Publication
Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1857.
Physical description
35 p.; 19 cm
Notes
Sermon text: Acts 11:14 - "Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.
The content of this sermon may be accessed in digital format here: https://archive.org/details/truthinhousehold00stra
Our copy is originally from the library of Rev. A.P. Smith [1832-1895]
OPENING WORDS:
This passage will be recognized as a part of the narrative of the visit of Peter to the house of Cornelius, the Centurion, as given by himself to his brethren in Jerusalem, after his return from Cesarea. We may take it, with propriety, as I suppose, as a description of the particular work which he had been commissioned on that occasion to perform.
In one aspect of it, this work was the most important and the most imposing which Peter, or any of his associates in the ministry, was ever called upon to perform; for it was the laying of the first stone of the Christian Church on Gentile ground. It was the formal and authoritative breaking down of that middle wall of partition, which had heretofore divided the circumcision from the uncircumcision, and the incorporation into the commonwealth of Israel of those attainted branches of the human race which lay outside of the enclosure of the Abrahamic seed ; and so, the significant attestation of the arrival of the epoch, when the promise which had so long held in its bosom the world's hope — the promise that in the seed of Abraham all the nations of the earth should be blessed, was to be fulfilled. It was the solemn act of enfeoffment by which the King, enthroned on the holy hill of Zion, was visibly invested with the proprietorship of the domain conveyed to him in the eternal decree, "Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." It was the fall of the first stronghold of the false gods before the power of Jesus — an event, which, like the miraculous overthrow of the walls of Jericho, gave sure token to the Lord's host, that the land upon which they had entered had been given into their hands. It was the first flush of the "day-spring from on high," quivering along the dark horizon of Paganism, over which the shadows of two thousand years had gathered. It was the first majestic revolution of that prophetic "stone cut out of the mountain without hands," which was destined to crush in pieces the emblems of Satanic domination, till, as the great mountain filling the whole earth, it symbolized the universal triumph of the kingdom of the God of heaven. It was the type of that wondrous process of conversion, which, starting from this point, like a river from its sequestered source, was to roll on, as the Spirit guided it, from land to land, till the broad sweep of its influences touched the -boundaries of the world; and nations and continents, which Peter and his associates, if they knew at all, knew only as the shadowy images revealed to them in Apocalyptic visions, were embraced and redeemed by its purifying sway. It was a work which was the prognostic and the germ of all the changes and all the achievements which Christianity has wrought, for God's praise and man's good, from that day to this ; nay, of all those which Christianity, according to the sure word of prophecy, is to work in our earth till the end of time. It was a work, I say, in this view of it, important and imposing in the highest degree; a work as important and imposing as the utility and the grandeur of the results which it involved and foreshadowed ; a work which we may well believe was contemplated by the angels, "who desire to look into these things," with a joy not inferior to that which inspired their acclamations at the birthhour of the first heavens and the first earth.
UNFAMILIAR WORDS:
Attaint; attainted:
In English criminal law, attainder was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditary titles, but typically also the right to pass them on to one's heirs. Anyone condemned of capital crimes could be attainted.
(1.) HISTORICAL: subject to attainder : "to his lands Henry added the property of several landowners attainted in the course of his reign";
(2.) ARCHAIC: affect or infect with disease or corruption. "even to have kicked an outsider might have been held to attaint the foot"
Enfeoffment:
Under the feudal system, the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service; thus, a legal document signed and sealed and delivered to effect a transfer of property and to show the legal right to possess it; a type of deed, deed of conveyance, or title.
The content of this sermon may be accessed in digital format here: https://archive.org/details/truthinhousehold00stra
Our copy is originally from the library of Rev. A.P. Smith [1832-1895]
OPENING WORDS:
This passage will be recognized as a part of the narrative of the visit of Peter to the house of Cornelius, the Centurion, as given by himself to his brethren in Jerusalem, after his return from Cesarea. We may take it, with propriety, as I suppose, as a description of the particular work which he had been commissioned on that occasion to perform.
In one aspect of it, this work was the most important and the most imposing which Peter, or any of his associates in the ministry, was ever called upon to perform; for it was the laying of the first stone of the Christian Church on Gentile ground. It was the formal and authoritative breaking down of that middle wall of partition, which had heretofore divided the circumcision from the uncircumcision, and the incorporation into the commonwealth of Israel of those attainted branches of the human race which lay outside of the enclosure of the Abrahamic seed ; and so, the significant attestation of the arrival of the epoch, when the promise which had so long held in its bosom the world's hope — the promise that in the seed of Abraham all the nations of the earth should be blessed, was to be fulfilled. It was the solemn act of enfeoffment by which the King, enthroned on the holy hill of Zion, was visibly invested with the proprietorship of the domain conveyed to him in the eternal decree, "Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." It was the fall of the first stronghold of the false gods before the power of Jesus — an event, which, like the miraculous overthrow of the walls of Jericho, gave sure token to the Lord's host, that the land upon which they had entered had been given into their hands. It was the first flush of the "day-spring from on high," quivering along the dark horizon of Paganism, over which the shadows of two thousand years had gathered. It was the first majestic revolution of that prophetic "stone cut out of the mountain without hands," which was destined to crush in pieces the emblems of Satanic domination, till, as the great mountain filling the whole earth, it symbolized the universal triumph of the kingdom of the God of heaven. It was the type of that wondrous process of conversion, which, starting from this point, like a river from its sequestered source, was to roll on, as the Spirit guided it, from land to land, till the broad sweep of its influences touched the -boundaries of the world; and nations and continents, which Peter and his associates, if they knew at all, knew only as the shadowy images revealed to them in Apocalyptic visions, were embraced and redeemed by its purifying sway. It was a work which was the prognostic and the germ of all the changes and all the achievements which Christianity has wrought, for God's praise and man's good, from that day to this ; nay, of all those which Christianity, according to the sure word of prophecy, is to work in our earth till the end of time. It was a work, I say, in this view of it, important and imposing in the highest degree; a work as important and imposing as the utility and the grandeur of the results which it involved and foreshadowed ; a work which we may well believe was contemplated by the angels, "who desire to look into these things," with a joy not inferior to that which inspired their acclamations at the birthhour of the first heavens and the first earth.
UNFAMILIAR WORDS:
Attaint; attainted:
In English criminal law, attainder was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditary titles, but typically also the right to pass them on to one's heirs. Anyone condemned of capital crimes could be attainted.
(1.) HISTORICAL: subject to attainder : "to his lands Henry added the property of several landowners attainted in the course of his reign";
(2.) ARCHAIC: affect or infect with disease or corruption. "even to have kicked an outsider might have been held to attaint the foot"
Enfeoffment:
Under the feudal system, the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service; thus, a legal document signed and sealed and delivered to effect a transfer of property and to show the legal right to possess it; a type of deed, deed of conveyance, or title.