The Vagaries of Theology.
REV. THOMAS GUARD, an eloquent Methodist clergyman of Baltimore, recently died. Whereupon Dr. Talmage, of Brooklyn, delivered a funeral discourse, in which he said:— "He passed out of a room where the air was heavy with opiates into an atmosphere exhilarant, and from a body painstruck into conditions rubicund with health immortal. He has become one of the athletes of Heaven—deathless as God is deathless, never to know pain or sickness or suffering or sorrow except as a vivid reminiscence. His mission is widened out. He has come to higher appointment, not to this church or to that church, or this denomination or that denomination, or this city or that city, or this world or that world. He has the universe to range in. What velocities! What circuits! What momentum! What orbits, in which the stars shall be as silvery as before the occultation, and the sun shall be as radiant as before the eclipse!" And we are constrained to add, What eloquent nonsense! And yet the imagination, which is so largely drawn upon in this passage, is the source of most of the popular teaching concerning the dead. With Mr. Guard's mangled body lying in the grave, "he has become one of the athletes of Heaven!" "He has the universe to range in!" If this is true, certainly the canon of Scripture was not complete when John finished the Revelation, and we must believe that Talmage and others of the nineteenth century are completing the work by special inspiration! For there is not a word about dead men becoming "athletes of Heaven," or having "the universe to range in," in the old-fashioned Bible. That declares that the "dead praise not the Lord," but are "silent" and "know not anything;" that they "sleep;" and that without a resurrection they "are perished." How different! Paul waxes eloquent over the resurrection, and tells of the spiritual and powerful bodies which the saints will have; but he omits to mention dead athletes in Heaven, or to describe them ranging among the stars and suns. "You could not understand fully Thomas Guard here, you cannot understand Thomas Guard there. More difference than between an eagle in an iron cage and an eagle pitching from Chimborazo toward the sun. His work on earth is not done, it is not half done, it is not a fourth done, it is not a thousandth part done. He resumes it now under better auspices. How do I know? 'Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation?' The lines of telegraphy and of rail track connect no two earthly cities so well as earth is connected with Heaven. . . . Flocks of immortals sweeping this way and that. Earth no more an orphaned world, but a suburb of Heaven. Blessed is that earthly home where Christian parents preside, but more mightily defended is that home which a glorified ancestry canopy with their benediction. Elisha saw the mountains full of horses and chariots of supernatural aid, and so they are yet. Which way are they driving? The horses head this way. How the chariots rumble down the sky steeps. Sent forth to minister. Is yonder a soul in great excruciation of pain, and shall Thomas Guard refuse the ministry when he knows about suffering? Is yonder a soul awfully bereft? Surely Thomas Guard cannot refuse his ministry, for he knows what it is to be bereft? Shall we have revivals of religion in our churches, and Thomas Guard not join in the hallelujah?" This is Spiritualism—one of the legitimate results of the doctrine of disembodied spiritual existence. If Thomas Guard can return and minister to the suffering and bereaved, and rejoice in revivals, that very thought of ministry involves some kind of communion; it matters not whether it be by speech, raps, or table-tipping. And yet Mr. Talmage would disown Spiritualism! Surely theology is not an "exact science!" Surely nobody but a "theologian" could be tolerated in such contradictions and absurdities! There is, however, in this last quotation a reference to Scripture, for the ostensible purpose of supporting the views presented. But what is it? What proof is there of Thomas Guard's posthumous labors? It is this: "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation?" Now, Mr. T. must know that this passage refers to angels, and not to dead men. But what has the ministry of angels to do with dead men? Nothing, in the Scriptures. There the angels of whom Paul is writing are as distinct from men as Mr. Talmage's theology is from truth. It is true that Elisha saw a vision "of horses and chariots of fire" round about him; but these are not disembodied ghosts of men. Does Mr. T. think there are horses in Heaven? Certainly spiritual "athletes" would not need them, even to "range through the universe;" for they would be able to run, or fly, or, perhaps, like one in the Arabian Nights stories, sit down upon a piece of carpet (if there is any carpet there), and wish himself to any place! What must sober, sensible men who are not theologians, think when they hear Mr. Talmage talk so eloquently about that of which he knows nothing, because he has no revelation or information concerning it? Must they not also relegate to the realms of imagination much that he says on other subjects and occasions? Must it not tend to weaken his hold on the consciences and reason of his hearers? We think so. The word of God must be the arbiter. What we do not find therein must be rejected, even if it comes from Mr. Talmage. Let us hold fast the form of sound words.—Herald of Life.