The Penn's Grove record., 1906-04-27
THE PULPIT.
A BRILLIANT SUNDAY SERMON BY
THE REV. DR.. H. M. SANDERS.
Subject. Tho Character of Jesus.

Brooklyn, N. Y.-At the washington
Avenue Baptist Church. in the absence
of the pastor, the Rev. DR.. Robert
Macdonald, the pulpit was occupied
Sunday morning by the Rev. Henry M.
Sanders. d. D., of Manhattan. The
prea cher's subject was "The Character
of Jesus" His text was Matthew
xxii:42: "What think We of Christ?
Whose Son is He?" and he said:
The character of Christ is the ulti-
mate fact in Christianity. 1t is the
central citadel of our faith. What
HugOmont was to Waterloo the charac-
fer of our Lord is to Our religion.
Around it the fiercest fight and blood
lest carnage ragged. but it was found
impregnable. and because it was not
captured Napoleon was defeated. So
the character of Christ stands to Chris
tendon. If it could be shown to be
false all would be gained by its foes,
but that character stands because it
comes out of the flames Of criticism,
without so much as the smell of fire
upon its garments. Who Christ was
and what He was, therefore, are ques-
tons that have not lost their interest
for mankind. Ever Jesus Christ is the
ihoSI pON Cll III Spllltudl 1OlCC. LIZ 10
to-day what He was for centuries, the
object of the love and reverence of the
good; and the cause of hope and repent
ance to bad; of strength to the NOR
ally weak; inspiration to the despond-
ent; consolation to the desoiate; cheer
to the dying. He has been the incen-
tive of the most unbounded benevo-
.lence, the most seif-sacrificing devo-
ton, the Infinite within the limits Of
our humanity, and faith has beheld in
His sufferings the sacrifice for human
sin. Surely no other has done such a
work as this. He is to-day the worlds
imperishable wonder; its everlasting
problem. The man who would assail
our faith with any degree of success
must do it through the Founder. I
want to direct your attention to some
of the features of that character which
strike Us as being unique.
In the first place, it is the f1awless-
ness of that character. He completely
satisfies our ideal of human virtue.
You cannot think of God as being
more holy than He. In the world He
lived a perfectly sinless life at all
points. We shall seek in vain for any
trace of sin in that life which would
indicate a will detected from God. No
pride, ambition, ~covetousness, malice,
paltering with truth, no deviation from
the most exact rectitude. 1t was a life
of the highest purity, of the most i'm.
partial equity, uncalculating self-sacri-
flee and %sternest veracity. And yet Il
Lords faultlessness of character does
not rest upon u inability to detect
evil. In the first place, He never &C.
knowledged sin in any form, but lives
Himself free from every kind of sin,
either of commission or omission. Sin
is the transgression of the law or any
want of conformity thereto. But Jesus
never left undone anything He ought
to have done. He said, II have glori-
fed Thee on earth" and 81 do always
the things that please Him." He
throws down the challenge, (Which
of you convinceth Me of SIM"
Then, again, the faultlessness stands
the test of intimacy. mo man is a
hero to his valet" said Thackeray.
When Whitfield was asked whether a
certain man were a Christian, he said:
"How do 1 know? l have never lived
with him." But the people who lived
with Jesus are the most o~Gtspoken in
the expression of His holiness. John
declares that He was "A lamb without
spot Or biemish." Such was the testi-
m9ny of friends. His sinlessness
stands the test of enmity, of those who
lay in wait to entrap Him, and yet
their testimony is explicit. PLATE de-
clared: Il find no fault in Him." the
centurion who superintendent the cruel
fxion said. Truly this was the Son Of
God" and the traitorous disciple de-
clared that he had betrayed innocent
blood" When we look into the life of
Jesus we find that the record sustains
this testimony of friend and foe alike.
He never repents, never expresses re-
greet for anything. 1t is clear that He
has no computations of conscience, no
feelings of unworthiness. He tells us
that He goes back to God untarnished,
And all this in view of the we'll known
fact that the nearer a man lives to God
the more he realizes his defects. The
measure of human perfection is the
conscience. Carlyle says that the
greatest of faults is to be conscious Of
nothing. The worse a man is the less
conscience speaks to him. If the shield
be dull more or less spots upon it make
little difference, but if perfectly poll
ished n spot mars it.
Jesus never accused Himself. Abras
ham, Moses, Samuel and Ezekiah all
had to acknowledge imp~erfections.
Peter wept tears and Paul speaks Of
himself as "the chief of sinners" Ed,
ward Payson says he did not know
any evil of which he did not feel the
possibility in his w nature, aid
Jonathan Edwards in writing his diary
stained the manuscript with tears of
as he wrote. You detect no
such thing with Jesus. Why? Be.
cause he was a Pharisee, satisfied with
external righteousness? Had He fan
tastic ideas of holiness? He made the
most exalted standard for men and
yet neyer gave the slightest intimation
that He fell below it. He said: eff We
mot WEI repent and "Ye not wei
must be born again." In all matters
of human sympathy where He could
ally Himself with man He did so, but
in sin He always separated Himself.
The so-called Lords Prayer is not
the Lords prayer except that He gave
it. When He said. "Our Father. who
are in heaven, forgive us our SINS" it
was a prayer He never meant for Him.
self. The symmetry of His character,
the completeness of it and the idea of
goodness which 10 presented by Him is
There is nothing one
sided or narrow which is so often dis
cernible in the greatest of men. AS a
we cannot exemplify one aspect
of human goodness except at the cost
Of the rest. 1t would seem as if nature
exhausted itself by success in a certain
direction. The hollow answers to the
hill in human character. It was not so
with Jesus. In His character each vir-
was balanced by its counterpart;
He was magnificent, yet weak: humble.
ySt firm; just, yet benevolent: dignitied,
yet condescending; pure. yet sympa-
lnetic: commanding, vet submissive;
spiritual, but not ascetic. A great
many virtues are only vices that have
gone to seed. Our Lord never went
too far. He was in perfect e~quipoise;
unique, but not eccentric. He was a
combination of the masculine and the
fnrafnina 1ttyn b %I;-Ir thai IT.