Chapter I. The Institution And Importance Of The Ordinance Of Preaching.
CHAPTER I. THE INSTITUTION AND IMPORTANCE OF
THE ORDINANCE OF PREACHING.
‘Lack of the knowledge of God is the cause of all iniquity among men; just as, contrariwise, a right opinion touching Divine things is the ground of all our happiness, and the seed of whatever perfect virtue grows from us. Therefore; we may justly set down this kind of knowledge as the first and most important thing which God imparts to his people; and it is our duty to receive this at his merciful hands, for the first of those religious offices with which we publicly honour him on earth. For the instruction, therefore, of all sorts of men unto eternal life, it is necessary that the sacred and saving truth of God be openly published to them. This open publication of heavenly mysteries is excellently termed preaching.’ 771
The incidental notices of Enoch and Noah connect this institution with the Antediluvian era.772 In the Patriarchal ages, public instruction was probably vested in the heads of families.773 In the Jewish economy, Moses received his commission immediately from God, and subsequently assisted by seventy elders associated with him.774 Often Joshua, like his predecessor, collected the people to hear the message of God.775 Lower down in history we read of the schools of the Prophets—the repositories of public teaching for the land.776 After the captivity, the ordinance seems to have been received nearly according to the present simple, solemn, well-conducted ceremonial: with an established course of exposition and interpretation.777 Our Lord—the great Preacher of righteousness—was anointed to this office,778 and constantly employed in it.779 He ordained his Apostles as his successors in office,780 and he sealed their commission with the gift of his own Spirit.781 Invested with this authority, they stretched their efforts, publicly and privately, to preach the Gospel to the utmost compass of their commission—
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“to every creature under heaven.” 782 No congregation in the Primitive Church separated without being ‘fed’ (as Tertullian writes) ‘with holy sermons.’ 783 And though for ages the preaching office was suspended in the papal office, as indeed it is still in some branches of the Greek Church; yet it is now generally acknowledged to be the primary instrument in the Divine appointment for the conversion of the world.784
An able writer of our day admirably illustrates the power of this grand institution—‘Of all methods for diffusing religion, preaching is the most efficient. It is to preaching that Christianity owes its origin, its continuance, and its progress. And it is to itinerant preaching (however the ignorant may undervalue it) that we owe the conversion of the Roman world from Paganism to primitive Christianity; our own freedom from the thraldom of Popery, the success of the Reformation—and also the present revival of Christianity from the depression it had undergone due to the prevalence of infidelity and of indifference. Books, however excellent, require at least some previous interest on the part of the person who is to open and peruse them. But the preacher arrests that attention which the written record only invites. The living voice and the listening numbers heighten the impression by the sympathy and enthusiasm which they excite. The reality which the spoken truth possesses in the mind of the speaker, is communicated to the feelings of the hearers, and they end in sharing the same views, at least for the moment, and in augmenting each other’s convictions.’ 785
174 VIEW OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY
This ordinance has always been held in the highest honour. Gregory Nazianzen insists on it ‘as the principal thing that belongs to us Ministers of the Gospel.’ 786 St. Augustine marks it as the proper office of a Bishop.787 Even in the dark ages of Popery, we find an edict of the reign of Henry III., at a provincial synod, enjoining all parish priests ‘to instruct the people committed to their charge, and to feed them with the food of God’s word;’ In the event of their neglecting this duty, the synod styled them as ‘dumb dogs.’ 788 Erasmus gives a high pre-eminence to preaching—‘The Minister is then in the very height of his dignity, when from the pulpit he feeds the Lord’s flock with sacred doctrine.’ 789 Mr. Thorndike (a writer of some authority on ecclesiastical matters) justly remarks—‘that preaching in respect to personal performance, is the most excellent work bishops and presbyters are able to do in the service of God.’790 Hooker’s judgment is to the same purport—‘We would greatly wrong so worthy a part of Divine service, if we did not esteem preaching as the blessed ordinance of God—sermons as keys to the kingdom of heaven, as wings to the soul, as spurs to the good affections of man, as food to the sound and healthy, and as medicine to diseased minds.’ 791 ‘Certainly there is no employment that is more honourable—more worthy to take up a great spirit—more requiring of a generous and free nurture—than to be the messenger and herald of heavenly truth from God to man, and by the faithful word of holy doctrine, to procreate a number of faithful men. It is making a kind of creation to God, by infusing his likeness into them to their salvation, as God did into him—arising to whatever climate he may turn him. He is like the Sun of righteousness that sent him, with healing in his wings, and new light to break in upon the chill and gloomy hearts of hearers, raising out of darksome barrenness a delicious and fragrant spring of saving knowledge and ‘good
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works.’ 792 All our diversity of means and machinery must subserve, and their energy must depend on, a faithful exercise of the preaching commission. All the work done, or to be done, must be connected with “the foolishness of preaching” as God’s chosen and chief ordinance.793
The sacred history connects this ordinance with national blessing, and the extension of scriptural religion. National distress and “vexation “marked the destitution of “a teaching priest “in Asa’s reign.794 In the subsequent reign of Jehoshaphat, great public prosperity was combined with the mission of Levites and Priests throughout all the cities.795 The comparative disuse of preaching was a concomitant mark of the dark ages of Popery, while its revival was coeval796 with the era of the Reformation.797
George Herbert, therefore, might justly call his Country Parson’s pulpit ‘his joy and his throne’798—-as indeed invested with a dignity, solemnity, and efficiency particular to itself.