The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1904-03-31

God with His covenant people would stand
out in memory; all the wealth of tender
ness over hopes and promises sorely and
long deferred, and now on the eve of full
fllment-a tenderness which afterward
came out in words wet with tears. when
He cried: ooh, Jerusalem. Jerusalem. how
often would have gathered thy children
together as i hen gathereth her brood
under her wings. but ye would not" 1t
was in the heart OF His own Jerusalem,
and rom the summit OF His Fathers house
that He was tempted by His cunning and
willy adversary to commit the plausible
sin. Beside the influence of the sacred
place and associations. the voice of the
lempter appealed to something not less
sacred-to the written word Of God-as
the guarantee OF truth and action. The
devil, too. can quote Scripture to his pur-
pose. 'If Thou be the Son of God, cast
Thyself down: for it is written, He shall
give His angels charge concerning Thee,'
etc.
First, we must nave recourse to the prin-
ciples of sanity and common, sense; find
out if what We are tempted to do is in
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. eve do
not make experiments with those whom
we absolutely trust When a man be-
gins by pray yer test, or any like thing, to
make experiments with God. he shows
that he lacks the subtle. spiritual quality
called faith which is the only means by
which he can reach God. Therefore, it is
the habit of trust to calmly abide in God
not trife with or put Him to the test.
As long as Jesus remained within the
sphere of the revealed will of His Father,
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
fciency, declares to us that it is necessary
to have a care for ourselves as we'll 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 a wretched policy to begin 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 OF 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 to
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 its 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. "It neither courts nor shuns
death" It is prudent, wary, will not
overstep the limits OF sober faith, and
vet. when the will OF God clearly demands
it in the path of duty, it brave!y faces
death and dares all hell.
My friends, the modern sin of presump-
ton turns up under many forms. Now it
appears in the guise of religious pride,
III the purblind assumption of some &C.
clesiastical charlatan uttering with great
swelling words of vanity some oracular
opinion which he claims TO be of equal au-
thority with the teachings of the Son of
God, You have it in the vaccinations of
the "mother" OF Christian Science with
the systems siavish liberalism and prepos-
physical that the system breathes and
breeds, the refusal to give medicines out
of those stores which God has laid up for
Us in leaf and plant and flower and min
eral, and which millions of educated men
have given their lives to make available,
the willingness to cast themselves or a
child over the precipice, claiming the sane
tion OF certain Scriptures as their warrant
for escaping destruction is, in the eyes of
most men and women to-day, a sin of pre-
sumption. The system is against the cor
porate common sense OF the race, against
the proportion of faith; it discards doc
trines like the blessed truths of Christ's
deity and atouement. which have been
members of the Christian church in every
age from the beginning. 1T is written"
they cry. Yes, Christ teaches US to an
swer. and again it is written: Thou shalt
not make the trial of the Lord thy God"
You have it-one kesitates to allude in a
Christian pulpit to the vulgar sect-in the
sacrosanct polygamy OF the Mormon, Of
which such an informing expose has been
made by Congressional committee during
the past week. Not that the Mormon is
the only adulte-er; would God he were,
but he is the cnly man now before the
Christian public who claims new reyeia-
ton of later and higher authority than
that made through The holy and sinless
Jesus, expressly sanctioning his lustiul
creed.
"l as the chosen OF God have had ris-
ion which uproots and supersedes the NOR
aiity taught by the Lord Jesus Christ; I
ike Mohammed:s about the family better
than Christ's, therefore l hear my pref
erence sanctioned by voice from heaven.
Eenceforth my revelation shall put me
above the law Of the land. Outwa,diy I
may have to comply, but I secretly will
ignore it." There IS not occurred in
modern times a more pesji;ercus example
of religious hypocrisy and delusion! And
when we remember that repeatedly in re-
cent years emissaries from Utah have pro-
claimed this accursed system here in the
East, chiefly among simple minded rustics