The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1870-06-01
General Assembly.
SERMON ofREv STUART ROBINSON, D,
The PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL, PURE AND
SIMPLE, THE ANTIDOTE TO THE sREPTICAL
TENDENCIES OF MODERN RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT.


THOUGHT.
sI am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Bar
bsrians both 10 the wise and to the unwise. So
much as in me is | am ready to preach the Gospel
to YOU that are at Rome also. For am not ashamed
Of the Gospel of Christ. Romans IA, 10.
The preacher noted that though it was a
first truth in the Apostles theology, that
the natural man reeeiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God; and that nothing but
the power of Omnipotence, before which all
obstacles are equivalent, can give the Cos
pei success; yet none the less does he re-
cognize degrees Of greater or less in the
obstacles that the Gospel encounters. While
it requires faith and courage to preach to
the rude Barbarian, still more to preach to
the cultivated Greek. While it required
courage to preach n re,aote laees,
stiH more courage to preach at Rome also.
He then proceeded to answer the two IN
quiries;
What was there in the culture of the
Greek as distinguished from the Barbarian,
and what at Rome as distinguished from the
provinces that called for this special faith
and courage, and tempted the preachers to
be ashamed of the gOspell
What lessons does this record of the
Apostles faith and courage have for US
Under the first inquiry he presented the
following picture of the moral condition of
Rome in the Apostles age, and of the obsta-
cles which rendered the preaching of the
gospel discOuraging:
.rr pppv rOn SFrprrcrSNT on TuE AcE
The Roman Empire of the Apostles era
has been portrayed for US with all the vivid
ness of living age by the profoundest clas-
sical and critical scholarship of our day
And, in the light of these portrayals, his
readiness to preach the gospel at Rome with
out shame, has special signi6cancy. In the
age Of the Apostles the triumph of Roman
arms n a manner remarkably analogous to
the triumphs of modern science and art had
broken down all natural barriers, and un-
covered the mysteries of each several civili-
zatiOn and social structure TO the view of
the world. The dominion of Rome was but
the development of a grasping passion for
external power over the nations, without any
assimilating power of that real unity to fuse
into one the various civilizations. Yet, as
if inspired by the very genius Of law and rule,
Judges, governors and engineers marched
with the legions that went forth to conquest,
to set up law, and open roads from the con-
quered provinces to the great central city.
Through the breaches in national barriers,
and along the roads opened for the move
ment of legions and for commerce, there
poured into Rome from every land, as the
rivers pour into the ocean, the adventurous
myriads, each bringing with him the culture,
the arts, the barbarisms, or the superstitions
of his tribe; and chaos of ideas in morals,
in social culture, and in religion reigned
within the iron bands whereby the empire
was held together. The restless Greek came
with his culture and hcentiousness; the
wandering Jew with his punctihOus casuis-
try; the remote Parthian from the East,
and the remote Briton from the West, each
with his dark superstition; the debris of the
old decayed civilizations of the Euphrates
and the Nile foated in, with the venerable
mysteries OF the one and venerable bestiai-
ties of the other. So that the witty saying
Of the satirist that "Asiatic Orontes now
empties into the Hber" was but true figure
of the moral geography of the world. We
sometimes shudder at the picture of moral
corruption in our modern centre of popula-
ton, while different political condition of
thewOrld keeps them separated. What, then,
must have followed when in Rome were ag-
gregated all the corruptiOns of all the CitiesS
Imagine all the moral corruption and god
lessness Of New York increased by the moral
corruption and godlessness of London and
Paris, all the course vices of military st.
Petersburg, the superstitiOns of modern
Rome, the moral filth of mongrel Constan-
tinople, and all the hOrrid heathenisms of
Canton and Bombay and Calcutta, and there,
in that seething cauldron, with its smoke
ever ascending as the smoke of the bottom
less pit, is the Rome into which the Apostle
dared bring the gospel.
But the chief obstacle to the gospel was
no. so much the corruption of the masses as
the reckless scepticism or the gross supersti-
tons whereby the foolish heart of the more
refined and elevated was darkened. Amid
the general decay of faith in the old my
thologies of the Republic, and the reckless
speculations of the schools, whether stole or
epieurean, and their several varieties of eth
ical, dualistic, atheistie or pantheistie theo-
ries, were found, as the latest novelties and
attractions, the dim traditions and mystical
superstitons of the East; and, Just as we
find in our day, infdelity, in Its conscious
weakness, seized hold desperately of the hand
of mystery and imposture, and the practical
Roman, with all his culture and intellect, be-
came the dupe of Egyptian jugglers, Jewish
neeromancers, and Chaldean astrologers.-
What is recorded in Acts of the amiable and
intelligent Sergius Paulus was, we are told,
generally Characteristic of educated Roman
gentlemen and public men. This the satir-
ists; Homer, Juvenal and Lucian unite with
philosophie Cicero, Pliny and Tacitus, in
attesting. The temples of the old worship,
indeed stood forth in solemn grandeur and
magnifcence, but they stood rather as sepul-
chral monuments of dead faith; and the
gorgeous ritual of altar and sacrifice, as per-
verse rites, were celebrated by in6del priests,
who moeked as they ministered. And as
the old faith died out, the hcentious creeds
of Greece and the mysteries of the East in
undated Rome; and the Pantheon rose,
grand crystal palace exhibition of the myriad
Gods of the nations 1t was the expressive
type at once of the universal latitudinarian-,
ism, or rather the general indifference to
all religion, that peryaded the people, and of
the compromise between the decayed and ef-
fete religions Of Rome and the efete super
stitions Of all the world.
Thus modern scholarship-often sceptical
schOlarship-attests the genuineness of the