The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1904-03-30

ciples Of sanity and common sense; find
out il what we are tempted to do is in
sincere accord with what God has taught
us generally in His word and in common
sense, and then decide. For Christ to
have cast Himself from the wing of the
temple into the abyss that yawned below
would have been to tempt God. I'VE do
not make experiments with those whom
we absolutely trust" When a man be.
gins by prayer test, or any like. thing, to
make experiments with God, he shows
that he lacks the subtle, spiritual quality
which he can reach God. Therefore. it is
the habit of trust to calmly abide in God
mot trife with or put Him to the test.
As long as Jesus remained within the
sphere OF the revealed will of His Father,
He could trust Him. II He should break
or contravene that will, then He should
no longer feel He had a right to Gods
care. In other words, Jesus Christ in
His second temptation, flushed with a
victory which must have given an impulse
to faith in the Fathers power and suf-
ficiency, declares to us that it is necessary
to have a care for ourselves as well as
commit ourselves into the keeping of God.
Because we are Gods children we may not
break the laws of the world to which we
belong and expect Him to miraculously
interfere to prevent the consequences.
Contempt for nature and practical reason
is wretched policy to begin a religious
life with. We live under physical law,
under moral law, under spiritual law. To
fancy that because we have come to feel
the power of the spiritual and even the
supernatural, we are at liberty to fly in
the face of known physical laws, or sane
and widely received moral laws, is fatal
error, and for it men are always punished
in the end. God is the source Of all these
laws and We tempt the Lord our God
when we break them. We are not to rely.
either, "too exclusively or presumptuous.
ly" upon the care of God. As far as our
practical reason serves US, we must also
take counsel of that, recognizing that faith
and self help. action and patience meet
in equilibrium" and complete each other.
If Jesus, the exceptional and pre-emi'
nent object of divine care, had yielded tc
this Cast Thyself down." He would first
have broken away from us, His brethren,
who live under moral and physical law.
and second, He would have Substituted
for a life environed by nature, guarded
guided, fed by it, participant in its forces.
because subject to it's laws, life divorced
from nature, hostile to it, refusing to
tempt God or to break away from our hu
man lot and world, showed us the sanity
and strength of genuine trust in God
| 1t is not nervous, fanatical or presump
tuous. 1T neither courts nor shuns
death" 1t is prudent, wary, will moi
overstep the limits of sober faith, and
yet. when the will of God clearly demand:
it in the path of duty, it bravely faces
death and dares all hell!
My friends, the modern sin of presump
tion turns up. under many forms. Now il
appears in the guise of religious pride
in the purblind assumption of some &c
cleslastical charlatan uttcring with great
swelling words OF vanity some oraculal
opinion which he claims to be of equal au
thority with the teachings of the Son o.
| God. You have it in the vaccinations o
the mother" of Christian Science with
the systems slavish liberalism and prepos
ferrous overclaims. The contempt for the
physical that the system breathes anC
breeds, the refusal to give medicines ou
of those stores which God has laid up fol
us in leaf and plant and flower and min
| eral. and which millions of educated mer
have given their lives to make available
the willingness to cast themselves or
child over the precipice, claiming the sane
tion of certain Scriptures as their 'warran
for escaping destruction is, in the eyes o
most men and women to-day, sin OF pre-
sumption. The system is against the cor
porate common sense of the race, agains
the proportion of faith; it discards doc
trines like the blessed truths of Christ
deity and atonement, which have beel
held by the overwhelming majority Of tn
members of the Christian church in ever
age from the beginning. "It is written
they cry. Yes, Christ teaches us to an
swer, and again it is written: Thou shal
not make the trial of the Lord thy God
on have it-one hesitates to allude in
Christian pulpit to the vulgar sect-in tn
sacrosanct. poiygamy of the Mormon, o
which such an informing expose has bee
made by Congressional committee durin
the past week. Not that the Mormon i
the only adulterer; would God he were
but he is the only man now before tn
Christian public who claims a new revela
ton of later and higher authority tha
that made through .he holy and sinles
Jesus, expressly sanctioning his lustfu
creed.
Il as the chosen OF God havs had vi:
ion which uproots and supersedes the MOI
ality taught by, the Lord Jesus Christ;
like Mohammed's about the family bette
than Christ's, therefore l hear my pref
erence sanctioned by .volca from heaven
Henceforth my revelation shall put IN
above the law OF the land. Outwardly
may have to comply, but / secretly wi
ignore it," There IS not occurred il
modern times more pestiferous cxampl
of religious hypocrisy, and deluson! An
when we remember that repeatedly in re
cent years emissaries from Utah have pre-
claimed this accursed system here in tn
East, chiefly among simple minded rustic
and mountaineers, we realize the sin @
permitting it thus long.
This country can never endure par
polygamist and part monogamist.
But, my friends, the capital sin OF pre-
sumption is committed nearer at hom
than this. There is self satisfied credulit
which makes men fancy that they ca
break all manner of spiritual laws, cas-
themselves down all sorts of religious prec
pices, take all kinds of risks in the al
fairs OF the soul at SStan's dictation, an
yet that somehow at the end they wi
come out without loss! 1t is not, too, tn
ignorant about God, but those who hav
had good opportunity to know Him an
obey Him who fall into this sim
When any Christian man lets himsel
OF easily and airily from plain duty t
God, or does sin against light, he near
the sin of presumption. When a man O
the world deliberately violates the expires
will of God, our Saviour, year after year
relying upon some vague hope of deliver
ance for which we have no divine warrant
he is approaching the sin of presumption
Brethren, our safety lies in learning tn
perfect humility and simplicity of Jesu
Christ.
"Keep back Thy servant also, from pre-
sumptuous sins; let them not have do
minion over me; then shall be uprigh
and innocent from the great transgres