The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-02
SERMON ON CONVERSION
FIFTH OF 4 LENTEN SIsRIE ESB REV.
 WILLIAM y. MUYCu.

The "Rod of Gods DiscipIime" and It.
 Effect Upon Human Nature-sTh.
 More Frequent Response to inc Dis
 cipltns of Experience Is That Which
 Shows Little or No Trace of Repent | nmcc.n
 | At the Howard avenue Congregation
 al church yesterday the pastor, Rev.
 William J. Mutch, delivered the fifth of
 a series of Lenten sermons. The subject
 of the discourse was "Confession, and he spoke in part as follows
 The raw material of human nature passes ill many ways under the rod of
 Gods discipline. Now it is with the
 congenial ties of friendship that He
 draws out and nourishes the best there is in us anG makes us ashamed to think
 an evil thought. Now, bound in afflic-
 ton, we are chastened from an idola- trous regard for such things as we have
 been bereft of. And, again, with our
 
 ing the soul and teaching us that we
 might have brought forth other harvest if We had sown more wisely. And occa-
 sionally in a great transgression one is ground to powder that he and others may be taught the majesty of the law
 of righteousness and the inevitable dis aster that must follow the violation of Gods law.
 The consideration of prime importance to each individual is, What response shall be- made to all this christening? This point the speaker considered and analysed in very instructive manner, and then instanced the case of Saul; and, proceeding, said
 But does not Saul's confession here fairly represent much of the confession now made in the name of religion? Whether it be the confession of sin which precedes and accompanies the profession of faith, whether it be the confession which finds place In our pri- vate and public prayers, whether it be the formal auricular confession in those churches where that is practiced, or whether it be the self-righteous confess sion of the man who says he will not be hypocrite and pretend to be religious for them all there is law of the church or of custom or of society which seems to demand this acknowledgement. It is a concession rather than confession-a concession to the demands of ones sur roundingS, and not spontaneous out burst of sorrow and hatred for sin, not q moral revolt against it which goes to the depth of the soul and lays hold of the eternal in support of that revolt. It is not only the desperately wicked, but also the conventionally religious, who illustrate this kind of confession. Happily, the modern conscience has re- belled against the glib rhetorical con- fession which was once so common in the prayer meeting; but even yet the penitential hymns and psalms roll off the tongue of the average worshipper with the same triumphant exultation or passive indifference, as the case may be, as does every other strain of senti- ment. Confession has become a habit or custom, or is rendered in convention al submission to some law real or sup posed, but 1t does not indicate any change whatever in the attitude toward the sin or ignorance or folly which is confessed, for 1t is expected that the same confession shall be repeated peri odically as long as life shall last in obe- dtence to the law which Is over one
 Turn now to the case of David's con- fession for an illustration of another element which makes the confession mean something quite different, Some of the circumstances are almost parallel to the case of Saul There has been great transgression, and the fact has been brought home to him by another and righteous man with such force | that there is no evasion possible. h. deed, there had been no denial of the facts, but now it is the interpretation | lf those facts which is admitted. They | bear an entirely different meaning now in the light of Nathan's story of the | eve lamb from what they had borne be- lore in David's mind and in this lies he difference between the two confess | ;ions With his own conscience he had [ passed just judgment upon the nabob | who stole the poor mans lamb. On turning over the parable it appears that | himself is the nabob thief, and the judgment is confessed. Several cir give us ample reason for that Davids confession rep esents a penitence far more deep and cal than the confessions of Saul Da- ids previous life shows him to be a nan who was for the most part, just nd generous, and, compared with Saul,
 man in whom evil was less deeply ooted, and in whom the consciousness l f wrong doing would not be as evanes- ent and unmeaning. And his conduct fterward bears out this view. He | ows before the af11iction which follows n the train of his transgression with a which ever stands as model or those bereft of children and having
 faith in God that can stay them in heir need. Moreover, we have the tes- imony of the prophet Nathan, who ad interpreted to him his sin, who had card his confession and who had de- Jared his penance and dissolution in hese words, "The Lord also hath put way thy sin thou shalt not die, Iowbeit, because by this deed thou hast iven great occasion to the enemies of he Lord to blaspheme, the child also nat IS born unto thee shall surely die" he guilt was pardoned, but the law of ne harvest was as sure as fate-sowing ) the flesh. reaping death. There are three degrees of confession ) different from each other that they re often thought of as being scarcely | ,