by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
March, 1938
CONDITIONS IN THE PAST.
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us” (Eccl. 1:9, 10). How little is the plain testimony of these verses really believed today by many professing Christians, yea, how often is it contradicted both in pulpit and in pew by those who are thoroughly infatuated by what they style “the signs of the times.” If they hear or read of some wide-spread crime wave sweeping over a portion of the world, or some recently sprung-up cults of error which are fatally deceiving tens of thousands, or of a terrible epidemic of disease that is slaying large numbers of their fellows, they at once jump to the conclusion that nothing like it has ever happened before, and draw prophetic deductions from what they imagine is without precedent.
When the air is filled with rumours of war, and more so still when hostilities actually break forth, lovers of the sensational promptly quote Matthew 24:6-8 to show that the end of the age is upon us. If war be followed by famine, pestilence, and earthquakes in divers places, then appeal is promptly made to Revelation 6, with loud assertions that that prediction is now in course of fulfillment. The sad state of Christendom—with its unfaithful pulpits, rapidly decreasing church attendance, waning Sunday Schools, the increase of sham conversions, the decay of vital godliness—is cited as clear proof that the coming of the Lord is certain to take place in our own lifetime. The fearful spread of lawlessness on every side, the blatant defiance of moral standards, the almost universal desecration of the Sabbath, are often said to be without parallel in human history. Nevertheless God's Word expressly declares “That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been” (Eccl. 3:15).
Human nature has been the same in every age. The history of the New Testament era has been, in all its essential features but a repetition of what occurred in Old Testament times. The prevalence of idolatry, the abounding of wickedness in every conceivable form, the frightfulness and frequency of wars, the failure of the masses to take to heart and profit from visitations of Divine judgment, the general refusal to heed the exhortations and expostulations of God's servants, and the low spirituality which obtained amongst the Lord's own people, are recorded in the Old Testament in letters of blood and tears. “The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty” (Psa. 74:20)—to a much greater extent than now obtains. “Help, LORD, for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men” (Psa. 12:1)—the godly have ever been an insignificant remnant. “Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law” (2 Chron. 15:3): this was in Old Testament times.
It is true there is an ebb and flow of the tide. The book of Judges supplies a striking illustration of this. Over and over again in that book the following order is seen: Israel sinning against the Lord, His selling them into the hands of their enemies, their crying to Him for relief, His delivering of them, and then their lapsing back into wickedness. Identically the same order is observable throughout the long history of Christendom. Frequently, Israel sank very low, and then God granted a gracious revival, which was followed by backsliding and spiritual deadness. In the time of Josiah, Hezekiah, and Ezra, there were radical reformations, but the effects of these soon spent themselves. In the days of David conditions were much better than under the reign of Saul, while under Ahab things were much worse than in the days of Solomon. Sometimes the restraining hand of God was more evidently placed upon the lusts of man, while at others it was more manifestly removed. Sometimes His Word went forth in mighty power; at others His servants cried “who hath believed our report?”
It is striking to note that immediately following the Scripture with which we began this article we read, “There is no remembrance of former things” (Eccl. 1:11). That is the trouble with our present age. Conditions in the past are largely unknown today. A generation has arisen which does little or no serious reading, which are largely unacquainted with history, and unaware of the fact that present conditions are but a reduplication of those which have frequently obtained before. And “signs of the times” preachers trade upon their ignorance and credulity, making them suppose that much which is transpiring in the world is altogether extraordinary, that conditions now are such that they cannot go on much longer, that without any doubt the end of the age is upon us, and so on. But over against all such talk it stands written, “There is no new thing under the sun!”
It should prove an eye-opener to some of our readers to learn something of what has obtained in the past. Such an abundance of material is before us that we find it difficult to decide which portion of it to discard. It would cover far too much space were we to attempt a picture describing the outstanding features of each generation during the last eighteen centuries, so we will generalize the earlier ones, and enter into more detail upon those which followed the great Reformation of Luther. Here, too, we can only make a selection, dealing with the most prominent characteristics. As far as possible we shall avoid doing so in our own words, quoting from the writings of those who actually lived in those days, and giving book and page reference, so that any who wish to take the trouble of consulting a good public library, may verify for themselves.
“The Church's story from the close of the New Testament Canon to the era of the Patristic theologians must be gleaned from the revelations their writings afford of its condition in their own time. Who can doubt that then, as in the days of Israel's apostasy, there were many who feared the Lord and thought upon His name? But here I am speaking of the Church as a whole. Protestantism delights in attributing to the Romish apostasy the vices which disgraced the Church of Christendom during the Middle Ages; but in this regard the Church of Rome was merely the product and development of the much- vaunted “primitive Church” of the Fathers. Abundant proof of this will be found in the acts and words of some of the great and holy men who sought in vain to stem the evil tide. The facts are disclosed in various standard works: here of course a few characteristic extracts must suffice.
“The birth of Cyprian occurred about a century after the death of the last of the Apostles. Born and bred in Paganism, he was converted in middle age, and three years afterwards he became Bishop of Carthage. Ten years later he suffered Martyrdom in the Valerian persecution. The following words may indicate the condition of the Church in his time: 'Serious scandals existed even among the clergy. Bishops were farmers, traders, and money-lenders, and by no means always honest. Some were too ignorant to teach the catechumens. Presbyters made money by helping in the manufacture of idols.'
“In Cyprian's day 'the virgins of the Church' ['nuns' we call them now] were held in special honour on account of their reputed sanctity. What, then, passed for superior sanctity may be gleaned from the following words of that eminent and holy man: 'What have the virgins of the Church to do at promiscuous baths, there to violate the commonest dictates of feminine modesty! The places you frequent are more filthy than the theatre itself; all modesty is there laid aside; and with your robes your personal honour and reserve are cast off.'
“Half a century before these words were written Clement of Alexandria had bewailed the low morality which prevailed among Christians, even at a time when, as he said, 'the wells of martyrdom were flowing daily.' Referring to then attendance at church he wrote: 'After having waited upon God and heard of Him, they leave Him there, and find their pleasure without in ungodly fiddling, and love-songs, and what-not—stage plays and gross revelries.'
“The 'conversion of Constantine' set free the Church to put her house in order, and pursue her mission to the world without hindrance from without. But her condition in those halcyon days may be judged by the fact that at a single visitation the great Chrysostom deposed no fewer than thirteen bishops for simony and licentiousness. Nor was this strange, having regard to the means by which men secured election to the Episcopal office. Here are Chrysostom's words: 'That some have filled the churches with murders, and made cities desolate when contending for this position, I now pass over, lest I should seem to say what is incredible to say.'
“He was equally unsparing in dealing with the vices of the lower orders of the clergy. The natural result followed. The 'historic Church' convened a packed council, which deprived him of his archbishopric, and he was banished to Nicea. Moved, however, by the indignant fury of the laity, the Emperor recalled him, and his return to Constantinople was like a public triumph. But his fearless and scathing denunciations of the corruptions and immoralities of Church and Court led to the summoning of another council, more skillfully arranged; and his second banishment was intended to be, as in fact it proved, a death sentence. He practically died a martyr—one of the first of the great army whose blood cries to God for vengeance upon the 'historic Church.'
“Nor were licentiousness and simony evils of recent growth in the Church; nor were they peculiar to the see of Chrysostom. In A.D. 370 an imperial edict was read in the churches of Rome, prohibiting clerics and monks from resorting to the houses of widows or female wards, and making them 'incapable of receiving anything from the liberality or will of any woman to whom they may attach themselves under the plea of religion; and (the edict adds) any such donations or legacies as they shall have appropriated to themselves shall be confiscated.'
“This edict, sweeping though its terms were, had to be confirmed and strengthened by another twenty years later. And here is the comment of Jerome on the subject: 'I blush to say it, heathen priests, players of pantomimes, drivers of chariots in the circus, and harlots are allowed to receive legacies; clergy and monks are forbidden to do so by Christian princes. Nor do I complain of the law (he adds), but I am grieved that we deserve it.' According to Jerome, so great was the evil that men actually sought ordination in order to gain easier access to the society of women, and to trade upon their credulity. He, at least, maintains no reserve about the vices of the clergy of his day. And the picture he draws of the state of female society among the Christians is so repulsive that, as a recent writer remarks, we would gladly believe it to be exaggerated, but (he adds), if the priesthood, with its enormous influence, was so corrupt, it is only too probable that it debased the sex which is always most under clerical influence.
“Of 'Saint' Cyril of Alexandria, Dean Milman writes: 'while ambition, intrigue, arrogance, rapacity, and violence are proscribed as unchristian means; barbarity, persecution, bloodshed as unholy and unevangelical wickedness; posterity will condemn this orthodox Cyril as one of the worst of heretics against the spirit of the Gospel.'
“A kindly estimate this, of a man who was morally guilty of the murder of Hypatia, and who was a notorious mob leader, and the brutal persecutor of the Jews, whom he drove out of Alexandria by the thousands, giving up their houses to pillage. This turbulent pagan claims notice here only because he was the ruling spirit in the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 451), which dealt with the heresies of Nestorious. Cyril had hurled anathemas against him for refusing to acknowledge the Virgin Mary as the 'Mother of God,' and he procured his condemnation by means that would discredit the lowest political contest, including the free use of a hired mob. So disgraceful was the disorder which prevailed that the Emperor dissolved the Council with the rebuke: 'God is my witness that I am not the author of this confusion. His providence will discover and punish the guilty. Return to your provinces, and may your private virtues repair the mischief and scandal of your meeting.'
“No one need suppose that a wider outlook would lead us to reverse the judgment to which these facts and testimonies point. A portly volume would not contain the evidence available to prove the utter apostasy of 'the primitive Church of the Fathers.' One more testimony, however, is all I will here adduce. In his early life Salvian of Marseilles was the contemporary of Jerome and Augustine, the greatest of all the Latin Fathers. A century had elapsed since 'the conversion of Constantine.' The 'persecution' which the Christians had most to fear from the State was due to their vices and crimes, and to the operation of penal laws of drastic severity, designed to prevent their lapsing back to paganism. Why was it, then, that God seemed to have forsaken the Church? Here is Salvian's answer: 'See what Christians actually are everywhere, and then ask whether, under the administration of a righteous and holy God, such men can expect any favour? What happens every day under our very eyes is rather an evidence of the doctrine of Providence, as it displays the Divine displeasure provoked by the debauchery of the Church itself.'
“The following are further extracts from the same treatise: 'How can we wonder that God does not hearken to our prayers? . . . Alas! how grievous and doleful is what I have to say! The very Church of God, which ought to be the appeaser of God, is but the provoked of God. And a very few excepted who flee from evil, what is almost every assembly of Christians but a sink of vices? For you will find in the Church scarcely one who is not either a drunkard or a glutton, or an adulterer, or a fornicator or frequenter of brothels, or a robber, or a murderer. I put it now to the consciences of all Christian people whether it be not so . . . The Churches are outraged by indecencies . . . You may well imagine what men have been thinking about at church when you see them hurry off, some to plunder, some to get drunk, some to practice lewdness, some to rob on the highway.'
“In accounting for the growth of Christianity in early days, Gibbon the Infidel gives prominence to the morality of the Christians. And Tertullian declared that no one who transgressed the rules of Christian discipline and propriety was recognized as a Christian at all. And yet two centuries later, almost every assembly of Christians had become a 'sink of vices.'
“There is no need in this connection to speak of the Church of the Middle Ages—the fiendish enemy and persecutor of all who feared the Lord and followed righteousness and truth. The estimates formed of the number of the martyrs are unreliable; for though not one of those many millions is forgotten in Heaven, the records on earth are altogether faulty. This at least is certain, that for long ages God was on the side of the martyrs, and that the Church of Christendom was the most awful impersonation of the powers of Hell that earth has ever known” (From “Forgotten Truths” by Sir Robert Anderson, pp. 88-96).
Much of the profligacy which obtained among professing Christians in the early centuries of this era is to be attributed unto the decay of sound doctrine in the Church and the rise and spread of fundamental error, We give one quotation thereon: “There was another sort of heresies, and so of real apostasy from the mystery of the Gospel, whose authors and followers yet pretended an adherence unto and profession thereof. These may be reduced to two heads: (1) Concerning the Person; and (2) concerning the grace of Christ. Of the first sort, the principal and most prevalent was that of the Arians, in denying His Deity; the latter, that of the Pelagians, in opposing His satisfaction, merit, and grace.
“The first of these (in the fourth century) was poured out as a flood from the mouth of the old Serpent, and bore all before it like a torrent; the latter insinuated itself as poison into the very vitals of the Church. The first, as a burning fever, carried present death with it and before it; the latter, as a gangrene or heretical distemper, insensibly consumed the vital spirits of religion. In the first, we have a most woeful evidence of the instability of professors, and their readiness to forego the saving mysteries of the Gospel. For in little more than half an age after its first rise, the generality of Christians in the world, bishops, priests, and people, fell under the power of it, and in their public confessions renounced and denied the true eternal Deity of the Son of God. For having obtained the patronage of some emperors, as Constantius and Valens, and the suffrage of innumerable prelates, who jointly promoted this heresy by force and fraud—almost the whole world, as to outward profession, was for a season led into this apostasy, wherein some whole nations (as the Goths and Vandals) continued for sundry ages afterward. And for the latter, or Pelagianism, it secretly, subtly, and gradually so insinuated itself into the minds of men, that for the substance of it, it continues to be no small part of that religion which the generality of Christians do at this day profess” (John Owen, 1670, Vol. 17, p. 359). Arminianism is but a slightly refined Pelagianism.—A.W.P.
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