The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-11-27
SERMON.
True Christian LiberaIity
BY j. W. HANSON, D. D.

The perfect law of liberty. JAMES i. 20.
TIME Christian religion was be-
i slowed on man in order to give
the freest exercise to his best and
highest faculties. The being who
created and endowed man with his
religious nature and attributes re-
vealed the Christian religion by the
Lord Jesus Christ to feed and de-
velop that nature, and furnish the
atmosphere in which those attributes
might work with the greatest free
dom; and he who accepts and applies
the largest number of the revealed
truths of the Christian religion, en-
Joys the largest liberty possible to
man. Our religion provesits divinity
in many ways, but il none more than
in this: that it possesses an expansive
power that develops and keeps pace
with the corresponding nature OF
man, so that it fits his needs in the
nineteenth, and will in the fortieth,
or hundredth, as perfectly as it did
in the first century.
The liberty nearest perfect is only
enjoyed by him who most implicitly
surrenders his abilities to the control
of Christ and his religion. The
highest philosophy is in the poets
line: Our wills are ours to make
them thine" The Greek word doulos,
rendered servant in the New Tesla
ment means slave. Paul called him.
self the slave of Christ, but he ex-
plains that the service of that Master
is the highest possible liberty
"Where the spirit of the Lord is there
is liberty" 'Ye shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free. "
The poet Cowper tells us with as
much truth as poetry:
sHe is the freeman whom the truth makes
And all are slaves beside. There's not a
chain
That hellish foes confederate for his harm
Can wind around him but he casts it eff
With as much ease as Samson his green
withes.''
OF all Christians he who arrogates
to himself, or has applied to him by
others the epithet liberal" should be
distinguishable by the number of
Christian truths he accepts, and APP
plies to his head, and heart, and life.
Who is educated literally in secular
learning? The man acquainted with
the larger number of branches OF
knowledge. Would it not be an
anomaly to hear one say, Il have re-
ceived a liberal education" and when
questioned as to how far he had pro-
crossed in Latin, Greek, Mathematics,
hear him saY:-"I am an agnostic,
(which you know is Greek for know
nothing)-I am an intellectual lib,
eral in literary matters-I do not
know much of anything of any par
ticular branch of learning" And
vet, this is the not uncommon Ian
euage heard on the highest subject
man can consider, Religion. A man
is liberal, liberal Christian. Why?
He has not made up his mind on this,
that or the other subject. 1t is a
peryersicn of the words liberal Chris
tan to apply them thus. Hence
liberality is not indifference. A great
many people congratulate themselves
on being liberal in religion because
they care nothing concerning the
subject. An empty mind is not a
liberal one. Liberal Christianity is
in the true sense Christian liberality
1t is the acceptance of the largest
number of Christian principles, the
largest liberty of Christian thought
the widest range of Christian culture
and a devout and consecrated en-
deayor to make our Lords religion
practical in the heart, and the life
and the world. 1t is time people
were done with the idea that the less
a man cares about religion the more
liberal he is.
Nor is the matter mended by APP
plying the term 'free.t thinker" |
hear man say 81 am free thinker.
do not accept the existence of God,
the immortality of man, or the Chris.
tian records as authentic. My ho1i-
zon is bounded by the cradle and the
grave. / see nothing outside my
material environment. What the five
senses reveal | accept, and nothing
more. And he peers through those
five little peep holes, and exults that
he is a free thinker!
A favorite theory of modern free
thinkers" liberals" is that man is
the product of mechanical evolu-
ton. He is few ounces of phos-
phorus distributed through three
pals of water, and Plato's Phoedra,
Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the Ser