Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1893 — HIS WITNESSES. [ARTICLE]

HIS WITNESSES.

Miraculous Testimony to the Truth of the Gospel. “Christ Came WhoT Is Orer AU”—Dr. Talmage's Sermon. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn .last Sunday. Subject:' “Over Alt Forever.” Text: Romans ix, s—“ Christ5 —“Christ came who is over all. ” For 4,000 years the world had been waiting for a deliverer—waiting while empires rose and fell. Conquerors came and made the world worse instead of making it better; still the centuries watchS and waited. They looked for him on thrones, looked for him in palaces, looked for him in imperial robes, looked for him at the head of armies At last they found him in a barn. The cattle stood nearer to him than the angels, for the former were in the adjoining stall while the latter were in the

clouds. A parentage of peasantry. No room for him in the inn, because there was no one to pay the hotel expense. Yet the pointing star and the angelic cantata showed that heaven made up in appreciation of his worth what the world lacked. “Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.” I suppose that the majority of those here to-day assembled believe the Bible. It requires as much faith to be an infidel as to be a Christian. It is faith in a different direction. The Christian has faith in the teachings ol Matthew, Luke, John, Paul, Isaiah, Moses. The infidel has faith in the free thinkers. W 6 have faith in one class of men. They have faith in another class of men. But as the majority of those—perhaps all of those here assembled—are willing to take take the Bible for a standard in morals and in faith I make this book my starting point. _ I suppose you are aware that the

two generals who have marshaled the great armies against the deity of Jesus Christ are Strauss and Renan. The number of their slain will not be counted until the trumpet of the archangel sounds the roll-call of the resurrection. These men and their sympathizers saw that if they eonld destroy the fortress of the miracles they could destroy Christianity, and they were right. Surrender the miracles, and you surrender Christianity. The great German exegete says thatall the miracles were myths. The great French exegete says that all the miracles were legends. They propose to take everything super- ! natural from the life of Christ and everything supernatural from the Bible. They prefer the miracles of human nonsense to the glorious miracles of Jesus Christ. Now, I take back the limited statement which I made a few moments ago, when I said it requires as much ; faith to be an infidel as to be a Christ- ; ian. It requires a thousandfold more faisi to be an infidel than to be a Christian, for if Christianity demand that the whale swallow JoDah, then skepticism demands that Johah : swallowed the whale. I can prove to you that Christ was God not only by the supernatural appearances on that Christmas night, but by what inspired men said of him, by what he says of himself and by his wonderful achievements. “Christ came, , who is over all.” Ah, does not that | prove too much? Not over the Caesars, not over Alexander the Great, not over the Henrys, not over the Louises. Yes. Pile the thrones of all the ages together, and my text overspans them as easily as a rainbow overspans a mountain' 1 ” top. Christ came who is over all. Then he must be a God. Philosophers say that the law of gravitation decides everything, and that the centripetal and centrifugal forces keep the world from clashing and from demolition. But Paul says that Christ’s arm is the axle on which everything turns, and that Christ’s hand is the socket in which everything is set. Mark the words, “Upholding—upholding all things by the word of his power. ” Then he must be a God. If I ask how much estate you are worth and you say SIO,OOO or SIOO,OOO or $500,000, I believe what you say. You know better than any one else. Now, Christ must know better than any one else who he is and what he is. When I ask him how old he is, he says, “befDre Abraham was, I am.” Abraham had been dead 2,028 years. Was Christ 2,028 years old? Yes, he says he is older than that. Before Abraham was, I am, ” Then Christ says, “I am the Alpha.” Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Christ in that utterance declared, “I am the A of the alphabet of the centuries.” Then he must be a God.

A man comes into your place of business, with a Jewish countenance and a German accent, he says: “I am Rothschild, the banker at London. 1 have the wealth of nations in my pocket. ... I loaned that large amount to Italy and Austria in their perplexity.” But after awhile you find that he has never loaned any money to Italy or Austria; that he never had a large estate, that he is no banker 1 at all; that he owns nothing What is he? An impostor, Christ says he owns the cattle on a thousand hills; he owns the world; he owns the universe; he owns the next world; he is the banker of all nations. Is he? If he is, he is a God. Is he not? Then he is an impostor. I have shown you what inspired men said of Christ. I have shown you what Christ said of himself. Now, if you believe the Bible, let us go out and see his wonderful achievements surgical, alimentary, marine, mortuary. Surgical achieve*

ments!/ Where is the medical journal that gives any account of such exploits as Christ wrought? He used no knife. He carried no splints. He employed no compress. He made no patient squirm under cauterization. He tied no artery. Yet behold him I With a word he stuck fast Malehus’ amputated ear. He stirred a little dust and Spittle into a salve and with it caused a man who was born blind and without optic nerve or cornea or crystalline lens to open his eyes on the sunlight. He beat music on the drum of the deaf ear. He straightened a woman who through contraction of muscle had been bent almost double for well nigh two decades. He made a man who had no use of his limbs for thirty-eight years shoulder his mattress and walk off. Sir Astley Cooper, Abernethey; Valentine Mott stood powerless before a withered arm; but this doctor of omnipotent surgery comes in and he sees the paralytic arm useless and lifeless at the man’s side, and Christ says to him, “Stretch forth thine hand,” and he stretched it forth whole as the other. He was a God. Let philosophers and anatomists go to Westminster abbey and try to wake up Queen Elizabeth or Henrv Vin. No human power ever wakened the dead. There is a dead girl in Capernaum. What does Christ do? Alas, that she should have died so young and when the world was so fair! Only twelve years of age. Feel her cold brow and cold hands. Dead, dead! The house is full of weeping. Christ comes, and he takes hold of the hand of the dead girl, and instantly her eyes open, her heart starts.* The white lily of death blushes into the arms of her rejoicing kindred. Who woke up -that death? Who restored her to life? A man? Tell that to the lunaties in Bloomingdale asylum. It was Christ the God. But there comes a test which more than anything else will show whether he was God orman. You remember that great passage which says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” The earth will be stunned by a blow that will make it stagger in midheaven, the stars will circle like dry leaves in an equinox, the earth will unroll the bodies, and the sky will unroll the spirits, and soul and flesh will come into incorruptible conjunction. Day of smoke and fire and darkness and triumph. On one side, piled up in galleries of light, the one hundred and forty and four thousand—yea, the quintillions—of the saved. On the other side, piled up in galleries of darkness, the frowning, the glaring multitude of those who rejected God. Between these two piled up galleries a throne, a high throne, a throne standing on two burnished justice, mercy—a throne so bright you had better hide your eye lest it be extinguished with excess of Vision. But it is an empty throne. Who will come up and take it? Will you? "No,” you say, “lam but a child of dust. I would not dare to climb that throne.” Would Gabriel climb it? He dare not. Who will ascend it? Here comes one. His back is to us. He goes up step above step, height above height, until he reaches the apex. Then he turns around and faces all nations, and we all see who it is. It is Christ the God, and all earth, and all heaven, and all hell kneel, crying: “It is a God! It is a God!” We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Oh, put your tired head down on the heaving bosom of divine compassion while he puts his arms around you and says: “O widowed soul, I will be thy God. O orphaned soul, I will be thy protector. Do not cry.” Then he touches your eyelids with his fingers and sweeps his fingers down your cheek and wipes away all the tears of loneliness. *Oh, what a tender and sympathetic God has come for us! Ido not ask you to lay hold of him. Perhaps you are not strong enough for that. Ido not ask you to pray. Perhaps you are too bewildered for that. I only ask you to let go and fall back into the arms of everlasting love. Soon you and I will hear the click of the latch of the door of the sepulcher. Strong men will take us in their arms and carry us down and lay us in the dust, and they cannot bring us back again. I should be scared with infinite fright if I thought I must stay in the grave. But Christ will come with glorious iconoclasm and split and grind up the rocks and let us all come forth. The Christ of the manger is the Christ of the throne.