Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1891 — THE BATTLE OF CREEDS. [ARTICLE]

THE BATTLE OF CREEDS.

Satanic Movements Aimed at Christ’s Work. Questions of Divinity Which Only the the Judgment Day Will Settle—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Subject, ‘The Battle of the Creeds.” Text: Proverbs xxvi, 17. He said: This is a time of resoundiing ecclesiastical quarrels. Never within your memory or mine has the air been so full of missiles. The Presbyterian Church has on hands a controversy so great that it finds it prudent: to postpone its settlement for tft least one year, hoping that something will turn up. Somebody might die or a new General Assembly may have grace to handle the exc: ting question. The Epiggopal Church has cast out some recalcitrants and : ts digestive organs are taxed to the utmdst in trying to assimilate others. “Shah women preach?” or “be sent as delegates to Conference?” arc questions that have put many cf our Methodist brethren on the anxious seat. And the waters in some of the great baptistries are troubled waters because of the controversies. Throughout Christendom the air is now like an August afternoon about 5 o’clock, when it has been steaming hot all day, and the clouds are gathering, and there are lions of thunder with grumbling voices and flashing eyes coming forth from the cloudy lairs and people arc waiting for t u c full burst of the tempest. I am not much of a weather prophet, but the clouds look to me mostly like wind clouds. It may be a big blow, but I hope it will soon be over. In regard to the battle of the creeds I am every day asked what I think about it. I want to make it so plain this morning what I think that no one wi' ever ask again. Let those who are jurymen in the rase (I mean those who in the different ecclesiastical courts have the questions put directly before them) weigh and decide,. Let the rest of us kefep out. The most damaging thing an earth is religious controversy. No one ever comes out of it as good a man as he goes in. Some of the ministers in all denominations, who, before the present acerbity were good and kind and useful, now seem almost swearing mad. These brethren, I notice, always open their violent meetings with prayer before devour.ng each other, thus saying grace before meat. They have a moral hydrophobia that makes us think they have, taken a dog by the ears. They never read the imprecatory psalms of David with such zest as since the Briggs and Newton and McQueary and Bridgman and Brooks questions got into lull swing. May the rams as the sheepfold soon have their horns sawed off. Before the controversies are settled a good many ministers will, through what they call liberalism, be landed in practical infidelity, end others throngh what (hey call conservatism will shrink up into bigots tight and hard as the mummies of Egypt which got through their controversies 3.000 years ago. This trouble throughout Christendom was directly inspired of Satan. He saw that too much good was being done. Recruits were being gathered by hundreds of thousands to the gospel standard. The victories for God and the truth were too near together, Too many churches were being dedicated. Too many rointertin’s were being ordained. Too many philanthropists were being fostered. Too many souls were being saved. It had a dull time in the nether world, and the arrivals were too few, So Satan rose upon his throne and said. ‘Ye powers of darkness, heart- 3-mI all up and down theory was: "H-L.! Hear!” Satan said: •’There .s that Ameiiean Board of Commissioners for Fomgu Missions. It must either be demolished or.crippled. -or the first thing you know they v.’iU have all nations brought to Col'

Wh'.it; junages me most is that all people do not see that, the entire mo - .dim nt at this time all over ChriSt‘*ndorn is Satanic. Many of the infernal attacks are sly and hidden and strategy, and so ingenious that they a~e not easily discovered. But here is a bald and uncovered attempt of the powers of darkness to split up the churches, to get ministers to take each other by the throat, to make religion the laughing stock of earth and hell, to leave the Bible with no more respect than an old almanac of 1822, which, told what v.i.ald be the change of weather six months ahead and in what quarter of 11. ) moon it is best to plant turnips. In a word, the effort is to stop the ev Migehration of the world. Now. what part shall you and I take, in this controversy which iills all Christendom with clangor? My whi e is: Take no part. In time of riot all Mayors of cities advise good eLi/.en.s to stay at home or in their places of business, and in this time of religious riot I advise, you to go about vour regular work of God. Leave the bottles on the higher shelves for others to fight about and take the two bottles on the shelf within easy reach; the two bottles »vl ich are’all this dying world needs; tuc one filled with a potion which ; s for tiie cleansing of all sifr, the other filled with a potion is for the soothing of all suffering. Gospel bottles! Christ mixed them out of his own tears and blood. In them is no human admixture. Spend no time on the mysteries! You, only a man five or six feet high, ought not to try to wade an ocean 1,000 feet deep. My own experience has, been vivid. I devoted the mosj

of my time for years in trying to understand God’s Eternal Decrees, and I was determined to find out why the Lord let sin come into the world, and I set out to explore, the doctrine of the Trinity, and with a'yardstick to measure the throne of the Infinite. As with all my predecessors, the attempt was a dead failure. For the iast thirty years I have not spent two minutes in studying the controverted points of theology, and if I live thirty-five years longer I will not spend the thousandth part of a second in such exploration. I know two things, and I will devote all the years of my life in proclaiming them: God will through Jesus Christ pardon sin and He will comfort trouble. 4 Creeds have their uses, but just now the church is creeded to death. The young men entering the minis try are going to be launched in the thickest fog that ever settled on the coasts. As lam told that in all our services studends of Princeton and Union and Drew and other theological seminaries are present, and as these words will come to thousands of young men who are soon to enter the ministry, let me say to such, and through them to their associates keep out of the bewildering, belittleing, destroying and angry controversies abroad. The questions our Doctors of Divinity are trying to settle will not be settled until the day after the Day of Judgment. It is such a poor economy of time to spend years in trying to fathom the unfathomable, when in live minutes in heaven we will know all we want to know. Wait till we get our throne. Wait un.til t the night of eternity flashes upon our newly ascended spirits. It is useless for ants on different sides of a mole-hill to try to discuss the comparative heights of .Mount Blanc and Mount Washington. Let me say to all young men about to enter tne ministry that soon the greatest novelty in the world will be the unadulterated religion of Jesus Christ. Preach that and you will have a crowd. The world is sick to regurgitation of the modern quacks in religion. The world has been swinging off from the old Gospel, but it will swing back, and by the tHne you young men go into the pulpits the cry will be coming up from all the millions of mankind: “Give us the bread of life; no sweetened bread, no bread with sickly raisins stuck here and there into it, but good old-fashioned bread as God, our Mother, mixed it and baked it!” You see, God knew as much when He made the Bible as He knows now. He has not learned a single thing in G,OOO years. He knew at the start that the human race would go wrong and what would be the best means of its restoration and redemption. And the law which was thundered on Mt. Sinia, from whose top I had the tables of stone in yonder wall transported, is the perfect law. And the Gospel which Christ announced whi e dying on that Mount from which 1 brought that stone in yonder wall and which Paul preached on that hill from which I brought yonder granite is the Gospel that is going to save the world. Young man, put on that Gospel armor! No other sword will triumph like that. No other helmet will glance off the battle-axes like that. Our theological seminaries are doing glorious work, but if ever theological seminaries shall cease to prepare young men for this plain Gospel advocacy, and shall become mere philosophical schools for guessing about God, and guessing about the Bible, and guessing about the soul. they will cease their usefulness, and young men, as in olden timer when they would study for the Gospel ministry, will put themselves under the care of some intelligent and warmhearted pastor, uftd kneel with him in family'prayer at the parsonage, mnd go into the room of the sick and ■in, dying, and see what victories,the grace of God can gairt when the couch of the dying saint is the marathon. That is the way the mighty ministers of the Gospel were made in oldeD times. Oh, for a great wave of revival to roll over our theological seminaries, and our pulpits ard our churches,and our ecclesiastical courts and over all Christendom! That would be the end of controversy. While such a deluge-would float the ark of God higher and higher, it would put all the bears and tigers and reptiles of raging ecclesticism fifteen cubits under.

Now, what is the simple fact that you in the pew and Sabbath-school class and Reformatory Association and we in the pulpits have to deal with? It is this: That God has somewhere—it matters not where, but somewhere —provided a great heaven great for quiteness for those who want quiet,great for vast assemblage for those who like multitudes, great for architecture for those who like architecture, great for the beautiful landscape for those who like beautiful landscape, great for music for those who like music, great for processions for those who like armies on white horses, and great for anything that one especially desired in such a rapturous dominion; and though the doings of One who was born about five miles south of Jerusalem, and died adout ten minutes walk from its eastern gate, and may enter that great heaven for the earnest and heartfelt asking. Is that all? That is all, What then, is your work and mine. Our work is to persuade people to face that way and start thitherward and finally go in. But has not religion something to do with this world as well the next? Oh, yes; but do you not see that if the people start, for heaven on their way there they will do all the good they can? They will at the very start of the journey 1 get so much of the spirit of Christ

which is a spirit of kindness and selfsacrifice and generosity and burden. bearing and helpfulness, that every step they take will Fesound with good deeds, Oh, get your religion off of .stilts! Get it down out of the high towers! Get it on a level with the wants and wbes of our poor human race! Get it out of the dusty thed r logical books that few people read and put it in their hearts and lives. Good things is it to profess religion when you join the Church, but every day somehow we ought to profess religion.Do you know that I think that if all ministers in all denominations would stop this nonsense of ecclesiastical strife and take hold of the word of God, the only question with each of us being how many souls we can bring to Christ, and in bow short a time, the Lohd would soon appear for the salvation of all nations? - When the young Queen of England visited Scotland many years ago, great preparations were made for her reception. The vessel in which she sailed was far out at sen. but every hill in Scotland was illumined with bonfires and torches. The night was set on r^re 1 tion. The Queen, standing on” the ship’s deck, knew that Scotland was full of heartiest welcome, - and the thunder of the great guns at Glasgow and Edinburg castle woke up all the echoes. Boom! they sounded up among the hills. Do you know that I think that outlying would land if we were onlyready to receive Him. Why not call to Him from all our churches, from all our hospitals, from all our homes? Why not all at once light all the torches of gospel invitation? Why not ring alt the bells of welcome? Why not light up the long night of the worlds’ sin and suffering with bonfires of victory? Why not unlimber all the Gospel batteries and let them boom acros the earth, and boom into the parting heavens. The King is ready to land if we are ready to receive Him. Why cannot we who are now living see His descent? Must it all be postponed to later ages? Has not our poor world groaned long enough in mortal agonies? Have there not been martyrs enough, and have not the lakes of tears and the rivers of blood been deep enough? Why cannot the final glory roll in now? Why cannot this dying century feel the incoming tides of the oceans of heavenly mercy? Must our eyes close in death and our ears take on the deafness of the tomb, and these hearts beat their last throb before the day comes in? Oh, Christ! Why tarriest thou? Wilt thou not, before we go the way of all the earth, let ussee thy scarred feet under some noonday cloud coming this way? Before we die let us see thy hands that were spiked, spread out in benediction for a lost race. And why not let us with our mortal ears hear that voice which spoke peace as thou didst go up speak pardon and emancipation, and love, and holiness, and joy to all nations as Thou comest down? But the skies do not part. I hear no rumbling of chariot wheels coming down over the sapphire. There is no swoop of wings. I see no flash of angelic appearances. All is still. I hear nothing but the tramp of my own heart as I pause between these utterances. The King does not land because the world is not ready and the church is not ready. To clear the way for the Lord's coming let us devote all our energies of body, mind and soul. ARi ssian General riding over the battlefield, his horse treading nmid the dying and dead, a wounded soldier aSked Eiiri for water, but the officer did not understand his language and knew not what the poor fellow wanted. Then the soldier cried out ‘‘Christos,” and that word meant sympathy and help, and the Russian officer dismounted and put to the lips of the sufferer a cooling draught.

Be that the charmed word with -which we go forth to do our whole duty. In many languages it has only >a little difference of termination. Christos! It stands for sympathy. It stands for help. It stands for pardon. It stands for hope. It stands for heaven. Christos! In that name we were baptized. In that name we took our first sacrament. That will be the battle-shout that will win the whole world for God! Christos! Put it on our banners when we march' Put it on our lips when we die! Put it in the funeral psalm at our obsequies! Put it on the plain slab over our grave! Christos! Blessed be His glorious name forever! Amen!