1. Introduction and General View.

From the Christianity of the Apostles and Martyrs we proceed to the Christianity of the Patriarchs and Emperors.

The third period of the history of the Church, which forms the subject of this volume, extends from the emperor Constantine to the pope Gregory I.; from the beginning of the fourth century to the close of the sixth. During this period Christianity still moves, as in the first three centuries, upon the geographical scene of the Graeco-Roman empire and the ancient classical culture, the countries around the Mediterranean Sea. But its field and its operation are materially enlarged, and even touch the barbarians on the limit of the empire. Above all, its relation to the temporal power, and its social and political position and import, undergo an entire and permanent change. We have here to do with the church of the Graeco-Roman empire, and with the beginning of Christianity among the Germanic barbarians. Let us glance first at the general character and leading events of this important period.

The reign of Constantine the Great marks the transition of the Christian religion from under persecution by the secular government to union with the same; the beginning of the state-church system. The Graeco-Roman heathenism, the most cultivated and powerful form of idolatry, which history knows, surrenders, after three hundred years’ struggle, to Christianity, and dies of incurable consumption, with the confession: Galilean, thou hast conquered! The ruler of the civilized world lays his crown at the feet of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. The successor of Nero, Domitian, and

Diocletian appears in the imperial purple at the council of Nice as protector of the church, and takes his golden throne at the nod of bishops, who still bear the scars of persecution. The despised sect, which, like its Founder in the days of His humiliation, had not where to lay its head, is raised to sovereign authority in the state, enters into the prerogatives of the pagan priesthood, grows rich and powerful, builds countless churches out of the stones of idol temples to the honor of Christ and his martyrs, employs the wisdom of Greece and Rome to vindicate the foolishness of the cross, exerts a molding power upon civil legislation, rules the national life, and leads off the history of the world. But at the same time the church, embracing the mass of the population of the empire, from the Caesar to the meanest slave, and living amidst all its institutions, received into her bosom vast deposits of foreign material from the world and from heathenism, exposing herself to new dangers and imposing upon herself new and heavy labors.

The union of church and state extends its influence, now healthful, now baneful, into every department of our history.

The Christian life of the Nicene and post-Nicene age reveals a mass of worldliness within the church; an entire abatement of chiliasm with its longing after the return of Christ and his glorious

reign, and in its stead an easy repose in the present order of things; with a sublime enthusiasm, on the other hand, for the renunciation of self and the world, particularly in the hermitage and the cloister, and with some of the noblest heroes of Christian holiness.

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2. General Character of Ante-Nicene Christianity

We now descend from the primitive apostolic church to the Graeco-Roman; from the scene of creation to the work of preservation; from the fountain of divine revelation to the stream of human development; from the inspirations of the apostles and prophets to the productions of enlightened but fallible teachers. The hand of God has drawn a bold line of demarcation between the century of miracles and the succeeding ages, to show, by the abrupt transition and the striking contrast, the difference between the work of God and the work of man, and to impress us the more deeply with

the supernatural origin of Christianity and the incomparable value of the New Testament. There is no other transition in history so radical and sudden, and yet so silent and secret. The stream of divine life in its passage from the mountain of inspiration to the valley of tradition is for a short time lost to our view, and seems to run under ground. Hence the close of the first and the beginning of the second centuries, or the age of the Apostolic Fathers is often regarded as a period for critical conjecture and doctrinal and ecclesiastical controversy rather than for historical narration.

Still, notwithstanding the striking difference, the church of the second and third centuries is a legitimate continuation of that of the primitive age. While far inferior in originality, purity,

energy, and freshness, it is distinguished for conscientious fidelity in preserving and propagating the sacred writings and traditions of the apostles, and for untiring zeal in imitating their holy lives amidst the greatest difficulties and dangers, when the religion of Christ was prohibited by law and the profession of it punished as a political crime.

The second period, from the death of the apostle John to the end of the persecutions, or to the accession of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, is the classic age of the ecclesia pressa,

of heathen persecution, and of Christian martyrdom and heroism, of cheerful sacrifice of possessions and life itself for the inheritance of heaven. It furnishes a continuous commentary on the Saviour’s words: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword." To merely human religion could have stood such an ordeal of fire for three hundred years. The final victory of Christianity over Judaism and heathenism, and the mightiest empire of the ancient world, a victory gained without physical force, but by the moral power of patience and perseverance, of faith and love, is one of the sublimest spectacles in history, and one of the strongest evidences of the divinity and indestructible life of our religion.

But equally sublime and significant are the intellectual and spiritual victories of the church in this period over the science and art of heathenism, and over the assaults of Gnostic and Ebionitic

heresy, with the copious vindication and development of the Christian truth, which the great mental conflict with those open and secret enemies called forth.

The church of this period appears poor in earthly possessions and honors, but rich in heavenly grace, in world-conquering faith, love, and hope; unpopular, even outlawed, hated, and persecuted,

yet far more vigorous and expansive than the philosophies of Greece or the empire of Rome; composed chiefly of persons of the lower social ranks, yet attracting the noblest and deepest minds

of the age, and bearing, in her bosom the hope of the world; "as unknown, yet well-known, as dying, and behold it lives;" conquering by apparent defeat, and growing on the blood of her martyrs; great in deeds, greater in sufferings, greatest in death for the honor of Christ and the benefit of generations to come.

1. Nature of Church History

History has two sides, a divine and a human. On the part of God, it is his revelation in the order of time (as the creation is his revelation in the order of space), and the successive unfolding of a plan of infinite wisdom, justice, and mercy, looking to his glory and the eternal happiness of mankind. On the part of man, history is the biography of the human race, and the gradual development, both normal and abnormal, of all its physical, intellectual, and moral forces to the final consummation at the general judgment, with its eternal rewards and punishments. The idea

of universal history presupposes the Christian idea of the unity of God, and the unity and common destiny of men, and was unknown to ancient Greece and Rome. A view of history which overlooks or undervalues the divine factor starts from deism and consistently runs into atheism; while the

opposite view, which overlooks the free agency of man and his moral responsibility and guilt, is essentially fatalistic and pantheistic.

From the human agency we may distinguish the Satanic, which enters as a third power into the history of the race. In the temptation of Adam in Paradise, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, and at every great epoch, Satan appears as the antagonist of God, endeavoring to defeat

the plan of redemption and the progress of Christ’s kingdom, and using weak and wicked men for his schemes, but is always defeated in the end by the superior wisdom of God.

The central current and ultimate aim of universal history is the Kingdom of God established by Jesus Christ. This is the grandest and most comprehensive institution in the world, as vast as humanity and as enduring as eternity. All other institutions are made subservient to it, and in its interest the whole world is governed. It is no after-thought of God, no subsequent emendation of the plan of creation, but it is the eternal forethought, the controlling idea, the beginning, the middle, and the end of all his ways and works. The first Adam is a type of the second Adam; creation looks to redemption as the solution of its problems. Secular history, far from controlling sacred history, is controlled by it, must directly or indirectly subserve its ends, and can only be fully understood in the central light of Christian truth and the plan of salvation. The Father, who directs the history of the world, "draws to the Son," who rules the history of the church, and the Son leads back to the Father, that "God may be all in all." "All things," says St. Paul, "were created through Christ and unto Christ: and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence." Col. 1:16–18. "The Gospel," says John von Müller, summing up the final result of his lifelong studies in history, "is the fulfilment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpreter of all revolutions, the key of all seeming contradictions of the physical and moral worlds; it is life — it is immortality."

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This is sermon #40 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 11:17-19 I preach on growing through trials and difficulty and redemptive history.

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This is sermon #39 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 11:11-16 I preach on justification by faith, the promises of God and having an eternal perspective.

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This is sermon #38 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 11:8-10 I preach on the already not yet, the promises of God and living a life of faith.

 

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This is sermon #37 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 11:7 I preach on the righteousness of God, the nature of faith and witnessing to a hostile culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z550ayR0Aoo&feature=share&list=UUJRMTgb-BNZTMnfLYsQIIMg

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THIS is the first Gospel sermon that was ever delivered upon the surface of this earth! It was a memorable discourse, indeed, with Jehovah, Himself, for the preacher and the whole human race and the Prince of Darkness for the audience. It must be worthy of our heartiest attention. Is it not remarkable that this great Gospel promise should have been delivered so soon after the transgression? As yet no sentence had been pronounced upon either of the two human offenders, but the promise was given under the form of a sentence pronounced upon the serpent. Not yet had the woman been condemned to painful travail, or the man to exhausting labor, or even the soil to the curse of thorn and thistle.

Truly “mercy rejoices against judgment.” Before the Lord had said, “Dust you are and unto dust you shall return,” He was pleased to say that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head! Let us rejoice, then, in the swift mercy of God, which in the early watches of the night of sin came with comfortable words to us. These words were not directly spoken to Adam and Eve, but they were directed distinctly to the serpent, himself, and that by way of punishment to him for what he had done. It was a day of cruel triumph to him—such joy as his dark mind is capable of had filled him, for he had indulged his malice and gratified his spite.

He had, in the worst sense, destroyed a part of God’s works. He had introduced sin into the new world. He had stamped the human race with his own image and gained new forces to promote rebellion and to multiply transgression and, therefore, he felt that sort of gladness which a fiend can know who bears a Hell within himself. But now God comes in, takes up the quarrel personally, and causes him to be disgraced on the very battlefield upon which he had gained a temporary success. He tells the dragon that He will undertake to deal with him—this quarrel shall not be between the serpent and man, but between God and the serpent!

God said, in solemn words, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed,” and He promises that there shall rise, in fullness of time a Champion, who, though He suffers, shall smite in a vital part the power of evil and bruise the serpent’s head. This was all the more, it seems to me, a comfortable message of mercy to Adam and Eve, because they would feel sure that the tempter would be punished. Perhaps, however, by thus obliquely giving the promise, the Lord meant to say, “Not for your sakes do I do this, O fallen man and woman, nor for the sake of your descendants, but for My own name and honor’s sake, that it be not profaned and blasphemed among the fallen spirits. I undertake to repair the mischief which has been caused by the tempter, that My name and My Glory may not be diminished among the immortal spirits who look down upon the scene.”

All this would be very humbling, but yet consolatory to our parents if they thought of it, seeing that mercy given for God’s sake is always, to our troubled apprehension, more sure than any favor which could be promised to us for our own sakes. Divine Sovereignty and Glory afford us a stronger foundation of hope than merit, even if merit can be supposed to exist.

Now we must note concerning this first Gospel sermon that on it the earliest Believers stayed themselves. This was all that Adam had by way of Revelation, and all that Abel had received. This one lone star shone in Abel’s sky. He looked up to it and he believed. By its light he spelt out, “sacrifice,” and therefore he brought of the firstlings of his flock and laid them upon the altar. He proved, in his own person how the seed of the serpent hated the seed of the woman, for his brother slew him for his testimony.

This is sermon #36 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 11:5-6 I preach on walking by faith, the character and nature of God and faith.

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This is sermon #35 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 11:4 I preach on the nature of faith, justification, and redemptive history.

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