The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1905-01-27
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY.
A STRONG DISCOURSE 6Y TIE
REV. DR.. LYMAN ABBOTT.

ology Should Lead Us--Inward Aspir-
atiOns and Longings the Voice of God
BROOKLYN, n 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. 7.
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 Chat is, to bring Christ
down from above) or, who shall descend
into the deep? Chat is, to bring up Christ
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,
and his speech reveals the soul of man.
So the word of God reveals the unknown
God to us. We have not to go 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 transition in theology.
If it were only transition in theology 1t
would not disturb us much. We could
leave the theologians to study the theology
of the future for themselves But it is also
a transition in religious experience. am
sure that the older members of this con-
gregation can trace in their lives, more or
less, change, not simply in their intellect
ual oninions OF religion, but in their really
Vita -~ligious 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 kind of spiritual
wireless telegraphy. asking for things, and
sometimes He would give us those ahings
and sometimes He would not. But this
was our experience of prayer, and that was
our notion of the answer to prayer. and
this PARKWAY God, sitting on the Great
White Throne. had revealed Himself to
men through the Bible and through the
Christ. 1t was 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 indstinct, or disap-
peared altogether, and remains. if it re-
mains at all as a recognized picture and
hot a reality. And chat Christ, who
gems to us a mediator between God and
nah, a revelation of the faraway God, has
also grown faraway. That is, we have
come to recognize that He is 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 tie
Bible and rest upon it as final and abso-
lutte authority. If we try, perhaps some
succeed and some fall.
What / do want this morning is to
point out. not what has taken place, but to
indicate the goal toward which this trans.
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
grown dim and indistinct and which is only
half believed. In the first place, | am sure
that, while we have been UNDERGOING this
change, forces without the church have
been bringing to us 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 gentle rain. Tt 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, | think, nearer view Of
God. / am not going to try to state the
reason, am only stating the fact Her
bert Spencer has summed up in n 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-
coed" What science has taught is this:
You are not to go back to creative days to
find God, though in some period God
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 go 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: for God is life,
and there is no explanation for any of the
phenomena of life except in the indweiline
of the Eternal. If we turn from science to
literature we find 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 us 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,
the hills and the flowers, are not these, o, |
soul. the vision of Him who reigns?
Dark is the world to thee; thvself art |
the reason why. For is He not all but that |
which has power to feel, | am I?
GLORY about thee, within thee, and thou
fulfllest thy doom.
making Him broken CLEANS, and |
stihed splendor and gloom.
Speak to Him, thou. for He hears. and |
spirit with spirit can meet. Closer is He |