The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1905-02-01
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A STRONG DISCOURSE, BY THE
REV. DIR. LYMAN ABBOTT.

Ol0gy should Leau OS-lnWarO AspiT-
atoms and Longings the Voice of God
BROOKLYN, y. Y.-The Rev. DR.. Lyman
Abbott occupied the pulpit in the Church
of the Pilgrims Sunday morning in the alb
sence of the pastor, the Rev. DR.. IL. r
Dewey. DR.. Lyman Abbott's subject was,
"The Ever Present God" and he took for
his text, Romans, x:6-7-s: 'But the right
eousness which is OF faith speaketh on this
wise: say not in thy heart who shall as
cend into heaven THAT is, to bring. Christ
down from above) OF, who shall descend
into the deep? THAT is, to bring up Christ
again from the dead), but what saith it?
The word is nigh thee, it is in thy mouth
and in thy heart: that is, the word of
faith which we preach" He said:
The "word" in the New Testament
means, God speaking. A. friend sits by
your side in absent-minded meditation,
So the word of God reveals the unknown
God to us. We have not to 20 to the
depths to find the manifestation Of God is
all, about US and within us. We are all ia
miliar with the statement that We are
passing through a transition in theology.
If it were only a transition in theology 1t
would not disturb US much. We could
leave thetheologians to study the theology
of the future for themselves. But it is also
a transition in religious experience. l am
sure that the older members of this con-
gregation can trace in their lives, more or
less, a change. not simply in their intellect
ual opinions OF religion, but in their really
vital religious experience. We used to
think, in our boyhood. Of God as King
sitting on the Great White Throne. with
the angels gathered about Him and singing
to Him. He was far away, We sent our
prayers up to Him by a kind of spiritual
wireless telegraphy. asking for things: and
sometimes He would give us those things
and sometimes He would not. But this
was our experience of prayer, and that was
our notion Of the answer to prayer and
this faraway God, sitting on the Great
White Throne. had revealed Himself to
men through the Bible and through the
Christ. 1t was a great historic revelation,
and we went back, more or less conscious
of that revelation of the faraway God in
the faraway historic time, and we went to
that Bible to find out what it told US re.
specting Gods law. of what was required
of us, and the things with respect to
Gods grace, what He would do for us, and
with many of US that experience. has not
changed. The picture of The great King
has grown dim and indistinct, or disap-
peared altogether, and remains, If it re.
mains at all, as a recognized picture and
not a reality. And That Christ, who
seems to us a mediator between God and
man, a revelation of the faraway God, has
also grown faraway. That is, we have
come to recognize that He is a great his
toric figure, and we are, more or less, per-
picked as to what His revelation is of the
faraway God, and what His relation to US
is, and our prayers have changed and our
conception of the Bible has changed. and
we can no longer take a text out of the
Bible and rest upon it as a final and abso-
lutte authority. If we try, perhaps some
succeed and some fall.
What I do want this morning is to
point out. not what has taken place, but to
indicate the goal toward which this transit
ton should lead US; what is the Promised
Land toward which we should look; what
is the religious experience we may hope
for in the future to take the place of this
religious experience of the past, that has
grownd dim and indistinct and which is only
that, while we have been undergoing this
change, forces without the church have
been bringing to US O larger, if a wagner,
conception of God. God does not work
only through the church; He does not
speak only through the preacher. Religion
is not a spiritual conduit through which
the water of life is brought down to man.
The grace of God does not come in par
ticular channels OF grace alone. The Bible
says it falls like a gentle rain. It is univer-
sal. and we may look outside the church
and among the forces that we have con-
sidered forces for skepticism, for the forces
which are giving us a more indefinite idea
of religion and. I think, Il nearer view OF
God. l am not going to try to state the
reason, I am only stating the fact Her
bert Spencer has summed up in 4 single
sentence what he thinks is the result of
scientific investigation and experience.
"Amid all the mysteries by which We are
surrounded nothing is more certain than
that we are ever in the presence of Eternal
Energy, from which all these things pro-
ceed." What science has taught is this:
You are not to go back to creative days to
launched the world and put His children
here and intervening now and then in spe-
cial necessity: you are not to think of God
that way; you are to think of God as the
eternal energy here. Yes, as ever in the
presence of the eternal energy always
creating, always controlling-in the growth
of every flower and in the perfume, in the
flight of every bird.
Science says that God is not remote.
He is here. and you can 60 out into the
Prospect Park this afternoon and find
Him in the brown trees, beneath the
ground, and in the hidden life that next
spring is to burst forth; Tor God is life,
and there is no explanation for any of the
phenomena of life except in the indwelling
of the Eternal. If we turn from science to
literature we find a much closer and more
sacred and truer and diviner interpreta-
ton of the change that is coming over the
thoughts of men. The poets are all pro-
phets. They tell u beforehand what is
the fate that by and by we shall come to.
Let me read one such Interpretation. 1t is
from Tennyson:
THE sun, the moon, the stars, the sea,
soul, the vision of Him who ~reigns?
Dark is the world to thee; thyself art
the reason why: For is He not all but that
which has power TO feel, I am I?
.Glory about thee, within thee, and thou
fulfllest thy doom.
Making Him broken CLEANS, and a
stiied splendor and gloom.
"Speak to Him, thou. for He hears, and
spirit with spirit can meet. Closer is He
than breathing, and nearer than hands and
feet"
The universal presence, universal COM
mvnion, in the hearts of men, as it was in
the heart Of Moses: in the hearts of wea-
ried souls, AS in the heart Of David when
he wrote the Twenty-third Psalm; in the
hearts of ~disconsolate souls. as in the
heart Of Isaiah; in the hearts Of men now,
as in the hearts OF men then-a living
presence. We are not to ascend into the
heavens to bring Him down from a great
white throne, but to look within. In thine
heart thou shalt find Him. "This is the
gospel of faith" says st. Paul, "that We
preach unto you"
And so with prayer. 1t comes in our
experience-jnst this: Spirit with spirit
meeting, spirit with spirit talking: Not
the going after something, though 1t may