God, but men's poor short-sighted notions about God; that the inquisition is not Christianity, nor even the Church, but the act of members of the human race in a remote and outgrown period; that the Bible is not a statute-book, but a book of Divine principles, and its commands the Divine inspiration of spiritual reality; when we arrive at this point, we have reached the same place that the stone-cutter has reached, when he is told that, if he would cleave stone, he must have tools with which to drill, ex`plosives and a fuse. So when it is said "There is no other name given under Heaven among men whereby we must be saved,” we have no arbitrary announcement, but a disclosure of how we can wisely adapt means to ends in the spiritual world. Whatever we discover in the Bible, we read it to little purpose, if we fail to find the eternal God disclosing the power unto character. Why do we persist in working alone at spiritual problems? We call in aid of every trade, to enrich our homes. In education, we employ teachers. In travel, we put ourselvs into the hands of transportation companies. In art, we have our masters. In society, one furnishes one element and another gives another, and together we make up civilization. Why should we in the transcendent matter of developing a spirit, which circulates through and cleanses the secular, as the blood carries health to the system, make an exception to the rule and make no personal and social account of the All-Father? This does not mean that we shall believe in what has been called the "Trinity." It does recognize the Divine right and necessity that love shall reign and that we are sublimely dependent on its infinite source and its historical expression. We may not mistake its true expression. It may be inquired whether church rivalry is an example of the true product of the forces for good. The rivalry of churches is legitimate, but it must be rivalry in love. Our Roman sister, in worship of the Virgin, only transferred to woman, what her scholastics forbade their applying to God namely sympathy and tenderness. Humanity cheated of its rights in one place ever locates its altar in another. The Everlasting Arms find a way to stay under us in spite of all our foes and divisions. When worship is chilled by dogma, by the substitution of the past for the present, there can be no life, no growth. Men have a perfect right to use anything that helps them to live better. If they want to get their symbols from dark rooms, burning candles, and the contrivances of art, that is their liberty. I may take the same freedom to find God made clearer to me by choosing to compare Him to the sun in the heavens instead of the less bright candle. I may find help in thinking of Him as like the everlasting hills rathers than anything which can be kept under any holy roof. The One, whom all would set forth by some symbol, is the One whose arms are under us all. Children, in the same family, differ widely but their parentage is identical. All the children are proud of the Elder Brother. His life is their life. To-day the interest and hope of man centers in the power generated in in Jesus Christ. He stands for nothing transitory. In the Cross highest love and lowest sin come together. The fact of the self-sacrificing love of God is the death knell of all theories about the Cross. Life from life is good sense, good science, good theology. Without this we shall be cold, narrow and relatively useless. With this we are strong with the strength of the Eternal. Circumstances may disturb, but they can not destroy. Death, bankruptcy separations, littleness, betrayals may multiply, but here is a pavilion of safety. I see men who profess to have found this citadel, who have not found it. I see others who do not as yet say that they have found it, but they have. I see others who have found it and say so. But when all the changes, and providences and masquerading and politics, the pomp and circumstance of life are over, it will be discovered with a vision of intensity, that the poets, the prophets, the statesmen, the religious men of science, the great right living common people were right. We shall sing with the human instincts and divine inspiration of the bard. "A correspondence fixed with Heaven, Is sure a noble anchor." Truly, "The eternal God is our refuge and underneath are the Everlasting Arms." The New Theology claims for itself a somewhat larger and broader use of the reason than has been accorded to theology. And by reason we do not mean mere speculation nor a formal logic, but that full exercise of our nature which embraces the intuitions, the conscience, the susceptibilities, and the judgment, i. e. man's whole inner being. Especially it makes much of the intuitions, the universal and spontaneous verdicts of the soul; and in this it deems that it allies itself with the Mind through which the Christian revelation is made."-T. T. Munger. A Greylock Pulpit. THE REASONABLE SERVICE. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Rom. XII: 1. Christianity is supremely reasonable. Interpretations of Christianity, based on misconceptions of this letter to the Romans, have however been sadly unreasonable. The apostle is writing to a church which he has never visited. Though personally acquainted with many of them he is not writing a letter of personal affection and gratitude like the letter to the Philippians. These feelings were present and auxiliary, but not so predominant as they were when he was touched by the remembrance of him in tangible and practical ways as an expression of their gratitude for his service to them. He is not dealing with specific difficulties in the conduct of the local church at Rome, save as incident to a broader aim. Such matters monopolized his attention at Corinth. In writing to Colosse and Ephesus he was called to offset the rationalistic speculation of his day. His first letter got him into trouble with the people at Thessalonica, over the subject of the second coming, and he wrote another letter to prevent fanaticism. In this letter to the Romans, he deals with great sweeping principles. The lofty nature of his theme and the nimble movement of his thoughts amid the mountain ranges of righteousness, has made it a book hard to understand. The greatest blunder of all is the supposition that Paul speaks as a theologian, with the primary aim of furnishing a treatise on theology. He is not attempting to construct a system. Rome, the epitome of humanity, is in his mind. The church at Rome with both Jewish and Gentile membership is in his heart. Few stood ready to introduce him. He needed no introduction to many. He would write them some great message to confirm them in their ways and indicate the lines on which a battle would be fought, by which the Christian is more than conqueror. |