Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1901-01-10

huroclty ana woe enclfcle Jne GIoDe! Ii
Justice had spoken, it would have said:
''The world deserves annihilation. and let
annihilation come" If immutability had
spoken, it would have said: II have always
been opposed to wickedness and always
will be opposed to it. The world is to me
an affront infinite and away with i'll" If
omniscience had spoken it would have
said: "I have watched that planet with
minute and all comprehensive inspection,
and 7 cannot have the offense longer con-
tinued." IF truth had spoken it would
have said: 81 declare that they who offend
the law must go down under the law"
But divine love took a different view of
the worlds obduracy and pollution. It
said: Il pity all those woes of the earth.
I cannot stand here and see no assuage-
ment of those sufferiugs. i will go down
wounds. l will calm its frenzy. | win
wash off its pollution ] will become in
carnated. / will take on My shoulders and
upon My brow and into My heart the con-
sequences of that worlds misbehavior. L
start now, and between Ny arrival at
Bethlehem and My ascent from Olivet [
will weep their tears and suffer their
griefs and die their death Farewell, My
throne, My crown, My sceptre, My angelic
environment, My heaven, till I have
finished the work and come back" God
was never conquered but once, and that
was when He was conquered by His own
love. "God is love-"
In this day, when the creeds of churches
are being revised, let more emphasis be
put upon the thought of my text. Let it
appear at the beginning of every creed
and at the close. The ancents used to tell
of a great military chieftain who, about
to go to battle, was clad in armor, helmet
on head and sword at side, and who put
out his arms to give farewell embrace to
his child, and the child, affrighted at
his appearance, ran shrieking away. Then
the father put off the armor that caused
the alarm, and the child saw who he was
and ran into his arms and snugged against
his heart. Creeds must not have too much
iron in their make up, terrorizing rather
than attracting. They must not hide the
smiling face and the warm heart of our
Father, God. Let nothing imply that
there is a sheriff at every door ready to
make arrest, but over us all and around
us all mercy that wants to save and save
now.
If one paragraph Of the creed seems to
take you, like child, out of the arms of
father, let the next paragraph put you
in the arms of a mother. 'As one whom
his mother comforteth so will l comfort
you" Oh what a mother we have in
God! And my text is the lullaby sung to
us when we are ill or when we are NAL
are trying to do better or when we are be-
feft or when we ourselves lie down to the
last sleep. We feel the warm cheek of the
mother against our cheek, and there sounds
in it the hush of many mothers, "God is
love-"
Out of vast eternity He looked forward
and saw Pilates criminal courtroom and
the rocky bluff with three crosses and the
lacerated body in mortuary surroundings.
tl,a b,,n +oll a+ Ia
of heavens favorite, and understood that
the palaces of eternity would hear the
sorrow of bereft God.
What do the Bible and the church litur-
gies mean when they say, He descended
into hell?" They mean that His soul left
His sacred body for awhile and went
down into the prison of moral night and
swung back its great door and lifted the
chain of captivity and felt the awful lash
that would have come down on the worlds
back, and wept the tears of an eternal
sacrifice, and took the bolt of divine indig-
nation against sin into Himself and, hav-
ing vanquished death and hell, came out
and came up, having achieved an eternal
rescue if we will accept it.
Read it slowly, read it solemnly, read it
with tears, ''He descended into hell" He
knew what kind of pay He would get for
exchanging celestial splendor for Bethle.
hem caravansary and He dared all and
came. the most ilustrious example in all
the ages of disnterested love.
Yea, ii was most expensive love. There
is much human love that costs nothing,
nothing of fatigue, nothing of money, moth
ing of sacrifice, nothing of humiliation.
But the most expensive movement that
the heavens ever made was this expedition
salvatory. 1t cost the life of King.
1t put the throne of God in bereavement.
1t set the universe aghast. 1t made ON
Impotence weep and bleed and shudder. 1t
taxed the resources of the richest of all
empires. 1t meant angelic forces detailed
to fight forces demoniac. 1t put three
worlds into sharp collision-one world to
save, another to resist and another to de-
stroy. 1t charged on the spears and rang
with the battleaxes OF human and diabolic
hate.
Had the expedition of love been de
fcated the throne of God would have fall
en-, and Satan would have mounted into
supremacy, and sin would have forever
triumphed, and mercy would have been
forever dead. The tears and blood of the
martyr of the heavens were only part of
the infinite expense to which the Godhedd
went when it proposed to save the world.
Alexander the Great, with his host, was
marching on Jerusalem to capture and
plunder it. The inhabitants came out
clothed in white, led on by the high priest,
wearing a miter and glittering breastplate
on which was emblazoned the name of
God, and Alexander. seeing that word,
bowed and halted his army, and the city
was saved.
And il we had the love of God written
in all our hearts and ON all our lives and
on all our banners at the sight of it the
hosts of temptation would fall hack. and
we would go on from victory unto victory
until we stand in Zion and before God.