Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1887 — THE GRACE OF GOD. [ARTICLE]

THE GRACE OF GOD.

Chris* Paid the Ransom Through Death on the. ('mss. The World f onlrt Hare Treated H>n» •*«*•- ter if It H.*<l «Jhn«e»>, bat It i* Not. Too Lnte Tottr Bow Down pml Oonfe»r. Rev. Dr. Tahnage preached at Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Text, 11. Gyinthians, viii., 9 He said: That all the worlds which on a cold winter’s hiitht make the heavens oiie, great glitter are ■ inhabitaniless is an absurdity. Philosophers tell us that many of these worlds.are too hot or too cold, or too rarefied of atmosphere for residence. But, if not fit for Imman abode, they may he fit for beings differ ent from and superior to ourseLves—\Ve are told that the world of Jupiter is changing, until it is almost fit or? crea tnres like the human race, and that Mars would do for the human family with a little change in the structure of our respiratory-osgans. But that t here isa great world swung somewhere, vast beyond imagination, and that it is the headquarters of the universe, and the metropolis of immensity, and has a population in numbers vast beyond all statistics, and appointments of splendor beyond the capacity of canvas, or poem ®r angel to describe, is as certain as that the Bible is authentic. Perhaps some of the astronomers with their bigtrleseopes have aheady caught a glimpse of it, not knowing what it is. We spell it with six letters, and pronousce it heaven. That is where Prince Jesus lived nineteen centuries ago. He was the. King’s son. It was the old homes ead of eternity, and all its castles were as old as God. Not a frost had ever chilled, the air. Not a tear had eVer rolled down theoheek of one of its inhabitants. There had never been in it a headache, or a sideache, or a heartache. There had not been a funeral in the memory of the oldest inhabitant:"* There had never in all the land been woven a black veil: for there had never been anything to mourn over. The passage of millions of years had not wrinkled or Crippled or bedimmed any of its citizens. ■Ai-i-the people ■there-were-ia—a—si-ate-ed-eternal adolescence. What floral and pomonie richness! Gardens of perpetual itiooui and orchards in unending fruitage. Had fame spirit from —another world entered and asked, w hat is sin? w hat is bereavement? what is Sorrow? what is death? the brightest of the intelligences would have failed to give a definition, though to study the question there were silence in heaven for half an hour. The Prince of whom I speak had tTontirs.emotUTnents, acclamations such as no other Prince celestial qr terrestrial, ever enjoyed. As He passed the street the inhabitants took off from their brows garlands of white lilies and thre w th e ne4»--th«-way*» Ho noTer-entered” any of the temples without all the worshippers rising up and bowing in obeisance. In all the processions or the high days he was the one who evoked the. loudest welcome. Sometimes on foot, walking in loving talk with the humblest of the land, hut at other times He took chariot, and among the twenty thousand that David spoke of His was the swiftest'and most flaming; or. as when John described Him. He took white palfrey, with what prance of foot ami arch of neck and roll of mane And gleam of eye is only dimly suggested in the Apocalypse. He was nor like other Princes, waiting for the Father to die and then take the throne. When a few years ago an artist in Germany made a picture for the Royal Gallery represent ing Emperor William on the throne,and the Crown Prince as having one foot on the step of the throne,Emperor William ordered the picture changed, and said: “Let the Prince keep his feet off the throne till I leave it.”

Already enthroned was the heavenly Prince, side by side with the Father. What a circle of dominion! What myriads of admirers! What an uuend inground of glories! All the towers chimed the Prince’s praises. Of all the inhabitants, from the center of the citv on over the hills and clear down to the beach, agatnsr which 1 1 i s bee :urmrTmmensity rolls its billows, the Prince was _the ac snow led cell favorite, ho wonder my text says that “He was rich.'’ iSet all the diamonds of the earth in., one scepter, build all the palaces of the earth in one Alhambra, gather all the pearls of the sea in one diadem, put all the values of the earth into one coin, the aggregate i would not express his affluence. Yes, i Paul was rigid. Solomon had in . gold i 680,000 000 nounds sterling and in silver 1,029,000,377 pounds sterling. But a [-greater man than Solomon is here.. X ( »l '■ [ the millionaire, but the quadrillion-i i sire. of Ijeayen. To describe ; j his celestial surroundings the ! | Bible uses SIT dolors, gathering them in I i rainbow over throne and setting them! ias agate in the temple window, and; : hoisting twelve of them into a wall i | from striped jasper at the base to! transparent amethyst in the capstone,! ! while between are green of emerald!: and snow of pearl, and bitterns sapphire! land yellow of topaz, gray of carysoprasr.s. and flame of jacinth. All the loveliness of landscape in foliage, and river, and rill, and all enehantmefit I [ aqu marine, the sea of glass mingled I with lire as when the sun sinks in ihe'l Mediterranean. Ail the thrill of music, I instruments land vocal, harps, trumpets! I I doxelogies. There stood the Pnnce, surrounded by those who had under their wings the velocity of mill fops of miles in a second, rich in love, rich in adoration. nch|ingower. ric:: in worship, rich in holiness, rich in God. But one dat there was a big, disaster in a department of God's universe. A race fallen! -A world in ' rnins! —Qu r planet the scene of .catastrophe! a globe swinging out into darkness, -with mountains, and seas, an islands, an awful centifugal of sin seeming to. overpower the beautiful centripetal of ri«hteousness, and from it a groan reached heaven. Such a sound as had never been heard there. Plenty of sweet j sounds, but never an outcry of distress, j bran echo of agony. At that oue groan the Prince rose from the blissful drcnmjacence, and l started tor the onter gate* and descended into the night of this world. Out of a bright hariibr into what rough sea! “Stay with us,” ! cried angel after angel, and potentate! after potentate. “No,” said the Prince, 1 “I can not stay; I must 4** off for that wreck of a world. I must stop that groan. I must hush that distress. I must tat horn that wav, l must redeem those nations. Farewell, thrones and temples, companions cherubic,-seraphic, archangelid Excuse this absence, for I •r yrvif' 3 ’'" ~ t •' -

will #ome back again, carrying on my 'shoulder a ransomed world. Till this is done I choose earthly scoff to heaven- ■ lv acclamation, and a cattle pen to a King’s palace; frigid zone of earth to atmosphere of celestial radiance. I have no time to loose; for hark ye to the groan that grows mightier while I wait. Farewell! Farewell!” “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that,, though He was rich, yet for your ■Bakes He became poor.” ‘ Was there ever a contrast so overpowering as that between the noonday of Christ’s celestial departure and " the midnight of his earthly arrival? Sure, enough, the angels were out that night in the skv, and an especial meteor acted as escort, but that was from other worlds, and not from tniß world. The earth made no demonstration of welcome. If one of the great princes of this world steps out at a depot cheers resound, and the bands play, and the flags Wave. But for the arrival of this missionary Prince of the Bkies not a torch flared, not a trumpet blew, not a plume fluttered. All the music and pump was overhead. Our world opened for Him nothing better than a barn door. To know how poor he was,

ask the camel drivers, ask the shepherds, a°k Mary, ask the three wiso men of the slßl, who afterward came there, Voting Caspar, and tn'ddle-aged Balthasar and old Melchior. To know how poor he was examine all the record a of real estate in all that Oriental country, and see what vineyard, or what house, or what field He owned Not one. Of what mortgage was He the mortgagee? Of what tenement was He the landlord? Who ever paid him rent. Not owning the boat on which He railed, nor the beast on which He rode, nor the pillow on which He slept. He had so little estate that in order to pay His tax He had to perform a miracle, putting the amount in a fish’s mouth and having it hauled ashore. And after His death the world rushed in t® take an inventory of Ilia goods, and the entire aggregate was the garments He had worn, sleeping in them by night an travelling in them by day, bearing on them dust of the highway and the saturation of the sea. Paul in my text did not go far from hitting the mark, did'he, when he said of the missionary Prince: “For your sakes He became poor!” The world could have treated Him better if it had chosen. It had all the means for making His earthly condition comfortable. Only a few years before, when Pciiupey, the General, arrived at Brindisi, lie was greeted with srshes and a costly cojutun which celebrated the twelve million people whom he had killed or conquered, and he vas allowed to wear his triumphal robe in the. Senate. The world had applause for imperial butchers, hut buffeting for the Prince-of Peace. Plenty of golden chalices for the favored to drink out of, btu our Prince must put His lips to the bucket of the well by the roadside after. He had begged for a "drink. Poor? Bor-ri in another man’s barn and eating, at another man’s table, and cruising the lake in another man’s fishing smack, and buried in another man’s mausoleum Four inspired authors wrote of His biography and innumerable lives of Christ have been published, but He gomposed Hia autobiography in a most compressed way; He said: “I have trodden the wine press alone.” Poor in the estimation of nearly all the prosperous classes. They called Him Sabbath breaksr, wine bibber, traitor, blasphemer, and ransacked the dictionary of opprobrium from lid to lid to express their detestation. I can think now of only two well-to-do men who espoused His cause, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. His friends for the most part were p-ople who, in taat climate were ophthalmy or inflammation of the eyeball sweeps ever and anon as a scourge, had become blind, sick ptople who were anxious to eet. well, and troubled people, in whose family there was some one dead or d-ving.

If he had a purse at all it was empty, or we would have heard what was done yith the contents at the post-mortem. Poor? The pigeon in the dove eote, the rabbit in its burrow, the silk wornojin its cocoon, the bee in its hive, is better provided for, better off, better sheltered. Aye, the brute creation has a home on earth, which Christ has not: ~ ~ : But the Crown Prince of all heavenly dominion lias less than the raven, less than the chamois, for He"w*s homeless Aye, in the history of the universe there is no other instance of such coming down. Who can count the miles from the top of the throne to the bottom of the cross? Cle'opatra, giving a banquet to Antony, took a pearl worth a hundred thousand dollars and dissolved it in vinegar and swallowed it. But when our Prince, according to the evangelist, in His last hours t ook the vinegar, in'it had been dissolved all the pearls of His heavenly royalty. Down until there was no other depth for Uiin to touch, troubled until there was no other harassment to suffer, jjoor until there was no other pauueriuii to torture. Billions of dollars spent in wars to destroy men, who wifi furnish the statistics of the value of that precious blood that , was shed to save tost “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though life was rich, yet for your sakes Ho became poor.”

One of John Banyan’s great boots is entitled “Abounding Grace. “It is alt of grace that lam saved” has been on tlie lips of huudreds of dying Christians. The-boy Sammy was right when, being examined for admission into church membership, he was asked: “Whose worn was your salvation?” and he answered: “Part mine aud part God’s.” The examiner asked: “What part, did you do, Sammy?” and the was: “1 opposed God all I could, and: He did the rest!” Oh, the height of it, the depth of.it, the length o f it, the breadth of it —the grace of God! Yes. yes; for your sakes! It was not on a pleasure excursion that. He came, forvt was all pain. It was not,' an astronomical exploration, for He knew thisjworld as well before He alighted as afterward. It was not because He was compelled to come, for He volunteered It was not because it was easy, for lie knew that it would be thorn, and spike, and hunger, and thirst, and vociferation of angry mobs. For vour sakes. Wipe away vour tears. To forgive your wrongdoing, to companionship vour loneliness, to soothe your sorrows, to sit up with you by the new-made grave, to bind-up your wounds in the uelv battle with the world and bring you home at last, kindiing up the mists that fail on vour dying vision with the sunlight of a glorious morn. For your sakes! I will ehaDge thatT —Paul will not care, and Gimat will not eare if I changjFit, for I must get into the blessedness of the text mv6elf, and so I sav: “For our »

sakes!” For we all have oilr temptations and bereavements and conflicts. Bor onr sakes! We who deserve for our sins to be expatriated into a world as much poorerthan thlsas this earth was poorer than heaven. F'or our sakes! But what a fruitful .coming down Jto take us gloriously up! Fur uur sakes! Oh* the personality of this religion! Not an abstraction; not an arch under which' we walk to behold elaborate masonry; not an ice castle like that which Empress Elizabeth of Russia over a hundred years ago"ordered constructed, winter, with its trowel of crystal cementing the hug * blocks that likd been* quarried from the frozen rivers of the NtOrth, but a father’s house with a wide hearth crackling a hearty welcome. A religion of warmth and inspiration and light and cheer—something we can take into our hearts and homes, and business recreations and joys and Borrows. Not an unmanageable, gift like the galley presented to Ptolemh. which ’ required four thousand men to row, and its draught of water was so great that it could not come near the shore, hat something you can run up any stream of annoyance, however shallow:- Eu richmeiit now, enrichment forever!