as is feasible In hu-
man life
OBJECT OF CHRISTS COMING.
"And the object of His coming into the
world is not to let men g." women off from
punishment; it is to clear Il purify them
from sin. What 1 said tn er night re-
| peat. Some critics have sc ne passages OF
texts to show that Christ suffered in order
to take away the penalty from man and
they are such as these: BY His stripes we
are healed What does that mean? Let off
from punishment? Not at ALL We are sick
His suffering makes well. Such as these:
He who knew no sin was made sin for us
that we might be made free from penalty!
No; that We might be made the righteous
ness or God In Him. He bore the burden
of our. wrestling; He knew what il was 10
struggle with sin. in order that we might
walk In the newness of His life. What
said the other night repeat again tonight:
Ihere is not to be found in either the old
text which connects sacrifice in the one case
or the suffering and passion OF Christ in the
other The word punishment and the word
to Indicate that directly and immediately
with the remission. of penalty. The sacrifice
TOOK the place of penalty. Sacrifice is
4 xrrf+ h.
and giving of new life There is no way by
which lie can be quickened save by the inn
THE evolutionist then believes I'm Cod nc
the creator of the world. but God dwelling in
the world and speaking through all its
Phenomena he believes in sin as viola
ton OF Gods law, but the violation not OF
some edict issued by God at some time In
history, but of the law of nature and there
law Of mans own being. He believes in
inspiration as universal factor in human
history, coming TO its elimination in the
literature of the Hebrew race He believes
In revelation; that is. in the unwilling OF
God to man; a gradual unwilling. wrought
In human experience. through the seers and
Jesus Christ, Gods we'll beloved Son. He
believes in incarnation; that IS in the in
dwelling of God in His children, of which in.
carnation the type and pattern is seen ir
Him who is at once the manifestation OF
God to man and the revelation to men OF
what humanity is to be when Gods work
feet man, because God perfectly dwelling ir
a perfect man. He believes in an atoDement
which is an at-one-ment, a reconciliation
which makes God and man at one and SC
makes possible the fruition of the incarna-
ton and the passion of Jesus Christ who
lived and suffered. not to relieve men from
future torment but to purify and perfec
them in Gods likeness by uniting them tc
God. He believes in sacrifice, not as a pen.
atty borne by an innocent Sufferer FOL
guilty mana doctrine for which he car
find authority neither in scripture nor ir
life-but as the laying down of ones life ir
love that another may receive life He be.
lieves in redemption, not as restoration 4
| lost state of innocence, impossible to b.
restored. but as the culmina ton of a Ions
process, when man shall be presented before
his Father without sDot, or wrinkle. ol
, blemish. or any such thing. He believes ir
| Immortality. not as mere endless exist
ence, but as an undying nature which vii
; | rise above death. because IL shares with God
| its Redeemer. the power of an endless life
, And he believes in religion, not as a creed
a ritual or a church order. which are a
best but the Instruments of religion. but a.
| self-control. righteousness. reverence, hope
love-the life OF God in the soul OF man."
John Browns Family.