Weapons of Christian Warfare, Sermons with a Preface by B F Smith

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. ELDERS OF THE CHURCH. 'He (St. Paul) sent to Epkesus, and called the elders of the- Church; and when they were come to him, he said . . .'?Acttr xx. 17,18. Y7ERY few passages of holy writ, brethren, V can be more interesting or more important to a sincere Christian inquirer than this address- of St....
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. ELDERS OF THE CHURCH. 'He (St. Paul) sent to Epkesus, and called the elders of the- Church; and when they were come to him, he said . . .'?Acttr xx. 17,18. Y7ERY few passages of holy writ, brethren, V can be more interesting or more important to a sincere Christian inquirer than this address- of St. Paul to the elders of the Church at Ephesus. I intreat you to turn your minds to it for a little while, as to a document which, if we rightly ponder it, is likely to give us a considerable insight into the doctrines and religious views of the Apostle altogether. Such general impressions, from any collected representation of an Apostle's ideas, are (as I hope to convince you) of no slight importance to members of our Church, and to all Christians dwelling beside us in the present generation. And, first of all, permit me to lay down one rule to govern our inquiries. AVc must reflectthat a man like St. Paul, uttering such a discourse as this to men, who were to keep his words in memory to their life's end, would speak with a foreknowledge that the impression which remained on their minds would be derived from the whole taken together. And, if we wish to understand him as they did, we must not harp upon single words, as though they were not to be qualified and interpreted by those which follow. We must keep the whole in sight, as far as possible, at once, and thus reflect what parts are uppermost in the Apostle's mind, and what subordinate; nay, perhaps, also, the order in which he deals with them, and even what subjects he omits altogether. On such an occasion, to say notJdng is far from being insignificant. Thus being prepared, let us devoutly and carefully, but with reliance on the common sense which regulates human intercourse, meditate upon the gospel o...