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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
The Progress and Pov^er of the Primitive Church A Sermon Preached at the Fort Street Presbyterian Church, Sabbath Morning, December 14th, 1879 By Arthur T. Pierson, Pastor Text—Acts ii.:47. “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”
spirituality. Worship means worth-ship; i. e., ascribing worth to God, as in the doxologies of the Apocalypse. The root idea is the exaltation of God. The worship of the primitive church did exalt Him. There were no attempts at art; everything was in its naked simplicity. Prayers were not “eloquent addresses to the audience,” but fervent appeals to God, to which all the people said “Amen.” Praise, ,if we may trust Pliny, was a kind of responsive chanting of Messianic psalms or hymns, addressed to Christ as God, after the style of the synagogue. Preaching was the exposition of the Word, especially Messianic prophecy, as fulfilled in history (see Acts ii.); there was not even a text until the days of Origen. There was no attempt at human eloquence, but an argument, based on prophecy, with the witness of personal experience, crowned with an exhortation. Simple love feasts, to express fellowship, and the Lord’s supper, apparently a common feature of wor ship, with offerings gathered to distribute among the needy,—these present the profile of the church of the apos tolic days. Turn now and look at the modern church. How defi cient both in simplicity and spirituality. Our praise—how often Art obscures or swallows up all devotion. We swing, before the altar, a golden censer, elegantly chased and set with sparkling gems; and often forget the incense. Ah, too often, it is an empty censer, with no incense in it! God would rather have a pewter censer, smoking with the frag rant cloud of devout praise. Much modern preaching is the flying of a soaring kite of human oratory with a text as a tail to balance it. Arnot, I think, used to say that what brings men to Christ is not our words at all, but some word of God in our sermons; and that the use of our words is found in this, that they are the feathers that carry the divine arrow straight to the mark. Alas, how many modern sermons are all feathers! Secondly, mark the frequency of the service of worship in the early church. It was daily that disciples met, and the Lord in adding daily to the church, simply blessed the daily service. The effect was to keep the mind in the very blaze and focus of spiritual things. We waste ammunition; impressions, made on the Lord’s day, are dissipated dur ing the week. We give the Lord one chance and the devil six chances to impress men. With all our Protestant churches, where is there held one daily preaching service for the people, or even one weekly service outside of the Sabbath, to which they are drawn to hear the Word of God? The value of “protracted meetings” is found most of all in following up impression after impression, keeping the iron at white heat, and on the anvil, till the hammer gives it shape. Is it any marvel if the gospel does not sub due men, when we surrender them six days out of seven to the uninterrupted power of the world, the flesh and the Devil ? II. Work: The early church became a place of worship not only, but a workshop—a place in which and from which to work. It was a rallying point, but also a radiating point. The two grand words of the New Testament are salvation and service; yet the bulk of nominal disciples practically overlook service, and come into the church sim ply to be saved. See how emphatic is the idea of service in the blessed Word: “To every man his work.” “The manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit
SHE progress and power of the early church present not simply one of the phenomena, but the grand phenomenon of history. There has been nothing before it, or after it, like it. On the day of Pente cost, 3,000 souls were converted under one sermon; within a few days after, either 2,000 or 5,000 more. Acts iv.:4). “The Lord added to the church daily;” and this rapid growth is the more remarkable as it was an era of persecu tion. Within the thirty-three years succeeding Christ’s ascension, the gospel was preached as a witness through out the known world; Peter going eastward to the dis persed Jews, and Paul westward to the Gentiles. Within two centuries, the gospel seemed mistress of the world; the heathen temples were deserted, and the whole Roman Empire pervaded by the blessed tidings. If, as in the days of Samuel, there could be a return of the “open vision,” and' the interrupted communication of God with his people might be restored even for a day, there is one question which many preachers of the Word, in common with myself, would ask of the holy oracle, vis.: What is the cause of the decline of power in the church? For, although we cordially admit that in the church is found to-day the only hope of man; though the true dis ciples of God are the?e, the truth of God, the spirit of God; though there is the nearest approach there to a heaven on earth; yet in the church as a whole there is so marked a contrast to the glorious days of the apostles and early martyrs, that it has been suggested, there may be an “inter regnum of faith.” The Holy Ghost is surely no longer among us in primitive ^entecostal power. The churches, which after the dark ages became “reformed,” and ought to have been “transformed” by this time, are getting de formed. Instances of marked faith, of power in prayer, of unction in preaching, and even of unworldly and holy living are rare and the more marked by their rarity— painfully conspicuous and exceptional. No question more naturally absorbs the mind and heart of a true pastor or worker for Christ, than this, How may the church recover her lost power? It implies no ingrati tude to God for the present measure of His blessing that we earnestly ask for more; no depreciation of the present suc cess and power of the church, as a negative barrier re straining the flood of wickedness, or as a positive aggres sive force in driving back evil, that we sorrowfully ac knowledge that the glory of her former- days is departed. I confess that for years I have been carefully and prayer fully studying this subject with reference to ascertaining the reasons for the decay or decline both of spiritual life and of spiritual power. And as we study the early church we observe that the major part of its marked features no longer characterize the church of to-day. It may be that without any direct revelation or “open vision” we may, by a comparison, discover the causes of this decadence; there may be some vital connection between those features which have disappeared and the power which has declined. We may look at the early church in four aspects: Wor ship, Work, Culture, Communion. I. Worship: Here we remark two things, viz.: First, great simplicity and spirituality; and, secondly, great fre quency in the service of worship. First, simplicity and
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