The Preaching of St Augustine⤒🔗

The most well-known and influential preacher in the early centuries of church history was Augustine. He lived in the fourth century, after Christianity had been made the official religion of the Roman Empire. He was converted to the Chris­tian faith through the ministry of Ambro­se who was the Bishop of Milan at that time. At first Augustine listened to the preaching of Ambrose from a profession­al point of view, to learn something from his eloquence. But after a time he was attracted to the truth of what he heard. Augustine said of Ambrose; "I was brought by God to him in order that I should be brought by him to God".¹ He was baptised by the bishop in 387 AD at the age of thirty-three. Many have ranked his conversion second to that of the Apostle Paul in its significance for the influence of Christianity. He became the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa and laboured in that city for 38 years. The teenagers who heard him in the fourth century were still listening to him when they were grandparents.

Most well-known for his monumental writings Augustine was also a great preacher. As a professor of rhetoric he had been a brilliant teacher in the art of communicating. As Bishop of Hippo he devoted himself to communicating God's word through preaching. Throughout his life he was engaged in an intensive study of the Scriptures giving him a phenome­nal knowledge of their content. That knowledge came through in his preach­ing. His sermons have been described as "biblical rambles": Biblical because they were full of the Bible; rambles be­cause in them he wandered all over the Scriptures, quoting many different pas­sages from memory. In a day and age where there were few Bibles, and where many could not read, his sermons gave people a good knowledge of the Scrip­tures. His work as a pastor and judge in the civil courts gave him a good knowl­edge of his people and an unending sup­ply of stories and illustrations that held the attention of his audience.

His preaching did not just address the mind, but also pulled at the emotions and issued a challenge to the will. He did not just want to convey information; he wanted to proclaim God's truth and to persuade people to action. In preach­ing, he said, "One loving heart sets an­other on fire".² While the major weak­ness of his preaching was his allegori­cal approach ³his great strength was his desire to preach Christ so that his peo­ple might know the Lord. "Why do I preach? Why do I sit here on the cathedra? ⁴ What do I live for? For this one thing alone, that we may one day live with Christ! This is my honour, my fame, this is my joy and my treasured posses­sion!"⁵

Preaching in the Middle Ages←⤒🔗

With the passing away of the early great theologians and preachers, and the political acceptance of the church in the Holy Roman Empire, preaching began to decline. During the centuries that followed the church became increasingly worldly and political while interest in the Scriptures and in preaching waned. There were some great exceptions, most nota­bly the Waldensians in the twelfth cen­tury and, in the next century, two orders of preaching friars, the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Yet these were faint stars in the dark night sky of Biblical ig­norance. For much of the Middle Ages the Bible was an unknown book, even by the clergy, and sound preaching was not heard in the churches. Many of the clergy were uneducated and ill-equipped to teach their people. The Bible was only available in the Latin translation known as the Vulgate and so was inaccessible to the vast majority of the common peo­ple. Those who could read were not giv­en access to the Bible. Only handwrit­ten copies of the Bible were available and these were chained to the pulpits in the churches. ⁶

Forerunners of the Reformation←⤒🔗

A growing number in the church be­came increasingly concerned about the ignorance and superstition that was wide­spread in the church and made efforts to bring about reform.

One of these was a great English preacher by the name of John Wycliffe (1320-1384 AD). He preached the Bible and aimed to help his hearers under­stand its literal meaning. Not only did he preach himself but he also trained evangelical men from Oxford University as preachers of the gospel. He sent them out in pairs carrying only their staff and their Bible. These 'Collards' or 'mutter­ers', as they became scornfully known, were sent out on their mission with these words of Wycliffe;

To the people the Gospel must be preached as God commands. The Truth must be proclaimed to them even though they receive it unwillingly. Not comedies or tragedies, not fables or droll stories, but simply and solely the law of the Lord as Christ and the Apostles delivered it: For in the law, that is the gospel, is hid­den the life which is able to quicken the church.

Wycliffe believed in the value of preaching; "The highest service to which man may attain on earth, is to preach the Word of God... The church is hon­oured most by the preaching of God's Word."⁷

Another vigorous preacher prior to the Reformation was John Hus. Twice a Sun­day, and often during the week, he preached to a capacity crowd in his large church in Prague. Hus preached from the Scriptures and subjected the practices of the church to the searching light of the Word of God. As a result he con­demned the corruption and heresy of the pope and clergy. For his efforts he was 'tried', condemned as a heretic and burnt at the stake.

Reformation Preaching←⤒🔗

Those who were martyred did not give their lives in vain, for the sixteenth cen­tury finally saw a great movement known as the Reformation. The reformers brought the church back to the Bible as the sole authority for faith and life initi­ating dramatic changes in theology and worship. As in all periods of reform and revival in the church the Reformation was also a time of stirring preaching. In fact it was the preaching of the Bible that carried the Reformation forward. Certain­ly the written word, reproduced on the recently invented printing presses, great­ly aided the progress of reform, but it was the preaching of the word that warmed cold hearts and gave clarity to confused minds. Martin Luther himself was a lively and gifted preacher. John Calvin, although totally different in tem­perament and character, preached sys­tematically through the Scriptures to thousands in the city of Geneva bringing about significant and lasting changes to the spiritual and moral life of its citizens. Among the other great preachers of the Reformation we could also name Hugh Latimer in England, Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland, and the fiery Scottish preacher, John Knox.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon←⤒🔗

This tradition of biblical preaching was continued on in England in the nine­teenth century by the "Prince of Preach­ers", Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Baptist minister who preached at New Park Street (1854-1859) and then in the Metropolitan Tabernacle (1861-1891). Throughout these years he preached to a congregation of thousands. Every week on Monday he would revise one of his sermons which would be available in print on the Thursday. He began this prac­tice in 1855 and continued it every week until his death in 1892. Demand for these printed sermons increased stead­ily throughout his lifetime and they were sold throughout England, Scotland, Wales, and America, as well as being translated into many other languages. Each year the fifty-two sermons pub­lished during the preceding year were reprinted and bound together as a sin­gle volume, The New Park Street Pulpit that later became The Metropolitan Tab­ernacle Pulpit. ⁸

D. Martyn Lloyd Jones←⤒🔗

An outstanding example of biblical expository preaching in the twentieth century is found in the ministry of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a Welshman, who left a promising medical career to preach the gospel. After serving a church in Wales he was invited to succeed Camp­bell Morgan at Westminster Chapel in London, taking sole charge in 1943. This was the beginning of a ministry that had an influence throughout the world. He was involved in the establishment of Banner of Truth, a publishing house com­mitted to the publication of Reformed and Puritan works of the past and present. As with Spurgeon, many of Lloyd-Jones's sermons were collected into books, most notably his expository sermons on Ephesians, Romans and the Sermon on the Mount. He retired in 1968 after spending forty-one years in the preaching ministry, thirty of which were spent in Westminster Chapel. His con­victions about preaching are expressed in his sermons but also in his book Preaching and Preachers which has con­tinued to be a standard work in many seminaries.

This brief survey of some of the out­standing examples of preaching in the history of the church demonstrates that preaching is not only commanded by the Lord but has also been powerfully used by the Holy Spirit to bring about reform and revival. These examples should en­courage today's preachers to apply our­selves to this task; they should motivate members of the churches to listen at­tentively to the preaching of the Word of God; and they should drive all of us to pray that the Lord would send reforma­tion and revival in this nation of New Zealand, as He has at other times in other places.

The Puritans←⤒🔗

The Puritans have often been given a bad press. Yet history has not been fair to these Christians who sought to apply the Word of God with rigour to every area of their lives – to their marriages, homes, church and society. They combined care­ful discipline with fervent devotion and sought to understand the doctrine of the Bible well so as to live it out in their lives. ⁹

"Puritan" was a name given to the English Reformers by their opponents who wanted to deride their attempts to purify the church. The Puritans sought to reform the church beyond what parliament had established in the Anglican church settlement during the Reforma­tion in England. Most of the Puritans pressed for these reforms from within the Church of England, but a small group withdrew completely from the Anglican Church, beginning the English Independ­ent or Congregationalist movement. The Puritan era lasted for about a hundred years, beginning around 1559 and end­ing with the Act of Uniformity in 1662.

Puritan Preaching←⤒🔗

This Puritan era was not only a time of careful godliness, it was also a time of powerful and effective preaching. Pu­ritan preachers were keen to apply the Word of God to the daily lives of their people.

...the Puritans brought into their preaching both the learning of the study and the practicability of the market place. Their sermons sa­voured of close meditation in the closet and no less close observa­tion in the street. Their preaching was lively because it dealt with life as it was... And thus it was that by the even quality of its matter, by the forceful sincerity and spirit­ual power of its utterance, by the soundness of its doctrine and the thoroughness of its practical appli­cation the Puritan pulpit produced the golden age of evangelical preaching in England.¹⁰

Their ability in preaching arose out of their convictions that this was the pri­mary work of the minister, the climax of the worship service, and the main means God used, through His Spirit, to bring people to salvation and faith. Robert Traill reflected the Puritan view on this matter when he preached a sermon entitled By what means may ministers best win souls?

He said, "The principal work of a minister is preaching; the principal benefit people have by them is to hear the Lord's word from them... Art thou a minister? Thou must be a preach­er. An unpreaching minister is a sort of contradiction."¹¹ In keeping with this view of preaching they had a high view of the office of preacher and teacher. Richard Sibbes illustrates this high regard; "It is the gift of gifts, this ordinance of preach­ing. God esteems it so, Christ esteems it so, and so we should esteem it." ¹²

This Puritan era saw a consistent and high standard of preaching. These preachers devoted themselves to a study of the Scriptures and of human life with a diligence that has not been seen since then. In our own day and age any one of them would have gained note as an outstanding preacher. One of the best examples from this period is Rich­ard Baxter who, in the assessment of J. I. Packer, was "the most outstanding pastor, evangelist and writer on practi­cal and devotional themes that Puritan­ism produced."¹³

Baxter ministered at Kidderminster from 1641 to 1660, with a five-year break during the Civil War. Most of the 2,000 adults in the town were con­verted under his ministry. Before he ar­rived "they had hardly ever had any live­ly serious preaching among them" and "there was about one Family in a Street that worshipped God and called on his name". But his ministry of regular preaching and systematic catechising was greatly blessed by the Lord so that by the time he left "there were some streets where there was not past one Family in the side of the Street that did not do so".¹⁴

His work, The Reformed Pastor, is regarded as one of the clas­sic exhortations to ministers to apply themselves to the work of preaching and catechising. In it Baxter describes how he went about the work of teaching his people. This, to him, was the minister's main task: To be exercised both in the public preaching of the word and in pri­vate instruction.

The Westminster Assembly←⤒🔗

One of the most enduring legacies of the Puritans for theology and preaching was the work done by the Westminster Assembly. This assembly of 121 clergymen and 30 laymen was called together by the Parliament in 1643. The vast majority of those who attended the ses­sion were Puritans who favoured a pres­byterian system of church government. In addition to the Westminster Confes­sion, the main document produced by the assembly, they also prepared a Larg­er Catechism to be used for pulpit expo­sition and a Shorter Catechism for teach­ing children. Their views on church order and worship were expressed in a Direc­tory of Worship which contains one of the most succinct and helpful state­ments on preaching you will find.

The End of an Era←⤒🔗

The Puritan era came to an end with the Restoration of Charles II to the Eng­lish throne in 1660 and the subsequent Act of Uniformity in 1662 which pre­scribed the use of a newly revised Prayer Book. In one day about 2000 Presbyteri­an and Congregational Puritans who re­fused to use the Prayer Book were driv­en from their pulpits and parishes and reduced to poverty. Their biblical and practical preaching was replaced in the Church of England by dry and cold talks on morality. Clergy in the Church of Eng­land were often lazy in their lives and heretical in their doctrine. Many of them were more interested in their social standing and income than the spiritual and moral wellbeing of their parishion­ers. As a result England went into a sad decline spiritually and morally. By the opening decades of the eighteenth cen­tury life in England was in a deplorable state. Widespread unbelief went hand in hand with drunkenness, immorality and brutality.

Revival←⤒🔗

All this began to change in the 1740's. Again the Lord used preaching to bring about a great revival of faith and godliness. Certain men were convinced that if people's lives were to be changed they had to preach the great truths of the gospel. When they were not permit­ted to preach in the churches they went out into the open air where thousands came to listen to them preach the doctrines of the Bible. J.C. Ryle, a forthright Anglican Bishop of the nineteenth cen­tury, wrote of these remarkable events and the Biblical truth they preached:

These were the doctrines by which they turned England upside down, made ploughmen and colliers weep till their dirty faces were seamed with tears, ar­rested the attention of peers (Lords) and philosophers, stormed the strongholds of Satan, plucked thousands like brands from the burning, and altered the char­acter of the age.¹⁵

The leading figures in this great reviv­al of preaching and the Christian faith were George Whitefield and John Wesley, both of whom were very able preach­ers. Whitefield was Calvinistic in his doctrine and a dramatic and powerful preach­er, being blessed with a voice that could be heard far and wide by thousands. Wesley was Arminian in doctrine but was earnest, practical and fearless in his preaching.¹⁶ Through their preaching in England God brought about a great change known as the methodist revival.

A similar revival occurred in North America, known there as the Great Awak­ening. The most prominent preacher of this movement was Jonathan Edwards. Edwards shared the same Calvinistic convictions as Whitefield but was differ­ent in his style of preaching. While Whitefield's preaching was expressive and emotional Edwards was far more re­served in the use of his voice and ges­tures. He preferred to write out his ser­mons in full or, later in his ministry, in a detailed outline, and would follow his script closely when preaching. Yet he preached with a desperate passion and fervency of spirit. He was absolutely con­vinced that he was preaching the word of God and that God had placed him in a position of spiritual authority over those in his church. ¹⁷ Edwards, as a descend­ant of the Puritans, also regarded preaching as the essential task of the ministry. In his farewell sermon to his Northamp­ton congregation, at the end of twenty-three years of ministry, he described how he had given himself to this task:

I have spent the prime of my life and strength in labours for your eternal welfare. You are my wit­nesses that what strength I have had, I have not neglected in idle­ness, nor laid out in prosecuting worldly schemes, and managing temporal affairs, for the advancement of my outward estate and aggrandising myself and my fami­ly; but have given myself to the work of the ministry, labouring in it night and day, rising early, and applying myself to this great business to which Christ has appoint­ed me...¹⁸

Whitefield and Edwards stood in the tradition of the Puritans. The Puritan pastors were spiritual giants in theology and practice, preaching and pastoral work. Today we have much to learn from their example and would do well to imi­tate their diligence and devotion. They are also an example to us of the careful application of the Bible to every area of life as they sought to be godly and holy in all they did. Here is a model for us in our own lives and churches.