When Paul addressed the words of my text to Timothy, most of the New Testament had been written.  It is to the New Testament Scriptures that he calls Timothy’s special attention, where he says:  “It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”  Here, in these Scriptures, is to be found the FORM of sound words which Timothy is admonished to hold fast.  This instruction harmonizes with what was said to the angel of the church in Thyatira:  “But that which ye have, hold fast till I come.”  And in the last of the book of Revelation there are awful warnings given against adding to or taking from what God has spoken.  The temptation to skip over, misquote, and misinterpret the Scriptures must be very great, as it is to these three sources that nearly or quite all the denominational differences among professing Christians can be traced.

Brethren, it becomes us to be very careful here, “lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.”  I believe a departure from the form of sound words mainly accounts for the many errors in doctrine and practice which exist among professing Christians to-day.  A departure from the form of our Lord’s great commission has not only perverted the ordinance of baptism by applying it to infants; but it has destroyed the ordinance itself by setting aside trine immersion, which it so plainly teaches.

And what shall we say of the ordinance of feet-washing!  When a parent or teacher wishes to impart to his child or pupil a clear understanding of some duty or obligation, he usually feels relieved of all further responsibility when he has given the necessary instruction to his child or pupil in words which he knows can be understood.  But in the institution of the ordinance of feet-washing our Lord did not depend upon oral instruction to impart a clear knowledge of his will; but he went through the performance himself, and at the close he said:  “I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.”  Are not these sound words?  What are sound words, and what is their form?  I answer that sound words are words which have no doubtful meaning; and the form of sound words is such a use of them as clearly expresses and conveys to the mind of the reader or hearer just what the writer or speaker wants him to know.  But do the so-called churches hold fast these words?  No, they do not.  They let them go as things out of date, or unnecessary at the present advanced stage of enlightened thought.  But “if the light that is in them be darkness, how great is that darkness!”