Dr. Middleton's Letter From Rome - Showing an Exact Conformity Between Popery and Paganism, or the Religion of the Present Romans Derived From That of Their Heathen Ancestors #229638

In accordance with this prediction, we find that the worship of the early Christians was pre-emi nently a spiritual worship. Whether we examine the inspired record of the Acts of the Apostles with their spiritual and instructive epistles, or the authentic ecclesiastical history of the first century of its existence, we find that Primitive Christianity was emphatically a religion of spirit, in distinction from a religion of form. Whether the early dis ciples assembled for worship in private dwellings, in open fields, in desert places, or in dens and caves of the earth, — as they were then compelled by persecution to do, — they met, not to renew the obsolete rites and sacrifices of Judaism, or to imitate the gorgeous and profane ceremonies of Paganism, but to worship him who is a Spirit in spirit and in truth.