with them inculcated the principles of religion, and endeavoured to
possess their minds with an aversion to idolatry; and, to the success of
preaching, we may attribute the re-conversion of the Jews to the belief
and worship of one God; a conversion that remains to this day. The Jews
have since fallen into horrid crimes; but they have never since this
period lapsed into gross idolatry, Hosea ii, iii; Ezekiel ii, iii,
xxxiv. There were not wanting, however, multitudes of false prophets
among them, whose characters are strikingly delineated by the true
prophets, and which the reader may see in Ezek. xiii; Isa. lvi; Jer.
xxiii. When the seventy years of the captivity were expired, the good
prophets and preachers, Zerubbabel, Joshua, Haggai, and others, having
confidence in the word of God, and being concerned to possess their
natural, civil, and religious rights, endeavoured, by all means, to
extricate themselves and their countrymen from that mortifying state
into which the crimes of their ancestors had brought them. They wept,
fasted, prayed, preached, prophesied, and at length prevailed. The chief
instruments were Nehemiah and Ezra; the former was governor, and
reformed the civil state; the latter was a scribe of the law of the God
of heaven, and applied himself to ecclesiastical matters, in which he
rendered the noblest service to his country, and to all posterity. He
collected and collated MSS. of the sacred writings, and arranged and
published the books of the holy canon in their present form. To this he
added a second work, as necessary as the former: he revised and new
modelled public teaching, and exemplified his plan in his own person.
The Jews had almost lost, in the seventy years’ captivity, their
original language; that was now become dead; and they spoke a jargon
made up of their own language and that of the Chaldeans, and other
nations, with whom they had been mingled. Formerly, preachers had only
explained subjects: now they were obliged to explain words; words which,
in the sacred code, were become obsolete, equivocal, or dead. Houses
were now opened, not for ceremonial worship, as sacrificing, for this
was confined to the temple; but for moral and religious instruction, as
praying, preaching, reading the law, divine worship, and social duties.
These houses were called synagogues: the people repaired thither for
morning and evening prayer; and on Sabbaths and festivals, the law was
read and expounded to them. We have a short but beautiful description of
the manner of Ezra’s first preaching, Neh. viii. Upward of fifty
thousand people assembled in a street, or large square, near the water
gate. It was early in the morning of a Sabbath day. A pulpit of wood, in
the fashion of a small tower, was placed there on purpose for the
preacher; and this turret was supported by a scaffold, or temporary
gallery, where, in a wing on the right hand of the pulpit, sat six of
the principal preachers; and in another on the left, seven. Thirteen
other principal teachers, and many Levites, were present also, on
scaffolds erected for the purpose, alternately to officiate. When Ezra
ascended the pulpit, he produced and opened the book of the law, and the
whole congregation instantly rose up from their seats, and stood. Then
he offered up prayer and praise to God. The people bowing their heads
and worshipping the Lord with their faces to the ground; and at the
close of the prayer, with uplifted hands, they solemnly pronounced,
Amen! Amen!” Then all standing, Ezra, assisted at times by the Levites,
read the law distinctly, gave the sense, and caused them to understand
the reading. The sermons delivered so affected the hearers, that they
wept excessively; and about noon the sorrow became so exuberant and
immeasurable, that it was thought necessary by the governor, the
preacher, and the Levites, to restrain it. Go your way,” said they, eat
the fat, and drink the sweet, send portions to them for whom nothing is
prepared.” The wise and benevolent sentiments of these noble souls were
imbibed by the whole congregation, and fifty thousand troubled hearts
were calmed in a moment. Home they returned, to eat, to drink, to send
portions, and rejoice, because they had understood the words that were
declared unto them. Plato was living at this time, teaching dull
philosophy to cold academics; but what was he, and what was Xenophon, or
Demosthenes, or any of the Pagan orators, in comparison with these men?
From this period to that of the appearance of Jesus Christ, public
preaching was universal; synagogues were multiplied, vast numbers
attended, and elders and rulers were appointed for the purpose of order
and instruction.
The most celebrated preacher that arose before the appearance of Jesus
Christ was John the Baptist. He was commissioned from heaven to be the
harbinger of the Messiah. His subjects were few, plain, and important.
His style was vehement, his images bold, his deportment solemn, his
action eager, and his morals strict. But this bright morning star gave
way to the illustrious Sun of Righteousness, who now arose on a
benighted world. Jesus Christ certainly was the Prince of teachers. Who
but can admire the simplicity and majesty of his style, the beauty of
his images, the alternate softness and severity of his address, the
choice of his subjects, the gracefulness of his deportment, and the
indefatigableness of his zeal? Let the reader charm and solace himself
in the study and contemplation of the character, excellency, and dignity
of this divine teacher, as he will find them delineated in the
evangelists.
The Apostles copied their divine Master. They formed multitudes of
religious societies, and were abundantly successful in their labours.
They confined their attention to religion, and left the schools to
dispute, and politicians to intrigue. The doctrines they preached they
supported entirely by evidence; and neither had nor required such
assistance as human laws or worldly policy, the eloquence of schools or
the terror of arms, could afford them.
The Apostles being dead, every thing came to pass as they had foretold;
the whole Christian system, in time, underwent a miserable change;
preaching shared the fate of other institutions, and the glory of the
primitive church gradually degenerated. Those writers whom we call the
fathers, however, held up to view by some as models for imitation, do
not deserve that indiscriminate praise ascribed to them. Christianity,
it is true, is found in their writings; but how sadly incorporated with
Pagan philosophy and Jewish allegory! It must, indeed, be allowed, that,
in general, the simplicity of Christianity was maintained, though under
gradual decay, during the first three centuries. The next five centuries
produced many pious and excellent preachers, both in the Latin and Greek
church, though the doctrine continued to degenerate. The Greek pulpit
was adorned with some eloquent orators. Basil, bishop of Cæsarea, John
Chrysostom, preacher at Antioch, and afterward patriarch, as he was
called, of Constantinople, and Gregory Nazianzen, who all flourished in
the fourth century, seem to have led the fashion of preaching in the
Greek church; Jerom and Augustine did the same in the Latin church. The
first preachers differed much in pulpit action; the greater part used
very moderate and sober gestures. They delivered their sermons all
extempore, while there were notaries who took down what they said.
Sermons in those days were all in the vulgar tongue: the Greeks preached
in Greek, the Latins in Latin. They did not preach by the clock, so to
speak, but were short or long as they saw occasion; though an hour was
about the usual time. Sermons were generally both preached and heard
standing; but sometimes both speaker and auditors sat, especially the
aged and the infirm. The fathers were fond of allegory; for Origen, that
everlasting allegorizer, had set them the example. Before preaching, the
preacher usually went into a vestry to pray, and afterward to speak to
such as came to salute him. He prayed with his eyes shut in the pulpit.
The first word the preacher uttered to the people when he ascended the
pulpit was, Peace be with you;” or, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all;”
to whom the assembly first added, Amen,” and in after times they
answered, And with thy spirit.” Degenerate, however, as these days were,
in comparison of those of the Apostles, yet they were golden ages in
comparison with the times that followed, when metaphysical reasoning,
mystical divinity, yea, Aristotelian categories, and reading the lives
of saints, were substituted in the place of sermons. The pulpit became a
stage where ludicrous priests obtained the vulgar laugh by the lowest
kind of wit, especially at the festivals of Christmas and Easter.
But the glorious Reformation was the offspring of preaching, by which
mankind were reformed; there was a standard, and the religion of the
times was put to the trial by it. The avidity of the common people to
read the Scriptures, and to hear them expounded, was wonderful; and the
papists were so fully convinced of the benefits of frequent public
instruction, that they, who were justly called unpreaching prelates, and
whose pulpits to use an expression of Latimer, had been bells without
clappers” for many a long year, were obliged for shame to set up regular
preaching again. The church of Rome has produced some great preachers
since the Reformation, but none equal to the reformed preachers. And a
question naturally arises here, which it would be unpardonable to pass
over in silence, concerning the singular effect of the preaching of the
reformed, which was general, national, universal reformation. In the
dark times of popery there had arisen now and then some famous popular
preachers, who had zealously inveighed against the vices of the times,
and whose sermons had produced sudden and amazing effects on their
auditors; but all these effects had died away with the preachers who had
produced them, and all things had gone back into their old state. Law,
learning, commerce, society at large had not been improved. Here a new
scene opens; preachers arise less popular, perhaps less indefatigable
and exemplary; their sermons produce less striking immediate effects;
and yet their auditors go away and agree by whole nations to reform.
Jerom Savonarola, Jerom Narni, Capistran, Connecte, and many others, had
produced, by their sermons, great immediate effects. When Connecte
preached, the ladies lowered their head dresses, and committed quilled
caps by hundreds to the flames. When Narni taught the people in lent,
from the pulpits of Rome, half the city went from his sermons crying
along the streets, Lord, have mercy upon us;” so that in only one
passion week, two thousand crowns’ worth of ropes were sold to make
scourges with; and when he preached before the pope to the cardinals and
bishops, and painted the sin of non-residence in its own colours, he
frightened thirty or forty bishops, who heard him, home to their
diocesses. In the pulpit of the university of Salamanca, he induced
eight hundred students to quit all worldly prospects of honour, riches,
and pleasure, and to become penitents in divers monasteries. We know the
fate of Savonarola, and others might be added; but all lamented the
momentary duration of the effects produced by their labours. Narni
himself was so disgusted with his office, that he renounced preaching,
and shut himself up in his cell to mourn over his irreclaimable
contemporaries; for bishops went back to the court, and rope makers lay
idle again.
Our reformers taught all the good doctrines which had been taught by
these men, and they added two or three more, by which they laid the axe
to the root of the apostasy, and produced general reformation. Instead
of appealing to popes and canons, and founders and fathers, they only
quoted them, and referred their auditors to the Holy Scriptures for law.
Pope Leo X. did not know this when he told Prierio, who complained of
Luther’s heresy, Friar Martin has a fine genius.” They also taught the
people what little they knew of Christian liberty; and so led them into
a belief that they might follow their own ideas in religion, without the
consent of a confessor, a diocesan, a pope, or a council. They went
farther, and laid the stress of all religion on justifying faith.
Since the reformers we have had multitudes who have entered into their
views with disinterestedness and success; and in the present times, both
in the church and among other religious societies, names might be
mentioned which would do honour to any nation; for though there are too
many who do not fill up that important station with proportionate piety
and talents, yet we have men who are conspicuous for their extent of
knowledge, depth of experience, originality of thought, fervency of
zeal, consistency of deportment, and great usefulness in the Christian
church.
The preceding sketch will show how mighty an agent preaching has been in
all ages, in raising, and maintaining, and reviving the spirit of
religion. Wherever it has had this power, let it however be remarked, it
has consisted in the declaration, the proclamation, of the truth of God,
as contained in his early revelations to man, and afterward embodied in
the Holy Scriptures. The effect too has been produced by preachers
living themselves under the influence of this truth, and filled with
faith and the Holy Ghost,” depending wholly upon God’s blessing for
success, and going forth in his name, with ardent longing to win souls,”
and to build up the church in knowledge and holiness. For preaching is
not a profession; but a work of divine appointment, to be rightly
discharged only by him who receives a commission from God, and fulfils
it as under his eye, and in dependence upon his promise, Lo, I am with
you alway.”
PREDESTINATION, according to some, is a judgment, or decree of God, by
which he has resolved, from all eternity, to save a certain number of
persons, hence named elect. Others define it, a decree to give faith in
Jesus Christ to a certain number of men, and to leave the rest to their
own malice and hardness of heart. A third, more Scripturally, God’s
eternal purpose to save all that truly repent and unfeignedly believe
his holy Gospel,”--according to the Apostle Paul, Whom he did foreknow”
as believers them he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his Son;” to his moral image here, and to the image of his glorified
humanity in heaven. According to the Calvinistical scheme, the reason of
God’s predestinating some to everlasting life is not founded in a
foresight of their faith and obedience; nevertheless, it is also
maintained on this scheme, that the means are decreed as well as the
end, and that God purposes to save none but such as by his grace he
shall prepare for salvation by sanctification. The Remonstrants define
predestination to be God’s decree to save believers, and condemn
unbelievers. Some represent the election and predestination spoken of in
Scripture, as belonging only to nations, or, at least, bodies of men,
and not to particular persons. The greatest difficulties with which the
modern theology is clogged turn on predestination; both the Romish and
Reformed churches are divided about it; the Lutherans speak of it with
horror; the Calvinists contend for it with the greatest zeal; the
Molinists and Jesuits preach it down as a most dangerous doctrine; the
Jansenists assert it as an article of faith; the Arminians,
Remonstrants, and many others, are all avowed enemies of absolute
predestination. Those strenuous patrons of Jansenism, the
Port-royalists, taught, that God predestinates those whom he foresees
will coöperate with his grace to the end. Dupin adds, that men do not
fall into sin because not predestinated to life, but they are not
predestinated because God foresaw their sins. See CALVINISM.
This doctrine has been already treated of. We shall here therefore
merely subjoin a sketch of its history previous to the Reformation. The
apostolic fathers, men little accustomed to the intricacy of
metaphysical disquisition, deeply impressed with the truth of the
Gospel, powerfully influenced by its spirit, and from their particular
situation naturally dwelling much upon it as a system of direction and
consolation, do not, in their writings, at all advert to the origin of
evil, or to predestination, so closely allied to it. They press, with
much earnestness, upon those in whom they were interested the vast
importance of practical holiness, exhibit the motives which appeared to
them calculated to secure it, and represent the blessedness which awaits
good men, and the condemnation reserved for the wicked; but they do not
once attempt to determine whether the sin which they were solicitous to
remove could be accounted for, in consistency with the essential
holiness and the unbounded mercy of the Deity. In short, they just took
that view of this subject which every man takes when he is not seeking
to enter into philosophical disquisition; never for one moment doubting
that whatever is wrong was ultimately to be referred to man, and that
the economy of grace proceeding from God was the most convincing proof
of the tenderness of his compassion for mankind.
When, however, the church received within its communion those who had
been educated in the schools of philosophy, and to whom the question as
to the origin of evil must, while they frequented these schools, have
become familiar, it was not to be supposed that, even although they were
convinced that we should be chiefly solicitous about the formation of
the Christian character, there would be no allusion to what had formerly
interested them, or that they would refrain from delivering their
sentiments upon it. Agreeably to this, we find, in the works of Justin
Martyr, Tatian, Irenæus, Tertullian, and Origen, sufficient intimations
that they had directed their attention to the difficulty now under
review; and that, whether upon adequate grounds or not, they had come to
a decision as to the way in which it should be explained consistently
with the divine perfections. It is evident that they did not investigate
the subject to the depth to which it is requisite for the full
discussion of it to go; and that various questions which must be put
before it can be brought completely before us, they either did not put,
or hastily regarded as of very little moment: but it is enough to dwell
upon the fact, that they did employ their thoughts upon it, and have so
expressed themselves as to leave no doubt of the light in which it was
contemplated by them. Justin, in his dialogue with Trypho, remarks that
“they who were foreknown as to become wicked, whether angels or men, did
so not from any fault of God, ἀιτίᾳ τοῦ Θεοῦ, but from their own blame;”
by which observation he shows it to have been his opinion that God
foresaw in what manner his intelligent creatures would act; but that
this did not affect their liberty, and did not diminish their guilt. A
little after he says more fully, that God created angels and men free to
the practice of righteousness, having planted in them reason, through
which they knew by whom they were created and through whom they existed,
when before they were not, and who prescribed to them a law by which
they were to be judged, if they acted contrary to right reason.
Wherefore, we, angels and men, are through ourselves convicted as being
wicked, if we do not lay hold of repentance. But if the Logos of God
foretels that some angels and men would go to be punished, he does so
because he foreknew that they would certainly become wicked by no means,
however, because God made them such.” Justin thus admits that man is
wholly dependent upon God, deriving existence and every thing which he
has from the Almighty; but he is persuaded that we were perfectly able
to retain our integrity, and that, although it was foreseen that we
should not do so, this did not abridge our moral power, or fix any
imputation on the Deity in consequence of our transgression. Tatian, in
his oration against the Greeks, an excellent work which, although
composed after the death of Justin, was written, in all probability,
before its author had adopted the wild opinions which he defended toward
the conclusion of his life, expresses very much the same sentiments
avowed by Justin. He says, Both men and angels were created free, so
that man becoming wicked through his own fault may be deservedly
punished, while a good man, who, from the right exercise of his free
will, does not transgress the law of God, is entitled to praise; that
the power of the divine Logos having in himself the knowledge of what
was to happen, not through fate or unavoidable necessity, but from free
choice, predicted future things, condemning the wicked and praising the
righteous.”
Irenæus, in the third book of his work against heresies, has taken an
opportunity to state his notions about the origin of evil. The
seventy-first chapter of that book is entitled, A proof that man is
free, and has power to this extent, that of himself he can choose what
is good or the contrary.” In illustration of this he remarks, God gave
to man the power of election as he did to the angels. They, therefore,
who do not obey are justly not found with the good, and receive deserved
punishment, because God having given them what was good, they did not
keep it, but despised the riches of the divine mercy.” The next chapter
is entitled, A proof that some men are not good by nature, and others
wicked, and that what is good is within the choice of man.” In treating
on this subject, Irenæus observes, that if the reverse were the case,
the good would not merit praise nor the wicked blame, because being
merely what, without any will of theirs, they had been made, they could
not be considered as voluntary agents. But,” he adds, since all have the
same nature, and are able to retain and to do what is good, and may, on
the other hand, lose it and not do it, some are, even in the sight of
men, and much more in that of God, deservedly praised and others
blamed.” In support of this he introduces a great variety of passages
from Scripture. It appears, however, that the real difficulty attending
the subject had suggested itself to his mind; for he inquires in the
seventy-third chapter, why God had not from the beginning made man
perfect, all things being possible to him. He gives to this question a
metaphysical and unsatisfactory answer, but which so far satisfied
himself as to convince him that there could not, on this ground, be any
imputation justly cast on the perfections of the Almighty, and that,
consequently, a sufficient explanation of the origin of evil and of the
justice of punishing it, was to be found in the nature of man as a free
agent, or in the abuse of that liberty with which man had been endowed.
Tertullian had also speculated upon the moral condition of man, and has
recorded his sentiments with respect to it. He explicitly asserts the
freedom of the will; lays down the position, that, if this be denied,
there can be neither reward nor punishment; and, in answer to an
objection, that since free will has been productive of such melancholy
consequences, it would have been better that it had not been bestowed,
he enters into a formal vindication of this part of our constitution. In
reply to another suggestion, that God might have interposed to prevent
the choice which was to be productive of sin and misery, he maintains
that this could not have been done without destroying that admirable
constitution by which alone the interests of virtue can be really
promoted. He thus thought that sin was to be imputed wholly to man, and
that it was perfectly consistent with the attributes of God, or rather
illustrated these attributes, that there should be a system under which
sin was possible, because without this possibility there could have been
no accountable agents.
From what has been stated on this subject, it seems unquestionable that
the apostolic fathers did not at all enter upon the subject of the
origin of evil; that the writers by whom they were succeeded were
satisfied that, in the sense in which the term is now most commonly
used, there was no such thing as predestination; that they uniformly
represented the destiny of man as regulated by the use or abuse of his
free will; that, with the exception of Irenæus, they did not attempt to
explain why such a creature as man, who was to fall into sin, was
created by a Being of infinite goodness; that the sole objection to
their doctrine seemed to them to be, that prescience was incompatible
with liberty, and that, when they answered this, they considered that
nothing more was requisite for receiving, without hesitation, the view
of man upon which they often and fondly dwelt, as a free and accountable
agent, who might have held fast his integrity, and whose fall from that
integrity was to be ascribed solely to himself, as it did not at all
result from any appointment of the supreme Being.