Whatever Happened to the Street Preacher?

[Aquila]

Here's an interesting article I read,

"Why do you preach in the streets and highways?"

I. BECAUSE IT IS A DUTY ENJOINED BY THE LORD JESUS CHRIST

The "great commission," under which every true ambassador goes forth in the "ministry of reconciliation," by direct implication, enjoins the duty of out-door preaching: " Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." Did the apostles understand the Great Teacher to mean that they were to preach in the temple, in the synagogues, in " hired houses," and " upper rooms?" Certainly. Did they understand him to mean nothing more than that? Certainly not. They well knew that the temple, and the synagogues, and all the house room they could by possibility command, were they all open for their use, would contain but a very small proportion of the creatures embraced in their commission. Every word of this great command, framed by infinite wisdom, is simple and unequivocal. It evidently contemplates a proclamation of the Gospel as wide as "all out of doors," and so specific and personal as to embrace every single rebel of the fallen race.

Again. The Saviour, illustrating, by the parable of the "Great Supper," the bounteous provision of mercy in the Gospel, enjoins, by direct command, the duty of out-door preaching: "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind." " Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."

II. IT IS SUPPORTED BY DIVINE AND APOSTOLIC PRECEDENT AND EXAMPLE

The only sermon of our Divine teacher on record, was preached on a mountain. Many others of which we have full "reports," were preached by the sea-shore, on the decks of ships, and in the streets of Capernaum. He preached, to be sure, in the temple and in the synagogues, but of his sermons on those occasions, there is less recorded than of his "out-door sermons." We believe that he established by his own example, the precedents he designed to be practically operative through all time, namely: To get all we can into the synagogues and churches, and there preach to them, and then to "go out into the streets and lanes of the cities, and into the highways and hedges," and hunt up all the rest, and preach to them also. The apostles acted accordingly. The great apostle to the Gentiles was celebrated as an out-door preacher.

III. IT HAS BEEN COMFIRMED BY DIVINE ATTESTATION

God has always signally owned and blessed the faithful preaching of the word in the streets, lanes, highways, and hedges, through all the history of the Church to the present time. Without going back to instance the singular courage displayed and success attained by the out-door preaching of some of the Vaudois missionaries, in the Dark Ages, we would invite attention to the "field and street preaching" of more modern days. Witness the labors and successes of Whitefield, and Wesley and Fletcher, and their coadjutors in the same work. God made the out-door preaching of those men a leading, instrumentality in awaking the masses of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain," and in bringing about the great reformation of the eighteenth century. See the labors and good fruits of the street preaching of "the apostle to the Irish," Gideon Ouseley. Should there be a resurrection of the brute creation, the experience of "Ouseley's white horse," from whose back he so often preached, will furnish an interesting chapter in the annals of "the new heavens and new earth." Again, witness, in quite modern times, the street preaching and Gospel triumphs of the champions of the " Free Church of Scotland."

Thus Jesse Lee drove the entering wedge of Methodistic Christianity into New England. American campmeetings of the different Churches come under the apostolic precedent of out-door preaching. See how they have been honored of God. Recount, if you can, the multiplied thousands of souls who have been converted at camp-meetings, multitudes ot whom have washed their robes in the blood of Jesus, and are today seated above the circle of the heavens, praising God for camp-meetings. Strike out of the Church in America all her ministers and members who have been brought to God through the instrumentality of camp-meetings, and you will have a practical demonstration of the truth of our position which will astonish you. I instance camp-meetings not as a proof that the Gospel ministers of America have fulfilled all their duty in regard to out-door preaching, but as evidence that they have gifts eminently qualifying them for that work, and especially to demonstrate the truth of the position with which I set out, namely, that God has always signally owned and blessed the out-door preaching of his ambassadors. But says one, " The most of your instances relate to periods when houses of worship were not available, or were entirely inadequate to meet the demand. We have plenty of good churches now, and if the people want to hear the Gospel, let them come to church." Thank you, sir; that will help me to another argument, which I will, according to " Thomsonian practice," call Number

TO BE CONTINUED...