The Elijah Ministry; the Tokens of Its Mission to the Christian Church Deduced from the Ministry of John the Baptist to the Jews

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868 edition. Excerpt: ... experiencing, nor seeking to experience, the reality of it; lastly, there was the beginning in some to be indifferent whether the duties of the Church were fulfilled or not, whether God's purpose was accomplished or not, and to consider that, if Christians did not worship the heathen gods, or take the side of the idolaters against the Church, they might be esteemed faithful although lukewarm. These statements, if near the mark, shew that by this time there was already a considerable declension of the Church, and a wide door opened for the extension of the evil. Or, as Hengstenberg more briefly expresses it: "First of all, the seven epistles pre'supposes a time, when the word of the Lord, But while the 'bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept, and that word, 'Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall voa, v cold, 'had already passed into fulfilment. The blessed period of 'the first love is past, even there too, where it still relatively 'stood fast; zeal has relaxed and corruption made great in'roads; we feel ourselves everywhere transferred to the latter 'times, in which a grievous corruption, that not suddenly 'but by gradual advances had sprung up, and acquired new 'strength as it proceeded, had already befallen those 'churches." (On Rev. of St John, p. 10.) Third. Church history shews that, since the date of the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia, the declension of the Church has gone on increasing. It might perhaps have been sufficient to have appealed, for the truth of this proposition, to the reader's knowledge of that most melancholy and confounding of all records, Ecclesiastical History, which teems, in each century, with the endless disputes respecting doctrine and practice between confederate bands of...