Page 2 Advertisements Column 1

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8727, 24 February 1894, Page 2

Sermon. Bible talk. Subject—ORDINANCES. SERIES No. 60. *' Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, «s though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances."—Col. 2, 20. Stenographic Kkpobt of Bible Ta_.k nr Mr Woethixgtox at ins Temper of Truth. —Suxday, 18tu February, 1894. In the Book of Isaiah the statement is joade that God is tired of the incense from the burnt offerings of the Jew 3, and the annunciation is made to them that they must .tease to do wrong and love and do right. The command uttered by the Prophet is that ceremony and ordinance shall be replaced by deeds, that sacrifice shall have a substitution of obedience, and that from ordinances they must turn their thoughts and faces to the real, to that which was symbolled in the ordinance. Nearly two thousand years ago, out beyond Jerusalem, beyond the Jordan, there was a man, clothed with the skin of a beast, standing in the-wilderness under the open sky, in the silence that ushers the coming of the dawn. This man stood looking into the inky aky as it changed and put on the purple hue that heralds the approach of light. Out against the eastern horizon arose those shafts of gold that shoot into the firmament ere the monarch of day has taken his throne and the morning star melts in the beauty of that purple sea. Still the silence brooded, •aor beast nor bird disturbed it for a moment. At once there was a noise that seemed to rend the sky and shake the earth, made by a thousand silver trumpets in the hands of Jewish priests upon the battlements of their temple. A host gathers upon the roof-tops and stand for a moment in silence, another blast seemed to shake the retreating stars, and every Jew fell on his face, turned to the temple in the act of worship. From out the bosom of its courts, black volumes of smoke arise and mingle with the clouds. The day died and evening approached and as the sun dipped at the western horizon there was another blast of trumpets, and every Jewi_h artizan and mechanic dropped his instrument of labour and stood motionless, save that he turned his face to Moriah. Then, when behind the western horizon the sun had sunk to sleep, I saw a flickering flame come from the altar of the temple, and multiply itself against the towers and turrets of the temple, and the Roman castle opposite, and then a column of smoke arose, and I saw a procession of priests, robed in gorgeous panoply, take their places and do their office. And then a voice proclaiming, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And following the train of circumstances introduced by the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth is standing amid all the occupation and rite of the Jewish religion, surrounded by crates full of animals waiting forsacrifice. He was familiar with the very essence of Jewish form, and ritual, and ceremony, and yet throughout his ministry there was an utter absence of every one of these things. If bur eye to-day is full of the procession of priests, of form and rite and ceremony, sad creeds in languages that the people cannot understand, if in the place of what the symbols point to and indicate there is still a zeclothing of the old symbol and ordinance, it means that for us the Messiah has not come, there has. been no type fulfilled, and the ceremony and ordinance are still the empty husk of human hope. _ If within the hours of every Sunday the time devoted to form and ceremony were spent in spiritual ministration by the communicants, how much richer, nobler, and fuller would be their lives, to say nothing of those they ministered to, : Not one word of this applies to these who have not touched, the real. The ordinance is a bridge between materiality and' spirituality to-diy. I would not take the ordinance from one tired soul had I not the real to put in its place. The ordinance is a dead anchorage fc> a dead past, that would rob us of spiritual perception. Paul exhorted the early Christians to leave repentance and dead.works and ordinances, which are the elementary rudiments, the first principles, beyond which is their promise in the fulfilment of tihe Christ. Paul's teaching of the early Christian Church was a progressive teaching. In the early stages of his ministry we find literal texts preaching baptism; hut the growth of Paul is as great a lesson as the character of his teaching.- He 'tells the Churches who were adhering to ordinances that their doing so prevents Christ coming to their apprehension, if they have fastened themselves to the material emblem they cannot reach op to the thing it represents. like the Marys of olden days, they seek iheir Lord among the dead, and have not heard the angel voices saying "He is not here in dead ceremony, but in the living Comforter. Spirit must be worshipped in . spirit and truth," and hence Paul asks them it they are dead to the material world and alive to Christ, to spiritual truth, why they fere still in ordinances. He says, when you have left the rudiments which seemed a necessity, why halt before arriving at the more excellent way where these symbols are blotted out? If true religion is experienced we have been immersed with him, and baptised with fire and the Holy Ghost. — Until we understand that Christ is risen in as, the hope of glory, the hand-writing of ordinances against us is not blotted out, and our subjection shows that we still hold and show forth the death of Jesus, instead of the Christ that lives. The Christians are seeking their dead Lord—it is the past to which they are chained and bound, and their living Christ is almost an unknown quantity. One gleam of the omnipresence of the Christ gives the impress of Divine life and carries the ego to the angel voices that said He is risen. They that worship the Father must worship him in Spirit and (Eruth, and not in a material ordinance. We are hidden from Christ, he is hidden from us, in a ceremony, ah ordinance, a cite. When we hare listened to the Comforter towards which the rite pointed, and hushed the claim of sense, we find oat. that oar Lord is risen indeed, and that there is an Easter song in our hearts that drowns the cry of Calvary. To the fleshly senqe he is gone, and it knows not where he is laid, and needs the ordinance to keep his memory green. {The ordinance ie necessary to the mind that cannot see the living Christ but always looks at the death and darkness and defeat; hare, with eyes fixed and hope gone, rite and ceremony are clung to with the energy of despair, and they have a great, purpose for «uch. The living Christ rends this vale oferror, he comes to us and replaces the ordinances that lead us to him, and reveals •.living Redeemer instead of a dead Lord. In this recognition is the generation of spiritual man, the immaculate conception in which the material sense of life gives place to real life. Knowing only the Material, that is not subject to the law of God, nor can be, but is subject to ordinances and symbols (all of which are but other gods that hold us in bondage) we find thetmnbol very necessary to us, the material anchorage by which we hope sometime to fructify spiritual perception. If we have died jointly with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as living in the world do we submit to the decrees of the world, according to the commandments and teaching of men that our Lord referred to. " This is my body, this do in rememwauce of mc," not cf my flesh and blood, but of my spirit. To this Kingdom of «aven the rite and ceremony point, like a dead guide-board, which we do not need to carry with ns when once on our way. If on the road to eternal peace, why carry the •ymbal along with you ? _We need the bread and wine of inspiration that comes from God, and as often as we partake of it, it will bring to us the word and work of our Maker. He drank the cup of sorrow, ye. gave thanks ; and he ■aidto the disciples, drink ye all of it. The use of bread and wine belonp to the infancy of the Church, to the eouditien of ignorance preceding spiritual birth, after *hkh they hide spiritual revelation ami Prevent growth. While we remain with ordinances, we have not partaken or com-