Log College Press is the Place to Find American Presbyterian Psalters and Hymnals

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Have you visited our Compilations page lately? It is the home for many interesting works by denominations or groups of authors, but today we are highlighting the assembled psalters and hymnals which represent the sacred song utilized in the praise of God by American Presbyterians. This project is ongoing, but we invite you to check out what is currently available.

Psalters

• The Psalms of David in Meeter [Kirk of Scotland] (1650)

• The Book of Psalms [UPCNA] (1871)

• The Book of Psalms: The Scottish Version Revised, and the New Versions Adopted by the United Presbyterian Church of North America [UPCNA] (1871)

• The Psalter of the United Presbyterian Church of North America [UPCNA] (1887)

• The Psalms: A Revision of the Scottish Metrical Version With Additional Versions [RPCNA] (1888)

• The Psalter: With Music [RPCNA] (1890)

• The Psalter, or, Book of Psalms: A Revision of the Metrical Version of the Bible Psalms, With Additional Versions [RPCNA] (1893)

• The Psalter With Music [UPCNA] (1900)

• The Psalms in Meter [Joint Committee] (1905)

• The Psalter, or, Book of Psalms: A Revision of the Metrical Version of the Bible Psalms, With Additional Versions [RPCNA] (1907)

• The New Metrical Version of the Psalms [Joint Committee] (1909)

• The Psalter With Responsive Readings [UPCNA] (1912)

• Psalter Hymns: For Use in Families, Sabbath Schools and Bible Classes, Young People's Societies, Prayer Meetings, and Union Services [UPCNA] (1912)

• The Book of Psalms: Rendered in Metre and Set to Music [RPCNA] (1912)

• The Book of Psalms: Rendered in Metre and Set to Music [RPCNA] (1920)

Note that the first Psalter employed by the RPCNA (besides the 1650 Scottish Metrical Psalter which it inherited - which is true for all branches of American Presbyterianism as well) was produced by William Wallace Keys in 1863, and is known to history as the Keys Psalter.

Hymnals (including Psalter-Hymnals)

• [Isaac Watts] Psalms, Carefully Suited to the Christian Worship in the United States of America: Being an Improvement of the Old Versions of the Psalms of David; Allowed, by the Reverend Synod of New York and Philadelphia, to be Used in Churches and Private Families [PCUSA] (1787)

• [Isaac Watts] Psalms, Carefully Suited to the Christian Worship in the United States of America: Being an Improvement of the Old Versions of the Psalms of David; Allowed, by the Reverend Synod of New York and Philadelphia, to be Used in Churches and Private Families [PCUSA] (1787, 1794)

• Psalms and Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, and Approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America [PCUSA] (1830)

• [George Fleming] Psalms and Hymns, Adapted to Public Worship, and Approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America [PCUSA] (1834, 1835)

• Sacred Harmony: A Selection of Plain Tunes Adapted to the Use of the Psalms of David [Associate Reformed Synod of New-York] (1834)

• Devotional Hymns Adapted to Social, Private and Public Worship [Old School PCUSA] (1842)

• Church Psalmist, or, Psalms and Hymns: For the Public, Social, and Private Use of Evangelical Christians [New School PCUSA] (1843)

• Parish Psalmody: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns For Public Worship (1844)

• The Presbyterian Psalmodist: A Collection of Tunes Adapted to the Psalms and Hymns of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America [PCUSA] (1852)

• Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church [PCUSA] (1867)

• Psalms and Hymns For the Worship of God: Approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, at Its Meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, November, 1866 [PCUS] (1867)

• The Sacrifice of Praise: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs Designed For Public Worship and Private Devotion, With Notes on the Origin of Hymns (1869)

• The Presbyterian Hymnal [PCUSA, music and words] (1874)

• The Presbyterian Hymnal [PCUSA, words only] (1874)

• The New Psalms and Hymns [PCUS] (1901)

• Bible Songs: A Collection of Psalms Set to Music For Use in Church and Evangelistic Services, Prayer Meetings, Sabbath Schools, Young People’s Societies, and Family Worship [UPCNA] (1901)

• The Book of Common Worship [PCUSA] (1906)

• The Psalter Hymnal: The Psalms and Selected Hymns [UPCNA] (1927)

Note that other hymnals are available on individual pages, such as Archibald Alexander, A Selection of Hymns, Adapted to the Devotions of the Closet, the Family, and the Social Circle (1831); Leonard Woolsey Bacon, Congregational Church-Music; With 150 Psalms and Hymns (1854); Nathan Sidney Smith Beman, Sacred Lyrics: or, Select Hymns, Particularly Adapted to Revivals of Religion, and Intended as a Supplement to Watts (1832) and Sacred Lyrics, or Psalms and Hymns Adapted to Public Worship (1841); Louis FitzGerald Benson, The Hymnal (1895) and The Chapel Hymnal (1898, 1910), as well as others; Henry Augustus Boardman, A Selection of Hymns: Designed as a Supplement to the “Psalms and Hymns” of the Presbyterian Church (1861) and Hymns of Praise (1867); George Buist, A Collection of Hymns for Public and Private Worship, Approved by the Presbytery of Charleston (1796); Thomas Cleland, Evangelical Hymns, For Private, Family, Social, and Public Worship (1831); Henry Sloane Coffin, Hymns of the Kingdom of God: With Tunes (1910); William Coombs Dana, A Collection of Hymns: Supplementary to the Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Watts (1859); James Gallaher, New Select Hymns, Designed to Accompany Watts’ Psalms & Hymns (1835); Edwin Francis Hatfield, Freedom's Lyre: or, Psalms, Hymns, and Sacred Songs, For the Slave and His Friends (1840), The Church Hymn Book, With Tunes; For the Worship of God (1872), and The Chapel Hymn Book, With Tunes; For the Worship of God (1873); Robert Pollok Kerr, Hymns of the Ages For Public and Social Worship (1891); Willis Lord, Hymns of Worship: Designed For Use Especially in the Lecture-Room, the Prayer-Meeting and the Family (1858); James Lyon, Urania: A Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns (1761); Lowell Mason, Church Psalmody: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, Adapted to Public Worship (1831), and more; James Ormsbee Murray, The Sacrifice of Praise: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs Designed For Public Worship and Private Devotion, With Notes on the Origin of Hymns (1869); Samson Occom, Hymns (1773 and A Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1774, 1785); Charles Seymour Robinson, Songs of the Church: or, Hymns and Tunes For Christian Worship (1862, 1864), Songs For the Sanctuary: or, Hymns and Tunes For Christian Worship (1865, 1867), Psalms and Hymns, and Spiritual Songs: A Manual of Worship For the Church of Christ (1875); Philip Schaff, Hymns and Songs of Praise For Public and Social Worship (1874); Gardiner Spring, The Brick Church Hymns, Designed For the Use of Social Prayer Meetings and Families, Selected From the Most Approved Authors and Recommended by Gardiner Spring, D.D., Pastor of Said Church (1823); Nathan Strong, The Hartford Selection of Hymns From the Most Approved Authors (1799); Thomas DeWitt Talmage, Many Voices; or, Carmina Sanctorum (1891); Robert Ellis Thompson, The National Hymn-Book of the American Churches (1893); Henry Jackson Van Dyke, Jr., The Church Psalter: One Hundred and Four Psalms Arranged Under Subjects For Responsive Reading (1891); James Patriot Wilson, Sr., Hymns For Social Worship, Collected From Various Authors (1817); and Samuel Ramsey Wilson, Hymns of the Church, Ancient and Modern, For the Use of All Who Love to Sing the Praises of God in Christ, in the Family, the School, or the Church; With a Discourse on Music as a Divine Ordinance of Worship (1872); among many others.

There is much matter here for those who wish to explore how early American Presbyterians offered “the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips” (Heb. 13:15) in the sanctuary. The questions raised by the regulative principle of worship about the content of song to be used (inspired psalms or uninspired hymns), as well as the propriety and practicality of instrumental accompaniment, are dealt with in a whole other body of literature to which we have alluded in the past. This collection on the pages of Log College Press is drawn to a great extent from the Louis FitzGerald Benson Collection of Hymnals and Hymnody at the library of Princeton Theological Seminary, as well as from a variety of other sources. We continue to add more literature related to psalmody and hymnody often so be sure to check back here periodically as our collection grows.

A Rare Treasure Located: A Bible Used by William Tennent at the Log College

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[William] Tennent, the lone teacher at the Log College, earnestly desired to educate men for the ministry. The intended design of the Log College's instruction was to prepare faithful ministers of the Gospel. Therefore, Tennent attempted to maintain a balanced emphasis between 'piety and learning' — complementary components of ministerial training. For Tennent, a theological education without a godly life was useless. — 𝐆𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐄. 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐣𝐞𝐫, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐼𝑛𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑀𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑙 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 (1994)

𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑚 𝑇𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝐵𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒 [Presbyterian Historical Society].

A recent trip to the William Smith Morton Library at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia led to the finding of a rare treasure held in the archives there: a copy of the Gospels and Acts in both Greek and Latin that was once owned and used by William Tennent for instruction at the original Log College. Director of Archives and Special Collections Ryan Douthat, in particular, was of invaluable assistance in locating this special volume.

A copy of the Gospels and Acts in Greek and Latin once owned by William Tennent, Sr. and utilized by him in his education program at the Log College. Union Presbyterian Seminary Library notes indicate that this volume was published in 1699 (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

This volume contains the inscriptions of William Tennent, Sr. (dated 1736) and John Charles Tennent (great-grandson of William Tennent, Sr., son of William Tennent III) (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

Matthew chapter 1 in Greek and Latin (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

Appended to the volume is a note describing its provenance (it was handed down from one generation of the Tennent family to the next and ultimately presented to the Union Seminary Library in 1907 by Anna M. Tennent, great-great-great-grand-daughter of William Tennent, Sr.) (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

It was a remarkable experience to hold in one’s hands a volume of Scripture that was employed by the founder of the Log College in the education of his students. The book serves as a tangible reminder of the linguistic skills of William Tennent as well as the wedding of piety to education which characterized his method of instruction.

The Planting of Presbyterianism in the Bluegrass State

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As the city of Harrodsburg, Kentucky this month celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding on June 16, 1774, we at Log College Press pause to remember the planting of Presbyterianism in the Bluegrass State.

It was in Harrodsburg on October 12, 1883, that Presbyterians came together to commemorate the centennial of that event, which has been recognized as a sermon preached by “Father” David Rice at Fort Harrod in October 1783. The addresses delivered on that occasion are notable and worthy of our attention today.

• J.N. Saunders gave an Historical Address;

• E.P. Humphrey gave a necrological report titled The Dead of the Presbyterian Church of Kentucky;

• L.G. Barbour spoke on The Relation of the Presbyterian Church to Education in Kentucky;

• T.D. Witherspoon related The Distinctive Doctrines and Polity of Presbyterianism (Log College Press has republished this address under the title The Five Points of Presbyterianism [2017]); and

• Moses D. Hoge addressed The Planting of Presbyterianism in Kentucky One Hundred Years Ago.

“Father” David Rice is buried in Danville, Kentucky.

As recounted by Saunders and Hoge, David Rice is credited with delivering the first Presbyterian sermon in Kentucky just one month after the Treaty of Paris brought an end to hostilities between the American colonies and Great Britain, and officially granted independence to the United States of America. The text for that sermon (and for Hoge’s 1883 discourse) was: “The people which sat in darkness Saw great light; And to them which sat in the region and shadow of death Light is sprung up” (Matt. 4:16). This signified that the light of the gospel was dawning among a people who lived largely in spiritual darkness.

There is, however, an asterisk to be noted here. Many sources indicate that it was Terah Templin who preached the first Presbyterian sermon in Kentucky perhaps three years before Rice.

Terah Templin is buried in Bardstown, Kentucky.

The First Presbyterian Sermon in Kentucky was by the Rev. Terah Templin, probably in 1781; he was not ordained until 1785. In the spring of 1783, Rev. David Rice (“Father Rice” he was generally called, although only in his 50th year) visited, and in October following immigrated from Virginia to Danville, and became a power in the church and in furthering the cause of education. — Collins' Historical Sketches of Kentucky, Vol. 1 (1878), p. 515

Louis B. Weeks indicates that Templin was the first Presbyterian preacher in Kentucky and that he arrived in 1780, preaching “several times that summer as a licentiate of Hanover Presbytery” (Kentucky Presbyterians [1983], p. 13).

In 1784, the first Presbyterian Church in Kentucky was organized by Rice in Danville; the Transylvania Presbytery was established in 1786 with Rice serving as Moderator; and the rest, as they say, is history.

This is a replica of the original log cabin meetinghouse for the Concord Presbyterian Church in Danville, Kentucky which was organized by David Rice in 1784.

The memoirs of David Rice, published by Robert Hamilton Bishop 200 years ago in 1824, tell us much about this gifted pioneer minister but only mention Terah Templin in passing. Certainly, it was Rice that left a tremendous legacy for which all Presbyterians are greatly indebted. But he was not alone in building the Presbyterian Church of Kentucky, and the names of many other illustrious men are worthy of note too, such as James Mitchel, Caleb Wallace, Adam Rankin, James Crawford, James Blythe, and James McGready, who played a prominent role in the Great Revival of 1800. Humphrey alludes to the roll call of faith found in Hebrews 11 as he recounts these and many other names.

The seeds planted in the 1780s have borne much fruit in the centuries since, and as Harrodsburg celebrates a very special anniversary, we praise God for his work and for the saints he has raised up in this part of the Lord’s vineyard.

A Relic of the Old Log College

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There is an intriguing reference in Archibald Alexander’s Biographical Sketches of the Founder, and Principal Alumni, of the Log College (1845), pp. 11-12, to what constitutes the sole surviving physical remnant of the original Log College founded by William Tennent.

Of late, considerable curiosity has ben manifested to ascertain the place where the first Presbyterian church, in this country, was formed; and the history of the first Presbyterian preacher who came to America, which had sunk into oblivion, has, of late., been brought prominently into view. Such researches, when unaccompanied with boasting and vainglory, are laudable. And to gratify a similar curiosity, in regard to the first literary institution, above common schools, in the bounds of the Presbyterian church, this small book has been compiled. That institution, we believe, was, what has received the name of, THE LOG COLLEGE. The reason of the epithet prefixed to the word “college,” might be obscure to an European; but in this country, where log-cabins are so numerous, will be intelligible to all classes of readers. This edifice, which was made of logs, cut out of the woods, probably, from the very spot where the house was erected, was situated in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, about twenty-eight miles north of Philadelphia. The Log College has long since disappeared; so that although the site on which it stood is well known to many in the vicinity there is not a vestige of it remaining on the ground; and no appearance which would indicate that a house ever stood there. The fact is, that some owner of the property, never dreaming that there was any thing sacred in the logs of this humble edifice, had them carried away and applied to some ignoble purpose on the farm, where they have rotted away like common timber, from which, if any of them remain, they can no longer be distinguished. But that some small relic of this venerable building might be preserved, the late Presbyterian minister of the place. Rev. Robert B. Belville, some years ago, rescued from the common ruin so much of one of these logs, as enabled him, by paring off the decayed parts, to reduce it to something of the form of a walking staff; which as a token of respect, and for safe keeping, he presented to one of the oldest Professors [Dr. Samuel Miller] of the Theological Seminary, at Princeton, N. J., in whose possession it now remains, and who will, it is hoped, before he leaves the world, deposit it in the cabinet of curiosities, which has been formed, in connexion with the Theological Seminary.

After a few turns of the spade, this is what we know: That walking staff has been, with the rare exception such as the 250th anniversary celebration at Neshaminy Presbyterian Church in 1976, out of public view for decades. It does still remain, however, at the Special Collections Department of the Princeton Theological Seminary Library, where it was donated by the family of Samuel Miller.

Photo courtesy of the Special Collections Department of the Princeton Theological Seminary Library.

Photo courtesy of the Special Collections Department of the Princeton Theological Seminary Library.

Sometime in the 20th century, for reasons unknown, part of the walking staff was sawed off so it is now too small to function as a proper walking stick. (It resembles a piece of lumber more than a polished walking stick to be sure.) There is obscure writing on the back of it which has not been transcribed. It can be viewed in person by appointment only. But — lovers of church history will be glad to know — a piece of the original Log College exists still!

John Martin: First Gospel Minister to Preach in Tennessee

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“Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.” — Attributed to Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (18th century Moravian minister)

There are some figures in church history about whom we know very little, even though they accomplished very much. John Martin is one such person. It is believed that he was born in Virginia, in the early 18th century. He first appears in the records of the Hanover Presbytery for March 1756.

Mr. John Martin offered himself upon Tryals for the gospel Ministry, and delivered a Discourse upon Eph. 2.1 which was sustain’d as a Part of Tryal; & he was also examined as to religious Experiences, & the reasons of his designing the ministry; which was also sustain’d. He was likewise examined in the Latin and Greek languages, and briefly in Logick, ontology, Ethics, natural Philosophy, Rhetoric, geography and Astronomy; in all which his Answers in general were very satisfactory. And the Presbytery appoint him to prepare a Sermon on I Cor. 1.22-23, & an Exegesis [in Latin] on this Question, Num Revelatio Supernaturalis sit Necessarias? to be delivered at our next Committee.

At the following meeting he preached that sermon and presented his exegesis after which “The Committee proceeded to examine him upon ye Hebrew, and in sundry extempore Questions upon ye Doctrines of religions, and some Cases of Conscience.” Then he was required to deliver a sermon on Galatians 2:20 at the next meeting of presbytery and to give a lecture on Isaiah 61:1-3. Having done this successfully, he was then required to compose a sermon at the next presbytery meeting on I John 5:10, whereupon

The Presbytery farther examin’d Mr. Martin in sundry extempore Questions upon various Branches of Learning, and Divinity, and reheard his religious Experiences; and upon a review of ye sundry Trials he has passed thro’; they judge him qualified to preach ye Gospel; and he having declar’d his Assent to, and Approbation of ye Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Directory…ye Presbytery do license and authorize him to preach as a Candidate for ye ministry of ye Gospel…and appoint ye moderator to give him some Solemn Instructions and Admonitions, with regard to ye Discharge of his office. [source: Ernest T. Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, Vol. 1 (1963), p. 69]

Martin was licensed to preach the gospel on August 25, 1756, and received a call to serve in Albemarle County, Virginia in April 1758. He was ordained to the ministry in June 1758 (various sources record the date as June 5, 7, or 9, 1758) at which time Samuel Davies preached the ordination sermon in Hanover, Virginia: The Office of a Bishop a Good Work. Thus, Martin was the first man ordained as a Presbyterian minister in Virginia. However, Martin declined the call to Albemarle, and instead was commissioned by an organization founded by Davies known as the Society For Managing the Mission and School Society For the Propagation of the Gospel to serve as a missionary to the Overhill Cherokee Indians in Tennessee. Later that year, he traveled as far as the Little Tennessee River and preached to the Cherokees there; however, without any significant success to report. However, in so doing, Martin became the first Protestant minister to preach the Gospel in the bounds of the state of Tennessee. His ministry there was supplemented by William Richardson (whose missionary journal still exists today in the archives of the New York Public Library). The efforts of both men were thwarted by language and culture challenges, but especially the commencement of hostilities in the French and Indian War. Also, when Davies left Virginia and took up his post as President of the College of New Jersey at Princeton in 1759, the missionary society that he had founded in Virginia fizzled out as well. Both Martin and Richardson departed from Tennessee and went on to settle in South Carolina. It is not known precisely where he lived, when he died or where he was buried. (See Richard Webster, A History of the Presbyterian Church in America From Its Origin Until the Year 1760 (1858), p. 674; George Howe, History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. 1 (1870), p. 267; Alfred Nevin, Encyclopedia of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (1884), p. 472; Samuel C. Williams, An Account of the Presbyterian Mission to the Cherokees, 1757-1759, Tennessee Historical Magazine (Jan. 1931); William W. Crouch, Missionary Activities Among the Cherokee Indians, 1757-1838 (1932); and A. Mark Conard, The Cherokee Mission of Virginia Presbyterians, Journal of Presbyterian History (Spring 1980).)

From the little that we know about Martin, we can ascertain that he was well-educated for the ministry, had a heart for missions, and was willing forgo a stable pastoral call in order to go where he believed he was most needed to preach the gospel. His pastoral career is a but a blip on the historical radar, but as the first Presbyterian minister ordained in Virginia, and the first to preach the gospel in Tennessee, he is worthy of remembrance.

Communion Seasons and Tokens in Early American Presbyterianism

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What has been like a revelation to me in my research was, finding out the extensive use of Tokens in the United States. All the early Presbyterian churches appear to have used them. — Robert Shiells, The Story of the Token as Belonging to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (1891), p. 150

Colonial American Presbyterianism, utilizing the Westminster Directory of Presbyterian Worship until 1788, relied much on Scottish Presbyterian traditions which included both communion seasons and tokens. These important features of simple Presbyterian worship were also associated with notable revivals, including both the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening. “The communion seasons in Virginia, as wherever the Presbyterian Church was planted, were seasons of revival.” (Mary McWhorter Tenney, Communion Tokens: Their Origin, History, and Use (1936), p. 87). Leigh Eric Schmidt writes:

With the transplantation of Presbyterianism to the American colonies came Old World ways of organizing worship and devotion. The sacramental occasion, as one of the most prominent features of the evangelical Presbyterian tradition, was soon re-created in America. In New England, for example, enclaves of Presbyterian immigrants almost immediately staged sacramental occasions fully reminiscent of Scotland and Ulster….

In the middle colonies, where Presbyterian immigration was much heavier than in New England, sacramental occasions were proportionally larger and more pronounced. The communion seasons — prevalent, powerful, and well attended — figured prominently in the religious life of the Presbyterian immigrants throughout the region [Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (1989), pp. 53-54].

Julius Melton also notes this important feature of early American Presbyterian worship as well as its transatlantic nature:

One especially prominent aspect of the Presbyterian’s worship experience in the colonies was the “sacramental season.” This was the practice, inherited from Scotland, of placing the infrequent celebrations of the Lord’s Supper within a series of services — days of fasting, sermons, examination of communicants and singing for which crowds would gather from an entire region. After dwelling at length on their sins and Christ’s work of salvation, Presbyterian drew near to receive the sacrament with great awe [Melton, Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns Since 1787 (1967, 2001), p. 16].

The Great Awakening was at least in part built on the foundation of sacramental seasons of revival. This was true for the Tennents (William, Sr., William Jr., Gilbert, and John included), some of whom contributed to a famous collection of Sermons on Sacramental Occasions by Divers Ministers (1739).

Gilbert Tennent was born into a family of Scots living in Ulster, in the northeast of Ireland. By the close of the seventeenth century, Ulster had become an enclave of dissenting Presbyterians, rebels against both the English crown and the Anglican Church, who were forced by the government to settle there. These dissenters kept alive the Scottish Presbyterian tradition of field communion, or sacramental occasions, a distinctive practice that helped to maintain ties to their heritage [Kimberly Bracken Long, The Eucharistic Theology of the American Holy Fairs (2011), pp. 83-84].

Gilbert Tennent wrote in 1744 of revival that took place in his congregation at New Brunswick, New Jersey:

I may further observe, that frequently at Sacramental Seasons in New-Brunswick, there have been signal Displays of the divine Power and Presence: divers have been convinced of Sin by the Sermons then preached, some converted, and many much affected with the Love of God in JESUS CHRIST. O the sweet Meltings that I have often seen on such Occasions among many! New-Brunswick did then look like a Field the Lord had blessed: It was like a little Jerusalem, to which the scattered Tribes with eager haste repaired at Sacramental Solemnities; and there they fed on the Fatness of God’s House, and drunk of the River of his Pleasures [Thomas Prince, ed., The Christian History (1745), p. 294].

Neshaminy, Pennsylvania was the site of a sacramental occasion in June 1745 where David Brainerd assisted Charles Beatty administer the bread and the wine to “three or four thousand” in attendance which Brainerd described as a “sweet melting season.” Brainerd went on during the following year to build on this experience, along with counsel from those who commissioned his missionary labors — the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge — to host his own sacramental seasons among the Native Americans to whom he ministered.

Brainerd followed the Scottish pattern basically to the letter: Friday was “set apart for solemn Fasting and Prayer”; Saturday was given over to further preparations and exhortations; Sunday brought the Lord’s Supper and more sermons; Monday concluded “the Sacramental Solemnity” with praise, thanksgiving, and calls for sustained moral discipline….This sacramental season proved to be among the most satisfying events in Brainerd’s life; indeed, the “sweet Union, Harmony and endearing Love” he experienced there was “the most lively Emblem of the heavenly World, I had ever seen” [Schmidt, Holy Fairs, p. 55].

Brainerd spoke similarly of a sacramental occasion that he participated in at Freehold, New Jersey just a couple of months later (June 1746) which was hosted by William Tennent, Jr., describing it as “a season of comfort to the godly, and of awakening to some souls” (ibid., p. 56). These sacramental seasons are a running theme throughout his ministry, especially to the Native Americans. Yet, as Schmidt notes, “No one, as far as I know, has ever taken stock of Brainerd’s sacramental revivals and seen just how thoroughly Presbyterian in this matter he had become” (ibid., p. 235).

The first Covenanter communion in America took place at the “Junkin Tent” in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, on August 23, 1752, and was administered by John Cuthbertson. This was also the first instance of the use of communion tokens in America. It bore the simple abbreviation “L.S.” for “Lord’s Supper” on one side only. These tokens were used to signify admittance to the Lord’s Table.

Commemorative 1752 communion token (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

In colonial Virginia, even before the arrival of Samuel Davies, a sacramental occasion was held by William Tennent, Jr. and Samuel Blair, where it was reported that “The Assembly was large, and the Novelty of the Mode of Administration did peculiarly engage their Attention….It appeared as one of the Days of Heaven to some of us; and we could hardly help wishing we could with Joshua have delayed the Revolutions of the Heavens to prolong it” [Samuel Davies, The State of Religion Among the Protestant Dissenters in Virginia (1751), p. 17]. A few years later, a paper communion token was used by Samuel Davies in Hanover County, Virginia. Note the sacramental poem written by Davies himself.

Samuel Davies’ communion token held at the William Smith Morton Library, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond Virginia (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

John Todd, John Wright, Robert Henry, John Brown and John Craig were among other Virginia Presbyterian evangelists who observed sacramental occasions and found them to be “special outpourings of the spirit” (John Wright, January 20, 1757 Letter found in John Gillies, Historical Collections (1845 ed.), p. 520). David Rice, who grew up under the ministry of Samuel Davies and John Todd, also helped to bring the practice of sacramental seasons to Kentucky.

The importance of communion gatherings in Davies's practice and Rice's conversion reveals that both men stood in the long tradition of Presbyterian sacramental seasons dating back to seventeenth-century Scotland. From the beginning, these "holy fairs" were protracted religious celebrations, sometimes attracting thousands of participants, which included not only the celebration of the sacrament but also fervent preaching. Such seasons were centers of religious renewal and revival, and the practice was continued by many Presbyterians in North America. In particular, this tradition can be traced through the family history of the Tennents, the Log College and its offshoots, the work of Samuel Davies, and Rice himself, who conducted similar communion seasons throughout his ministry. These gatherings would continue to be central to religious life on the frontier, though they would also become centers of controversy as the frontier context and new religious trends took the communion seasons in new directions [Andrew M. McGinnis, “Between Enthusiasm and Stoicism: David Rice and Moderate Revivalism in Virginia and Kentucky,” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Spring 2008), pp. 172-173].

Robert B. Davidson notes that communion seasons and tokens were part of the Kentucky Revival:

The sacramental meetings, or sacraments, as they were called, were held at long intervals, when several ministers attended and took part; tokens were distributed; a long Action Sermon preached; the tables duly fenced; a succession of tables served; a fresh minister assigned to each table, and a fresh exhortation to each company; and when the communicants were numerous, (many coming from a distance,) the services were protracted till sunset, and became extremely tedious and fatiguing [Davidson, History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky (1847), pp. 103-104].

James McGready was a pioneer Kentucky evangelist who seemed to be most in heaven while on earth at the communion table. Hear how he speaks in “The Believer Embracing Christ”:

The believer sometimes meets with Christ and embraces him in the arms of faith when he is seated at a communion table, then by faith, he sees a mangled, bleeding, dying, rising, triumphant Jesus, heading his own table, and feasting his blood-bought children with the bread of life and the milk and honey of Canaan [McGready, The Posthumous Works of the Reverend and Pious James M’Gready (1831), pp. 134-135].

As colonial Presbyterianism became less oriented towards traditional Scottish worship and more distinctly American, communion seasons and communion tokens began to fade away from the 19th century mainline American Presbyterian experience, and even, more slowly so, from the experience of Reformed (Covenanter) and Associate Reformed Presbyterians. John M. Mason was among those who argued for more frequent communion, and in this he was followed by James W. Alexander (see The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper [1840]), and others, until the communion season was no longer found to be the norm in the American Presbyterian experience.

THE LORD’S SUPPER. This sacrament, although celebrated infrequently, was still probably the high point in the worship experience of an Old School Presbyterian, as diaries and autobiographies of the period indicate. The high value placed upon the Communion is seen also in the effort that was made to bring about more frequency in its celebration and to separate it from the cumbersome appendages of the sacramental season. This idea had been advanced by the revisers of the Directory [of Public Worship] in 1787, but was overruled by the 1788 synod. A harbinger of change was the decision by a New York congregation of the Associate Reformed Presbytery to “discontinue the custom of observing a fast day before, and thanksgiving day after, the administration of the Lord’s Supper.” This change, which prompted much discussion in that Presbyterian denomination, had been promoted by the New York pastor John Mitchell Mason, author in 1798 of the book Letters on Frequent Communion [Melton, Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns Since 1787, pp. 39-40].

Nevertheless, to hold a communion token in one’s hands is to hearken back to that bygone era when sacramental seasons marked perhaps the pinnacle of an Old School American Presbyterian’s spiritual pilgrimage on earth. If one listens closely, one might almost hear the faint sounds of a psalm sung, “Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise, / Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; / Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame” (Robert Burns, A Cotters’ Saturday Night).

Planted on the hillside here the ‘Banner of Blue,’
And worshipped God in simple form as Presbyterians do.
Upon this very ground was heard the voice of prayer,
And ancient Psalm to solemn tune they sang. —
’Do good in thy good pleasure, Lord, unto our Zion here;
The walls of our Jerusalem establish Thou and rear.’
Thus prayer and praise were made to God,
Nor dread of any foe
Dismayed our fathers in their work
So many years ago.
— Paraphrase of William McCombs, Two Hundred Years Ago (1842) in Mary McWhorter Tenney, Communion Tokens: Their Origin, History, and Use (1936), p. 59

Biblical Theology in America Before Vos

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Geerhardus Vos has often been referred to as “the father of Reformed Biblical theology.” Although his name is popularly associated in the minds of many with its origin, in fact, Biblical theology is a discipline of theological study that predates Vos, and his famous inaugural lecture as Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, titled The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline, which was delivered in 1894. To provide a simple definition for purposes of this article given by Vos himself, “Biblical Theology is that branch of Exegetical Theology which deals with the process of the self-revelation of God deposited in the Bible” (Biblical Theology [1948], p. 13). John Murray added later: “There is no better definition of Biblical Theology known to the present writer than that given by Dr. Vos” (Biblical Theology: A Book Review [1948]).

A September 2021 article by J.V. Fesko titled “Who Lurks Behind Geerhardus Vos? Sources and Predecessors” delves into the question of which sources Vos drew upon and who might be considered forerunners of Biblical Theology as Vos understood it. Fesko references two sources cited by Vos himself: “Anglican theologian Thomas D. Bernard (1815-1904) and German New Testament scholar, Karl Friedrich Nösgen (1835-1913).” Fesko also highlights an important comment made by Francis L. Patton in his 1903 lecture on Theological Encyclopedia: “I think I do not err in saying that, at least so far as we in America are concerned, Jonathan Edwards is the father of Biblical Theology.” The reference that Patton had in mind is to Edwards’ famous treatise on A History of the Work of Redemption (1774).

Most scholars identify the origin of Biblical Theology as a distinct discipline with J.P. Gabler’s (1753–1826) inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Altdorf, An Oration on the Proper Distinction between Biblical and Dogmatic Theology and the Specific Objectives of Each (1787), although some acknowledge even earlier attempts to demonstrate the progress of God’s revelation historically considered in Scripture, such as John Owen’s Latin treatise Theologoumena Pantodapa (1661), translated into English as Biblical Theology: The History of Theology from Adam to Christ (1994), which J.I. Packer described as a “proto-Biblical Theology.”

Other European forerunners of Biblical Theology could be highlighted, but to narrow the focus of our interest to American forerunners, we return to Jonathan Edwards and his History of Redemption, noting that it was published by one of our Log College Press authors, David Austin, in 1793 (the copy found here was owned by Samuel Miller). It goes beyond the close of canon to encompass “post-Biblical” history, but it takes the approach that God revealed himself more and more historically in the development of Scripture. This is consistent with Edwards’ historicist postmillennial eschatology, although we understand the eschatology of Vos to be amillennial. Fesko: “Edwards’s plan was to trace the line of revelation through history, which is the essence of Vos’s method. In fact, one historian has described Edwards’s procedure as showing how revelation is progressive, organic, and finds its eschatological realization in Christ; themes that resonate in Vos’s own method.”

Prior to his death in 1863, Charles Colcock Jones, Sr. wrote The History of the Church of God During the Period of Revelation, which his son published in 1867. It covered the Old Testament period along a plan which showed the progression of God’s dealings with his people. A companion volume covering the New Testament period does not seem to have been published. Jones argued that the “Word of God [was] one harmonious whole: one continuous revelation and development of the covenant of grace” (p. 141), which Jones labored in this volume to “unfold.”

It was close to this same time that Stuart Robinson published Discourses of Redemption: As Revealed at “Sundry Times and in Divers Manners,” Designed Both as Biblical Expositions For the People and Hints to Theological Students of a Popular Method of Exhibiting the “Divers” Revelations Through Patriarchs, Prophets, Jesus and His Apostles (1866). Here he attempted “to follow the development of the one great central thought of the Book through the successive eras of revelation” (p. iv).

Before the establishment of a chair in Biblical Theology at Princeton, such a post was founded at Union Theological Seminary in New York which was filled by Charles A. Briggs in 1891. Previously, he had published an important essay on Biblical Theology (1882), in which he goes over the history of this branch of theology, focusing on its German development, and worked “for some years past” in developing a department dedicated to this field, according to Briggs in The Edward Robinson Chair of Biblical Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, New York (1891). In that inaugural address he acknowledges the precedence of American scholars Edward Robinson and Moses Stuart in this field: “Edward Robinson was the pupil of Moses Stuart, the father of Biblical learning in America.” His definition of the discipline is similar to that of Vos: “Biblical Theology is that Theological Discipline which presents the Theology of the Bible in its historical formation within the Canonical Writings” (Biblical Theology [1882]). Briggs, however, supported Old Testament Higher Criticism; while Vos argued that “Biblical Theology is suited to furnish a most effective antidote to the destructive critical views now prevailing” (The Idea of Biblical Theology).

When Vos was inaugurated as Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton in 1894, it was Abraham Gosman, who had studied under Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller, who delivered the charge (James McCosh gave the benediction), and in his address he credited Joseph Addison Alexander and Caspar Wistar Hodge, Sr. as early precursors of this theological discipline. Gosman claimed that although Biblical Theology as a department was new, the path had been paved before by those men and others. And he spoke of the place of Biblical Theology within the scope of theological study as a whole:

Biblical Theology stands in close relations both to Exegetical and Systematic Theology, and yet has its own well-defined bounds. It presupposes Exegetical Theology; it furnishes the material for Systematic Theology. If Systematic Theology is, as we may conceive it to be, the finished building, harmonious in its proportions, symmetrical and beautiful; then Exegetical Theology may be regarded as the quarry from which the material is taken; and Biblical Theology, as putting the granite blocks into form, not polished and graven, but shaped and fitted for the place they are to fill, as the structure grows in its vastness and beauty. It seeks the saving facts and truths as they lie in the Word, and are embedded, and to some extent expressed, in the history of the people of God. God's methods are always historical and genetic, and it conforms to His methods. It views these words and facts in their historical relations and their progressive development. It aims not merely to arrive at the ideas and facts as they appear in particular authors and in the books justly ascribed to them, and as they may be modified in their form by time, culture, influences friendly or hostile; but to set forth these facts and truths thus ascertained in their relation to the other books in which they may appear in clearer light, — to trace their progress and unfolding from the germ to the ripened fruit. As the stream of sacred history runs parallel with that of revelation, it borders closely upon Historical Theology. But the two conceptions are distinct.

Gosman grasped the role of Biblical Theology within the various branches of theological study, and how it fits into the overall goal of making known and vindicating the truth, that is, through “the more complete and orderly unfolding of it, as it lies in the Word, and for the confirmation of the faith of God's people.”

In this brief look at earlier American forerunners of a discipline that is so closely associated in the minds of many today with Geerhardus Vos, we can see, as Fesko suggests, that there were currents of development both in Europe and America prior to his 1894 inauguration at Princeton. The idea of historical development in the field of Biblical Theology itself, of course, makes logical sense, but it is easy to overlook. The details of this historical development warrant much greater study and explanation — or unfolding — than is found here, but at the very least we can say that Biblical Theology did not spring fully formed from Vos’ mind like Athena from the mind of Zeus in Greek mythology. But — like B.B. Warfield, who said that “He was probably the best exegete Princeton ever had” [Letter, Louis Berkhof to Ned B. Stonehouse, December 21, 1954], and John Murray, who wrote that “Dr. Vos is, in my judgment, the most penetrating exegete it has been my privilege to know, and I believe, the most incisive exegete that has appeared in the English-speaking world in this century” [Eerdmans Quarterly Observer and inside jacket cover of original edition of Biblical Theology (1948)] — we do appreciate and recognize the influence of Vos on the method of Biblical Theology as he built on what preceded him and put his stamp on the discipline going forward.

William Robinson's Long-Lost Letter

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We must always remember when we turn one eye upon ourselves and our guilt, blemishes, vileness, and loathsomeness, we must let the other eye be fixed upon Jesus Christ! — William Robinson

William Robinson is one of the most influential colonial American Presbyterian ministers about whom we know so little. He was born in England, the son of a well-to-do Quaker physician, around the beginning of the 18th century, and after falling into the sins of big city life in London, made his way to America to work as a teacher, before a conversion experience led him to become a student for the ministry at William Tennent’s Log College. Samuel Miller tells the story of that experience in his biography of John Rodgers:

He was riding at a late hour, one evening, when the moon and the stars shone with unusual brightness, and when every thing around him was calculated to excite reflection. While he was meditating upon the beauty and grandeur of the scene which the firmament presented, and was saying to himself, "How transcendently glorious must be the Author of all this beauty and grandeur," the thought struck him with the suddenness and force of lightning: "But what do I know of this God? Have I ever sought His favor or made Him my friend?" This happy impression, which proved, by its permanence and effects, to have come from the best of all sources, never left him until he took refuge in Christ as the hope and life of his soul.

Marker located at the Historic Polegreen Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

An alumni of William Tennent’s Log College; Robinson was called to succeed William Tennent as pastor of the Neshaminy Presbyterian Church, but declined the call; he was a leader of the Great Awakening, and a friend of George Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent; he served as moderator of New Brunswick Presbytery; and he preached the first Presbyterian sermon in central Virginia (July 6, 1743), and paved the way for the ministry of Samuel Davies, who wrote of him that "The work was begun and mainly carried on by that favored man, Mr. Robinson, whose success, whenever I reflect on it, astonishes me.” Davies also said:

Probably Mr. Robinson, during the short period of his life, was the instrument in the conversion of as many souls as any minister who ever lived in this country. The only circumstance relating to his person which has come down is that he was blind of one eye [as a result of scarlet fever]; so that he was called by some “the one-eyed Robinson.”

It was his dying wish that Davies would be sent to minister to the people of Hanover County, Virginia, where Robinson had preached three years before, and accepted a financial gift from his grateful hearers only with the proviso that it would go to support Davies’ theological education. He died on August 1, 1746, just six years after his ordination to the ministry, and his funeral sermon was preached by Samuel Blair. But although the stories of his travels throughout Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and his ministry in Delaware, are fascinating to read, and his role in the education and missionary efforts of Samuel Davies was key to bringing the Great Awakening to Virginia, we have nothing to read that was written by his own hand — or so it was thought until very recently.

James P. Williams is an American Baptist minister who was serving as pastor of four Baptist churches in England from 2007 to 2010. While cleaning one of those churches, he discovered a letter from William Robinson to his [unnamed, female] cousin in England dated June 16, 1741. The letter is transcribed in his book Light the Fire Again: Eighteenth-Century Light for the Twenty-First Century Darkness, which tells more fully than has been done before the story of Robinson’s life and ministry. The letter rejoices in the news that Robinson had received that his cousin was born again. He tells her about reports he has heard from George Whitefield concerning revival in England, and gives a report on revival throughout the northern colonies:

…here has been such Surprising Effusions of God’s spirit in the ministry Especially under Mr. Whitfield & our new Brunswick Presbytery in which are the famous Tennents my dear brethren, that all New England, the Provinces of York, the Jersies, Pensilvania, and Maryland are filled with Convinced & Converted souls, many are the thousand Brot to Christ and on the way Children, youth & aged persons, rich & poor, Black & White, tis no Great Matter here to preach unto Five Thousand People, for my Brethren to preach 3-4 or 5 times a day.

It is a letter that practically drips with the sweet savor of the gospel. In all his rejoicing of the communion in Christ which he now shares with his cousin, and in all his descriptions of revival, Robinson is concerned to give God the glory rather than himself or even those brethren of whom he speaks so highly. Robinson: “I cannot tell what great things God has done for ME, what honors conferred on me a poor ignorant wretch. Oh that I may be humble and thankful.” The work of both conversion and revival is by the hand of God, and brings Robinson to a humble adoration of the One who has merciful done and continues to do great things among the people on both sides of the pond. The whole letter takes up a handful of pages in transcription, and Williams helpfully includes a summary of its highlights as well. The life story of Robinson is given in Light the Fire Again with a view towards inspiring 21st century readers to catch the flame that stirred Robinson, Whitefield, the Tennents, Davies, Jonathan Edwards and others in the 18th. We are most grateful to Williams for finding Robinson’s letter and sharing its contents with this generation. May that spark contained within, by the grace of God, help to light the world again today!

Stonewall Jackson's 200th Birthday

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Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson was born 200 years ago on this day in history, January 21, 1824, in Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia). Fatherless at the age of two, and an orphan by the age of seven, Tom Jackson went on attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and then served with distinction in the Mexican-American War. It was in 1849 that Jackson was baptized by an Episcopal minister. In 1851, he was appointed to the position of Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, or Physics, and Instructor of Artillery at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He also joined the Lexington Presbyterian Church that same year, and would later serve the church as a deacon. He also led a Sabbath school class for African-Americans in Lexington, both free and enslaved, in defiance of a state law which opposed literacy for slaves. He married his first wife, Elinor (“Ellie”) Junkin, daughter of George Junkin, in 1853, but she died shortly after giving birth to a stillborn child the following year. He married Mary Anna Morrison, daughter of Robert Hall Morrison, in 1857. The couple had one child who survived infancy, Julia Jackson, born in 1862.

The War Between the States led Jackson into service on behalf of his beloved Commonwealth of Virginia. He had remarkable success leading his men, including the famous “Stonewall Brigade,” in battles at Manassas (where he earned the famous nickname “Stonewall”), and throughout the Shenandoah Valley, rising to the rank of Lieutenant General. On May 2, 1863, he was shot by friendly fire at Chancellorsville, leading to the amputation of his left arm, after which his commander, Robert E. Lee, sent this message: “Give General Jackson my affectionate regards, and say to him: he has lost his left arm but I my right.” After pneumonia set in, Jackson passed away on May 10, 1863, and was later buried in Lexington, Virginia. Hunter McGuire wrote of his final moments on earth:

A few moments before he died he cried out in his delirium, "Order A. P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks," then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he cried quietly and with an expression as if of relief, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees"; and then, without pain or the least struggle, his spirit passed from earth to the God who gave it.

Jackson was a tremendously self-disciplined man, and lived by the Bible, and personal maxims, such as “You may be whatever you resolve to be”; “If you desire to be more heavenly-minded, think more of the things of Heaven and less of the things of Earth”; and “Duty is ours; consequences are God’s.” He was a modest man who, in the words of D.H. Hill, “would blush like a school-girl at a compliment.”

Stories of his faith abound, including this account from his wife’s 1892 biography:

This same friend once asked him what was his understanding of the Bible command to be 'instant in prayer' and to 'pray without ceasing.' 'I can give you,' he said, 'my idea of it by illustration, if you will allow it, and will not think that I am setting myself up as a model for others. I have so fixed the habit in my own mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without lifting my heart to God in thanks and prayer for the water of life. Then, when we take our meals, there is the grace. Whenever I drop a letter in the post-office, I sent a petition along with it for God's blessing upon its mission and the person to whom it is sent. When I break the seal of a letter just received, I stop to ask God to prepare me for its contents, and make it a messenger of good. When I go to my class-room and await the arrangements of the cadets in their places, that is my time to intercede with God for them. And so in every act of the day I have made the practice habitual.'

'And don't you sometimes forget to do this?' asked his friend.

'I can hardly say that I do; the habit has become almost as fixed as to breathe.' — Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson) (1892), pp. 72-73

Another comes from Brigadier-General John D. Imboden (CSA) and appears in 𝐵𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐿𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑙 𝑊𝑎𝑟, Vol. 1 (1887), p. 238:

I remarked, in Mrs. Jackson's hearing, 'General, how is it that you can keep so cool, and appear so utterly insensible to danger in such a storm of shell and bullets as rained about you when your hand was hit [at the First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas]?' He instantly became grave and reverential in his manner, and answered, in a low tone of great earnestness: 'Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me.' He added, after a pause, looking me full in the face: 'Captain, that is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.'

Robert L. Dabney, who served as Jackson’s chief of staff during the War, wrote of his concern to uphold the Christian Sabbath, even to the extent of

His convictions of the sin committed by the Government of the United States, in the unnecessary transmission of mails, and the consequent imposition of secular labor on the Sabbath day, upon a multitude of persons, were singularly strong. His position was, that if no one would avail himself of these Sunday mails, save in cases of true and unavoidable necessity, the letters carried would be so few that the sinful custom would speedily be arrested, and the guilt and mischief prevented. Hence, he argued, that as every man is bound to do whatever is practicable and lawful for him to do, to prevent the commission of sin, he who posted or received letters on the Sabbath day, or even sent a letter which would occupy that day in travelling, was responsible for a part of the guilt. It was of no avail to reply to him, that this self-denial on the part of one Christian would not close a single post-office, nor arrest a single mail-coach in the whole country. His answer was, that unless some Christians would begin singly to practise their exact duty, and thus set the proper example, the reform would never be begun; that his responsibility was to see to it that he, at least, was not particeps criminis; and that whether others would co-operate, was their concern, not his. — Robert L. Dabney, Life and Campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson) (1866), p. 88

Jackson would be the first to acknowledge that he was a sinner, in need of the grace of Jesus Christ every hour. His list of maxims shows the kind of man he strived to be, and by all accounts from those around him, including his opponents, he was the model of a Christian gentleman, as well as a Christian soldier. We honor him two centuries after he entered this world in part because he was a heavenly-minded man who did much earthly good.

New Year's Wishes From Log College Press

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It is a solemn thing to live! A solemn thing to live with the thought before us that we must one day face our record, — one day answer at the bar of God. It is with this thought that we ought to enter upon the New Year, and should resolve to live every moment of it so as to meet the approbation of God, to win from him the plaudit. Well done, good and faithful servant. If we carry this thought with us, and allow ourselves to be influenced by it, at the same time depending upon Divine help, we need have no fear as to the result. It will be a record that will be creditable to us. An earnest purpose to do right, steadily adhered to, is half the battle. Failure can come only from our neglect to avail ourselves of the help that is offered to us. — Francis J. Grimké, The Works of Francis J. Grimke, Vol. 3 (1942), pp. 385-386

Therefore conclude, every one for himself, 'It is of little importance to me whether I die this year, or not; but the only important point is, that I may make a good use of my future time, whether it be longer or shorter.' This, my brethren, is the only way to secure a happy new year: a year of time, that will lead the way to a happy eternity. — Samuel Davies, A Sermon on the New Year (January 1, 1761)

As 2023 draws to a close, and we prepare to embark on a New Year, we at Log College Press wish to pause and reflect on blessings received in the year past. Log College Press was acquired this year by Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. It is a great privilege to be a part of the seminary’s vision for the ministry. In September, we announced a milestone — there are now over 20,000 works available to read for free on Log College Press. The resources which have made available for the edification of the church body are in good hands, and we hope to continue to grow and expand them, in both print and digital form, in the year(s) ahead.

A few things to note for our readers:

• An article by David T. Crum on The Christian Courage and Bravery of Stonewall Jackson was added to the Log College Review (accessible through membership in the Dead Presbyterians Society) earlier this month;

• A more thorough review in recent weeks of periodicals, such as The Central Presbyterian, The Southern Presbyterian Journal, The Independent, The New York Evangelist, The Bible Student and Teacher, The North American Review, and others, has led to articles, letters and poetry added to the Early Access and Recent Additions pages by authors such as T.D. Witherspoon, Robert L. Dabney, Henry C. Alexander, Benjamin M. Smith, Margaret J. Preston, William C. Robinson, Oswald T. Allis, and many more, and this review continues;

• Many interesting volumes have been added to the Compilations page, including an extraordinary wealth of 19th century Presbyterian Psalters and Hymnals; and

• Many quotes by some of our favorite authors have been added to the DPS Quote Blog.

There is much to browse, and download, and we are always working to refine and improve, as well as add to, what we already have. Thank you, as always, for your interest and support. Stay tuned for more good things to come. From our homes to yours, we wish each of you a very Happy and Blessed New Year!

The Centennial Birthday of Morton H. Smith

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It was 100 years ago on this day in history, December 11, 1923, that Morton Howison Smith was born in Roanoke, Virginia. His family had their membership in the Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church (his father was a ruling elder), and Smith was raised in a godly home. Later on, his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where Smith made a public profession of faith and joined the Mt. Washington Presbyterian Church at the age of eleven. James E. Moore was the pastor there at the time time, and he would have a tremendous influence on the course of Morton's life.

Morton graduated from the St. Paul's School for Boys in Baltimore in 1941, and went on to study at the University of Michigan. He met Lois Knopf there, and they got married in 1944. Morton served as a military flight instructor during World War II. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in botany in 1947. For a short while afterwards, he worked as an office manager in the Registrar's office.

But soon, after teaching and preaching at Lois' home church — Grace Bible Church — Morton realized he was called to the ministry. While considering which seminary to attend, he received a letter in 1948 from Pastor Moore, which offered counsel about the purpose of seminary, and direction on where to study. Moore encouraged Smith to consider studying under William C. Robinson at Columbia Theological Seminary, or else at Westminster Theological Seminary, where Cornelius Van Til and John Murray taught. And that is what Smith decided to do. He studied one year at CTS, and then the next year at WTS, before graduating from CTS in 1952. In this way, he experienced the best of two worlds. His commitment was to the Southern Presbyterian Church, though, and that guided both his seminary studies, and the course that his pastoral ministry took. 

In 1952, he ministered to an unaffiliated group of Christians in Valdosta, Georgia, which later joined the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). In 1954, he accepted a call to serve in the PCUS around Baltimore. But soon after, he was called to teach the Bible at Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, a position which he held until 1963. During this time, the Smiths adopted two children. Having studied the Dutch language, and while on a Fulbright scholarship, Smith also received a Ph.D. in Philosophy at the Free University of Amsterdam, where he studied under G.C. Berkouwer. His doctoral dissertation was published under the title Studies in Southern Presbyterian Theology (1962). 

In 1964, the Smiths moved to French Camp, Mississippi, where he would serve as one of the original faculty members at Reformed Theological Seminary, where he taught until 1978. He would often travel around the United States to teach by flying his own Cessna 150. In 1973 — as conservative Presbyterians were preparing to withdraw from the PCUS to found a new denomination, which became known as the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) — he was tasked by the Steering Committee of the Continuing Presbyterian Church with documenting the decline of the PCUS. He published the results of his study as How is the Gold Become Dim (1973). At the founding of the PCA, he was called to serve as the stated clerk of the new denomination, a position which he held until 1988. In 1987, he helped to establish what became known as Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in South Carolina, where he would teach as a professor of systematic and Biblical theology. In 2000, he was elected to serve as Moderator of the General Assembly of the PCA, a token of the respect and esteem which he had garnered over decades of faithful ministry from his colleagues. 

Included among his notable publications, besides those mentioned above, he wrote Reformed Evangelism (1974); Testimony: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (1986); Harmony of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms (1990); The Case For Full Subscription to the Westminster Standards in the Presbyterian Church in America (1992); The Subscription Debate: Studies in Presbyterian Polity (1994); A Call For a Return to Sabbath Observance (1994); The Regulative Principle of Worship: Is It Biblical? (1994); Systematic Theology (1994, 2 vols.); Biblical Doctrine of Predestination: A Study of the Sovereignty of God as Reflected in the Five Points of Calvinism (1995); Commentary on the Book of Church Order (2001); and Holding Fast to the Faith: A Brief History of Subscription to Creeds and Confessions With Particular Reference to Presbyterian Churches (2003). In 2004, a festschrift was published in his honor: Confessing Our Hope: Essays Celebrating the Life and Ministry of Morton H. Smith. 

Smith entered into glory at the age of 93 on November 12, 2017 in Brevard, North Carolina. This writer never met Dr. Smith personally, but he has long admired him. Much of the biographical information about his life story in this article comes from a 2017 tribute to him written by Joseph Pipa, who quoted Ligon Duncan’s description of him as "one of the key figures in late twentieth-century North American Presbyterianism." For additional biographical resources, see also a 2017 article by Wayne Sparkman, and a more complete sketch of his life by Joseph Pipa in Confessing Our Hope. If one can get to know another person by studying his library, it can be said that on one level this writer has come to know him very well. Since his passing, about 200 of the books from his library have been acquired by this writer, including many which were authored by him, or inscribed to him by admirers, and many of which contain correspondence to and from Dr. Smith, as well as his handwritten notes. The various volumes thus examined reflect his interest in and concern for Biblical worship and church government, missions, and church history. Above all, as a writer, a teacher, a pastor, a mentor, a husband, a father, and more, Dr. Smith aimed at the glory of God and the good of others. Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.” There is abundant testimony that Dr. Smith’s name is carved on the hearts of many, and that truly is his great legacy.

A Milestone For the Continuing Church: The PCA Turns 50 Years Old

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Christians should be interested in history. This is true for several reasons. First, as Christians we view history not as the record of chance happenings, but the record of the unfolding of God's decrees....It is a record of what God has been doing through and with His people, who were first called out by God in the Biblical period. Thus Christians should be interested particularly in the history of the Church....It has been said that a people who do not understand their history have no future. This is true in part because we are prone to repeat the same mistakes. By studying history, we can better understand how we have arrived at a particular point in time. We can learn from the past. We should thus be able to progress farther ahead in our own generation as we 'stand upon the shoulders' of those who have gone before. Having said this, it should be obvious why Christians should be interested in this first attempt to write the history of the young church known as the Presbyterian Church in America. — Morton H. Smith, Preface to Frank J. Smith, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑏𝑦𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑖𝑛 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑀𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 (1985)

On December 4, 1861, in Augusta, Georgia, the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America [later known as the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS)] convened and Benjamin Morgan Palmer was appointed its first Moderator. As a denomination, the PCUS was noted for its Calvinistic orthodoxy and for its position on “the spirituality of the church.” However, over time, liberalism encroached upon the denomination, as it did also with the Northern branch of the mainline Presbyterians, the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUSA). This theological and spiritual decline is documented in Morton H. Smith, How Is the Gold Become Dim: The Decline of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., As Reflected in Its Assembly Actions (1973).

Some (but not all) of the important histories of the PCA (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

On December 4, 1973, 112 years to the day from the founding of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America, the first General Assembly convened in the Briarwood Church, Birmingham, Alabama. A new Church was born! (Frank J. Smith, The History of the Presbyterian Church in America: The Continuing Church Movement [1985], p. 89).

Ruling Elder Jack Williamson.

At this momentous event, Ruling Elder Jack Willamson from Greenville, Alabama was the convener of the meeting and gave the opening message, which was titled To God Be the Glory.

Let us immediately declare the purpose of this Church, our portion of which today becomes a formal ecclesiastical entity. This Church exists merely for the sake of God. Its purpose cannot be merely human or humanistic as though to prepare a believer for heaven. Its purpose does not lie in us, but in God, and in the glory of His name. The origin of this Church is in God, its form of manifestation is from God; and from beginning to end, its purpose is and shall be to magnify God's glory.

Mr. Williamson went on to speak of the humility that was required in such an undertaking as that of forming a new church. The rest of his opening address may be found here. Frank Smith also reminds us of what is needed for the PCA to continue as a faithful branch of Christ’s Church (Frank J. Smith, The History of the Presbyterian Church in America: The Continuing Church Movement [1985], p. 222).:

The Presbyterian Church in America has come into existence by God’s gracious plan. How long she survives as a visible manifestation of the Body of Christ will depend on how much she remains in line with her motto:

“True to Scripture,
the Reformed Faith, and
Obedient to the Great Commission
of Jesus Christ.”

We rejoice in God’s goodness to the PCA, recognizing her need to continue in the path of reformation and faithfulness to God’s word, with thankfulness and appreciation for those who have served and who continue to serve the body of Christ from this part of his vineyard, and with prayers that former mercies and blessings will lengthened, and that God’s glory will remain her chief end.

Happy Thanksgiving From Log College Press!

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Carlos Martyn wrote of the Pilgrim Fathers and the sufferings they endured that first winter they spent on Cape Cod in 1620, and then speaks of the blessings that they enjoyed the next summer when their harvest abounded. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Ps. 126:5).

Fowl were so abundant in the autumn, that "four men in one day killed as much as, with a little help besides, served the community almost a week." "There was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison." The fowlers had been sent out by the governor, "that so they might, after a special manner, rejoice together, since they had gathered the fruit of their labors;" this was the origin and the first celebration of the national festival of New England, the autumnal THANKSGIVING. On that occasion of hilarity they "exercised their arms," and for three days "entertained and feasted" Massasoit and some ninety of his people, who made a contribution of five deer to the festivity. Health was restored; household fires were blazing brightly; and in good heart and hope the lonely but thankful settlers disposed themselves to meet the rigor of another winter (The Pilgrim Fathers of New England: A History (1867), pp. 132-133).

As Americans gather around the Thanksgiving table today, it is fitting to praise our God for the blessings he has bestowed on the church, our nation, our families and ourselves. We at Log College Press give thanks to God for his good hand upon us in so many ways. We are thankful for Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and its ministry. We are thankful for our readers and supporters. We are thankful for the work of those who have digitized so many good old books. We are thankful for the labors of those Presbyterian men and women who have gone before us. Matthew Poole (an English Presbyterian minister) once wrote: “Ministers are living Books, and Books are dead Ministers; and yet though dead, they speak. When you cannot hear the one, you may read the other.” In spirit, we give glory to God that technology has helped us to make Log College Press a resource that aims to contribute to the edification of Christ’s Church.

Theodore L. Cuyler gives this counsel:

Thanksgiving Day is a fitting time to inventory your mercies and blessings. Set all your family to the pitch of the one hundred and third Psalm; and hang on the wall over your Thanksgiving dinner these mottoes — 'A merry heart is a good medicine' — and 'He that is of a cheerful heart hath a continual feast.' (‘𝐴 𝑀𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑦 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝐷𝑜𝑒𝑡ℎ 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑': 𝐴 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑘𝑠𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐷𝑎𝑦 (1897))

From our house to yours, we at Log College Press wish each of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Samuel Davies Was Born 300 Years Ago

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"I can tell you that I am as happy as perhaps Creation can make me: I enjoy all the Necessaries and most of the Conveniences of Life; I have a peaceful Study, as a Refuge from the Hurries and Noise of the World around me; the venerable Dead are waiting in my Library to entertain me, and relieve me from the Nonsense of surviving Mortals; I am peculiarly happy in my Relations, and Providence does not afflict me by afflicting them. In short, I have all a moderate Heart can wish; and I very much question if there be a more calm, placid and contented Mortal in Virginia.” — Samuel Davies, August 1751 Letter to John Holt

Samuel Davies was 300 years ago on this day in history, November 3, 1723, near Bear, Delaware. His parents were David and Martha Thomas Davies, and were of Welsh descent. He was a "son of prayer," and thus Samuel was named by his mother for Samuel the prophet. Originally, the Davies family was Baptist, but Martha came to embrace Presbyterian doctrine and her family was put out of the Baptist church. Samuel was educated first, it is believed, by William Robinson (who would later play such an influential role in Davies' pastoral career) at the English school at Hopewell (New Jersey) Presbyterian Church, and later at the Faggs Manor (Pennsylvania) academy run by Samuel Blair, who was not only a mentor, but a dear friend. 

Birthplace of Samuel Davies, near Bear, Delaware (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

In July 1743, William Robinson preached the first Presbyterian sermon ever delivered in Hanover County, Virginia. The people of Hanover were so thankful for his ministry that they took up a collection, which Robinson ensured was used to assist Samuel's theological education. Three years later, Davies was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New Castle. He was ordained to the ministry in February 1747, and commissioned as an evangelist to minister to the congregation at Hanover, Virginia, and surrounding counties. He traveled south with John Rodgers, and became settled in his new Virginia home, accepting a call to serve as pastor of the Polegreen Church, beginning a very fruitful ministry. Davies earned the title "Apostle to Virginia" and "Apostle of the Great Awakening in Virginia." One particular focus of his ministry involved the spiritual care of slaves within his ecclesiastical bounds.

1862 sketch of Polegreen Church before it was destroyed in 1864.

Historic Polegreen Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia, as it appears today.

He was married to Sarah Kirkpatrick in 1746. She and her unborn son died the following year. In 1748, Davies married Jane Holt, whom he called "Chara," and with whom they had six children, one of whom died at birth. Jane was the muse who inspired several of Davies' poems. 

Davies and Gilbert Tennent traveled to the British Isles in 1753-1755 on a fundraising mission for the College of New Jersey, and the journal that Davies kept to record his experiences has been published. In 1759, he was called to serve as President of the College of New Jersey, replacing Jonathan Edwards. His departure from Hanover was painful for him because of the love he had towards his flock, but he answered what he believed was the call of duty. He set about cataloguing the library and his brief tenure at Princeton was very much appreciated by students and Trustees alike. 

He was the author of some treatises, as well as many letters, hymns (he is considered the first American-born hymn-writer), poems and sermons, some of which were published in his lifetime, and which were published in several volumes posthumously. His preaching helped to inspire frontier men who were fighting in the French and Indian War, and one person in particular who was deeply impressed with his homiletics was Patrick Henry, who a generation later became one of America's greatest orators. Davies was referred to by Martyn Lloyd-Jones as "the greatest preacher you have ever produced in this country."

On January 1, 1761, Davies delivered his Sermon on the New Year on the text Jer. 28:16, stating “it is not only possible — but highly probable, that death may meet some of us within the compass of this year.” Like previous Presidents of the College of New Jersey who had preached on this passage, such as Jonathan Edwards and Aaron Burr, Sr., Davies did indeed die in the selfsame year. He contracted a cold, and after bleeding by a physician, he got an infection and became mortally ill, breathing his last at home on February 4, 1761, at the age of 37. He was laid to rest at Princeton Cemetery, and his funeral sermon was preached by Samuel Finley. Thomas Gibbons, who preached a sermon commemorating Davies' life and death in England, published the first set of Davies' sermons in 1766. Notable biographies of Davies include George W. Pilcher, Samuel Davies: Apostle of Dissent in Colonial Virginia (1971); Dewey Roberts, Samuel Davies: Apostle to Virginia (2017); and Joseph C. Harrod, Theology and Spirituality in the Works of Samuel Davies (2019). 

Grave of Samuel Davies at Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

He once told his auditors: "Whatever, I say, be your Place, permit me, my dear Youth, to inculcate upon you this important instruction, IMBIBE AND CHERISH A PUBLIC SPIRIT. Serve your Generation. Live not for yourselves, but the Publick. Be the Servants of the Church; the servants of your Country; the Servants of all. Extend the Arms of your Benevolence to embrace your Friends, your Neighbors, your Country, your Nation, the whole Race of mankind, even your Enemies. Let it be the vigorous unremitted Effort of your whole Life, to leave the World wiser and better than you found it at your Entrance (Religion and Public Spirit: A Valedictory Address to the Senior Class, Delivered in Nassau-Hall, September 21, 1760 [1762])." It can certainly be said of Davies that he left the world wiser than he found it.

Samuel Miller and the Waldensians

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Samuel Miller, professor of Church History and Ecclesiastical Polity at Princeton Theological Seminary, had a particular interest in the body of evangelical Christians known as Waldensians or Vaudois who inhabited the historic Valleys of the Alps in the Piedmont or Savoy region that includes portions of France, Italy and Switzerland. That interest manifests itself in the fact that across a wide variety of literary productions, Miller highlighted the significance of Waldensian history, theology and polity in so many of his works.

Some of his writings are directly and specifically about the Waldensians, such as Doctrine and Order of the Waldenses (1820-1821); an Appendix to James Wharey, Sketches of Church History, Concerning the History and Doctrine of the Waldensians (1838, 1840); and a Recommendatory Letter to Jean Paul Perrin’s History of the Ancient Christians Inhabiting the Valleys of the Alps (1845, 1847). The first of these — a series of letters published in The Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine — deals with the theology and ecclesiology of the Waldensians. The second is an appendix is a response to a Baptist writer, William Jones, who made the argument that the Waldensians were not paedobaptists, but credobaptists. The third commends to the reader an English translation of a classic history of the Waldensians by a 17th century Waldensian pastor.

As we will see from other writings, Miller often hearkens back to the history, beliefs and practices of the Waldensians to buttress his arguments on a variety of topics.

In A Sermon, Delivered Before the New-York Missionary Society, at their Annual Meeting, April 6th, 1802 (1802), p. 25, Miller highlights the Waldensians, along with other groups who continued to shine the light of the true gospel in the dark ages:

Faithful witnesses of God, and zealous reformers of his Church, appeared, in different parts of the world, for a long time before the period eminently distinguished as the aera of the Reformation. The Waldenses, in Italy and Spain; the Albigenses, in France; the followers of Huss and Jerome, in Germany, and of Wickliff, in England, all bore an honourable testimony against the corruption of their day, and contended, with a noble firmness, for the faith once delivered to the saints.

In The Divine Appointment, the Duties, and the Qualifications of Ruling Elders; A Sermon (1811), p, 17, Miller cites Perrin’s History to show that the Waldensians included the office of ruling elder in their polity.

John Paul Perrin, the celebrated historian of the Waldenses, and who was himself one of the Ministers of that people, in a number of places, recognizes the office of Ruling Elder as retained in their churches. He expressly and repeatedly asserts, that the Synods of the Waldenses, long before the time of Luther, were composed of Ministers and Elders.

In Holding Fast the Faithful Word [a sermon on Titus 1:9] (1829), pp. 33-34, Miller held up the Waldensians as an example of a bright spot in a dark time.

I am constrained to believe that, even in defending the most precious truth, it is the pious Waldenses in the dark ages, solemnly recorded, at different periods, that testimony to the truth and order of the Gospel, which rendered them "lights in the world" while they flourished; and have served to illuminate and encourage the steps of millions in succeeding times.

In The Warrant, Nature, and Duties of the Office of the Ruling Elder (1831) [and The Warrant, Nature, and Duties of the Office of the Ruling Elder: A Sermon (1844)], Miller returns to the subject of ruling elders and argues (at some length in the former work) that the polity of the Waldensians included the office of ruling elder on an equal basis with that of minister of the gospel. In the quote below (pp. 109-110) he also identifies the Waldensians as being very similar to the Albigenses (which is a point of contention among some).

Accordingly, the Rev. Dr. Ranken, in his laboriously learned History of France, gives the following account of the Waldenses and Albigenses, whom he very properly represents as the same people. ‘Their government and discipline were extremely simple. The youth intended for the ministry among them, were placed under the inspection of some of the elder barbes, or pastors, who trained them chiefly to the knowledge of the Scriptures; and when satisfied of their proficiency, they received them as preachers, with imposition of hands. Their pastors were maintained by the voluntary offerings of the people. The whole Church assembled once a year, to treat of their general affairs. Contributions were then obtained; and the common fund was divided, for the year, among not only the fixed pastors, but such as were itinerant, and had no particular district or charge. If any of them had fallen into scandal or sin, they were prohibited from preaching, and thrown out of the society. The pastors were assisted in their inspection of the people's morals, by Elders whom probably both pastors and people elected, and set apart for that purpose.’

In The Importance of Gospel Truth (1832), Miller makes the point that sound theology has a practical bearing on the piety of people:

In the days of Godeschakus; of Claudius of Turin; of the Waldenses; of Wickliffe; and of Huss and Jerome, it was manifest that practical piety rose or sunk, just as sound or erroneous doctrines bore sway.

In Presbyterianism the Truly Primitive and Apostolical Constitution of the Church of Christ (1835, 1836), pp. 19-20, Miller shows the Waldensians to be essentially Presbyterian in their polity and worship:

But the undoubted fact, which places this whole subject beyond all question, is, that after the commencement of the Reformation in Geneva, the Waldenses not only held communion with that Church, which we all know was strictly Presbyterian, but also received ministers from her, and of course recognised the validity of her ordinations in the strongest practical manner. This they could never have done, had they been in the habit of regarding the subject in the same light with modern prelatists.

But the Waldenses were not merely Presbyterian as to the point of ministerial parity. According to their own most authentic writers, as well as the acknowledgment of their bitterest enemies — they resembled our beloved Church in almost every thing. They rejected all human inventions in the worship of God, — such as the sign of the cross in baptism; fast and festival days; the confirmation of children and youth; the consecration of edifices for public worship, &c. We are also told that all their churches were bound together by Synods, which assembled once a year; that these Synods were composed of Ministers and Ruling Elders, as in the Presbyterian Church; that their business was to examine and ordain candidates for the ministry, and authoritatively to order every thing respecting their whole body. We may say, then, with strict regard to historical verity, that, in the darkest and most corrupt periods of the Church, Presbyterianism was kept alive in the purest, and indeed, in the only pure churches now known to have then existed.

In Infant Baptism Scriptural and Reasonable: and Baptism by Sprinkling or Affusion, the Most Suitable or Edifying Mode (1837), p. 28, he argues thus:

It is here also worthy of particular notice, that those pious and far famed witnesses for the truth, commonly known by the name of the Waldenscs, did undoubtedly hold the doctrine of infant baptism, and practise accordingly. In their Confessions of Faith and other writings, drawn up be-tween the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, and in which they represent their creeds and usages as handed down, from father to son, for several hundred years before the Reformation, they speak on the subject before us so frequently and explicitly, as to preclude all doubt in regard to the fact alleged. The following specimen of their language will satisfy every reasonable inquirer.

"Baptism," say they, “is administered in a full congregation of the faithful, to the end that he that is received into the church may be reputed and held of all as a Christian brother, and that all the congregation may pray for him that he may be a Christian in heart, as he is outwardly esteemed to be a Christian. And for this cause it is that we present our children in baptism, which ought to be done by those to whom the children are most nearly related, such as their parents, or those to whom God has given this charity."

From this brief survey, we can see that the Waldensians had significance to Miller whether he was addressing matters of polity, worship, and practical piety. He drew from histories of the Waldensians (one from his personal library, by William Sime, may be read on Google Books, for example), their confessional documents, and sometimes from what their own critics had to say of them. He considered them to be among the “faithful witnesses” who maintained the truth in the Dark Ages before the Reformation, despite the fiercest persecution, and whose beliefs and practices were in harmony with those of the Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Miller wished that a copy of Perrin’s History of the Waldensians could be found in every Christian family library in the United States and encouraged its study to all who were interested “to inquire what the Church of God has been in its best days since the Apostolic age.” As both a student and a teacher of ecclesiastical history, whose legacy many recognize and honor today, the prominence that Miller assigned to the value of their testimony may gain our attention and consideration as we too look back through the annals of church history on their faithful example, and remember the Waldensians.

James Hunt and the Revival of Presbyterianism in Virginia

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“I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.” — Emma Thompson

James Hunt, an interesting colonial American Presbyterian minister in his own right, had a ringside seat to the 1740’s revival in Virginia known as the Great Awakening. He was born in Hanover, Virginia on February 19, 1731 to James and Sarah Hunt. The elder James Hunt in the early 1740s was part of a group led by Samuel Morris who were disaffected with the stale liturgical and spiritually dry worship that they experienced in the established Anglican church of the Old Dominion colony of Virginia.

A letter from a gentleman who knew the younger James Hunt and spoke to him shortly before his death and which contained Hunt’s narrative account of the events was published with annotations by John Holt Rice in the August 1819 issue of The Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine under the title Origin of Presbyterianism in Virginia.

This narrative of Hunt, conveyed to us by John Holt Rice, may be compared with other primary accounts of the beginning of the Hanover revival such as the letter of Samuel Morris (found in a 1751 letter from Samuel Davies to Joseph Bellamy and published as The State of Religion Among the Protestant Dissenters in Virginia); and the account given by David Rice (which appears in Robert H. Bishop, An Outline of the History of the Church in the State of Kentucky, During a Period of Forty Years, Containing the Memoirs of Rev. David Rice (1824)), and yet the narrative of Hunt, who was present (and indeed was spiritually awakened there) stands out for its rich, fascinating detail and, especially, for Hunt’s “pertinent remarks on the various providences of God” in the events which shaped the course of the revival.

Detail of the 1753 Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia, focusing on Hanover County in the center.

The Samuel Morris group had managed to acquire certain religious books which stirred something deep within them, including Thomas Boston’s Human Nature in Its Four-Fold State, Martin Luther’s commentary on Galatians, the sermons of George Whitefield, and the works of John Bunyan. The group would gather at a Reading Room constructed for the purpose of reading these works aloud and discussing them, and as this activity grew in popularity, additional reading rooms were erected, something that did not go unnoticed by the civil authorities.

One of the Samuel Morris Reading Rooms, the reconstructed frame of which stands at the Historic Polegreen Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

At this point, we will take up Hunt’s narrative directly:

And now their number became too large for any private house to contain them. Another step is taken — they build first one and then another of what they called ‘reading houses.’ Here the number of attendants and the force of divine influence much increase. The charge against the four principals, first engaged in the work, is changed — they are no longer considered as individual delinquents, whose obstinacy might be sufficiently punished by the civil magistrate; but as a malignant cabal, that required the interposition of the Executive. They are accordingly cited to appear before the Governor and Council. This was a shock for which they were not well prepared. The exaction of frequent fines, for nonattendance at church, they bore with patience and fortitude for the sake of a good conscience; but to be charged with a crime, of the nature, and extent, and penalty of which they had but indistinct conceptions, spread a gloom over their minds, and filled them with anxious forbodings, more easily conceived than described. They were placed in the most awkward situation. They were certainly and obviously a religious society. separate and distinct from the only one, the established church, which either the government, or the people, knew in the country; yet they were without a name. — They saw and felt the propriety of being able some how to designate themselves when they came before the Governor and Council. They once thought of calling themselves ’Lutherans,’ but they found some sentiments advanced in the only one of his books which they had, with which they could not agree, In the mean while the day drew on when they were to appear in Williamsburg; and with gloomy forbodings they get out without a name by which to call themselves, and without any written plan to shew the nature of the association which they had formed.

One of the four, who travelled down by himself, had to take shelter from a heavy storm of rain in the house of some poor man on the road. While there, waiting for the rain to cease, he to divert his melancholy, took down from a dusty shelf, an old dusty volume, and began to read. He had not read far, till he found himself not diverted, but deeply interested. He found his own sentiments embodied in a system. He read on with renewed pleasure and surprise, until the ceasing of the storm admonished him it was time to pursue his journey. He wished to know of the man whether he would sell that book. The man answered, no: but if he had any desire for it, he would give it to him, as he had no use for it, and it was not worth selling. Our poor distressed traveller received it as the gift of heaven — it was an old Scotch Presbyterian Confession of Faith. Meeting his companions in Williamsburgh, they took a private room, and there deliberately examined the book, and found it contained exactly the system of doctrines which they believed; and though not so well understanding the discipline, they did not so cordially approve that, yet, they unanimously agreed to adopt it as their confession of faith. Although they did not foresee the advantage it would be to them, yet it relieved them from the awkward situation in which they were, the heads and leaders of a religious society without a name. — When called before the Governor and Council, and interrogated about their profession, they presented their new found book, as their confession of faith. The Governor, Gooch, (who it was said had been educated a Presbyterian, but for the sake of an office or for some other reason, had become a member of the established church,) immediately observed, on seeing the confession, that these men were Presbyterians, and that they were tolerated by the laws of England. But the Council, not feeling the same educational prejudice in favor of Presbyterianism, or not construing so liberally the laws relating to them, were not so easily satisfied — a good deal of bitterness was manifested by them towards the poor unfortunate culprits. But in the midst of this warm discussion (Mr. Hunt observed he had often heard his father mention it with awe and reverence,) the heavens became suddenly shrouded in darkness — thunders with tremendous peals seemed to shake the foundation of the house where they were; and the council chamber where they sat, appeared for a considerable time to be one continued blaze of lightning. The Governor and Council, as well as themselves, were seized with solemn awe — Mr. Hunt’s father told him, he had never before, nor afterwards, witnessed so tremendous a storm. When it abated he and his companions were dismissed with a gentle caution to beware not to excite any disturbance in his majesty’s colony, nor by any irregularities break the good order of society in their parish.

Here Mr. Hunt stopped, to make a number of pertinent remarks on the various providences of God. Had not a storm driven one of those persecuted men into an unknown house for shelter — had the Governor not been educated a Presbyterian — or, finally, had not the clouds gathered blackness at that particular hour, it is probable the issue of their journey to Williamsburg would have been extremely different from what it was. He did not think there was any thing miraculous in any of these occurrences; but he thought (and so do I) that a man must be strangely blinded, who does not see, in such a train of unconnected contingent events, all concurring to the same end, the secret, though powerful hand of him who, ‘works all things according to the council of his own will.’

It was soon after these events that William Robinson arrived on a missionary journey to central Virginia. On July 6, 1743, Robinson preached the first Presbyterian sermon ever recorded in this region. The Samuel Morris group was so moved by his message that when it was time for him to depart they endeavored to give him some financial renumeration for his pastoral services. He declined the offer, but they managed to fill his saddle bags with money anyway which, when he realized what was done, finally accepted the gift — but not for himself. Instead, he in turn used the money to pay for the theological education of a young man he knew who had shown great promise. That young man turned out to be Samuel Davies, who would in the process of time, after completing his education, be sent to minister to the Samuel Morris group of Hanover. Davies’ missionary labors in Virginia, which are legendary, were paved by all that went before in the providence of God.

James Hunt, whose full account is very much worth reading, went on to study directly under Davies, both in Hanover and, later, at the College of New Jersey at Princeton. He was licensed to preach the gospel in 1760, and ordained to ministry the following year, whereupon he was admitted as a member of the Hanover Presbytery, under whose bounds he labored as an itinerant minister for a time. In 1763, he was called as the pastor of a congregation in Pennsylvania, but in 1770, he accepted a new call to jointly minister to the Bladensburg and Captain John’s congregations in Rockville County, Maryland, where he labored for the rest of his life. There, on his farm “Tusculum,” he founded Rockville Academy, which included among its pupils, the famous writer William Wirt. Hunt died on June 2, 1793, and his funeral sermon was preached by James Muir.

What's New at Log College Press? — September 1, 2023

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Dear Friends,

As summer draws to a close, we wish to give an update on what’s been happening at Log College Press. Our virtual shelves are filling up with old Presbyterian books, articles, poetry and manuscripts. We recently reached a milestone of sorts - there are now over 20,000 works available to read at Log College Press.

In a year of celebration and remembrance, we have previously paid tribute to John Witherspoon’s 300th birthday (Feb. 5, 1723); Thomas Murphy’s 200th birthday (Feb. 6, 1823); the 100th anniversary of Robert P. Kerr’s passing (March 25, 1923); the 250th anniversary of Joseph Caldwell’s passing (April 21, 1773); the 150th anniversary of William H. McGuffey’s passing (May 4, 1873); A.A. Hodge’s 200th birthday (July 18, 1823); the 150th anniversary of Gardiner Spring’s passing (Aug. 18, 1873); the 150th anniversary of Thomas Smyth’s passing (Aug. 20, 1873); and we are looking ahead to the 300th birthday of Samuel Davies (Nov. 3, 1723). These anniversaries are reminders of the rich heritage of American Presbyterianism, and how these men have contributed in their own ways to shaping our history. As we like to say, there is no time like the present to study the past.

Meanwhile, to return to the here and now, members of the Dead Presbyterian Society have special access to certain features on this website, which include the Early Access and Recent Additions page, as well as the DPS quote blog, and the Log College Review. We wish to draw your attention to notable works of interest that have added recently.

Some highlights at the Early Access page:

• Samuel Davies, Travel Diary (1753-1754) — A kind and helpful supporter of our work noticed that some handwritten manuscript journals have been digitized by the Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, including Davies’ diary which covers a portion of his trip to Great Britain to raise funds for the College of New Jersey (Princeton).

• William Henry Foote, Journal (3 volumes, 1794-1869) — This is a remarkable manuscript journal (written in beautiful penmanship) which covers almost the entirety of Foote’s life, and includes newspaper clippings, family history, ecclesiastical records (some pertinent to the founding of the Presbyterian Church, C.S.A.), and much more.

• Francis Alison, Peace and Union Recommended (1758) — A notable sermon preached by an Old Side divine at the opening of the synod at which the Old and New Sides were reunited.

• David Bostwick, Self Disclaimed and Christ Exalted (1758) — A powerful sermon on the words from John 3:30: “He must increase but I must decrease.”

• Jonathan Dickinson, A Sermon, Preached at the Opening of the Synod at Philadelphia, September 19, 1722 (1723) and A Vindication of God’s Sovereign Free Grace (1746).

• Samuel Finley, The Curse of Meroz; or, The Danger of Neutrality, in the Cause of God, and Our Country (1757) — A notable patriotic sermon preached during the French and Indian War.

Some highlights at the Recent Additions page:

• Charles Hodge, The Intuitions and Views of Future Punishment (1878) — This is one the last published articles by Dr. Hodge.

• Several early published poems by James Waddel Alexander dating from 1824 to 1827.

• James Power Smith, Quit You Like Men: Sermon Preached at the Virginia Military Institute, June 24th, 1906 (1906) — A contribution from a kind supporter of our work.

• John Witherspoon’s 9-volume set of Works (1815);

• Articles and reviews by Samuel Garfield Craig, Ernest T, Thompson, A.A. Hodge, George T. Purves, Andrew W. Blackwood, and many more.

• A thesis paper by Nancy Lynn Taylor Sorrells, “I Mourn in Bitterness Over the State of Things”: Francis McFarland’s Community at War, 1860-1866 (1995).

On the Log College Review:

• Reviews by Jonathan Peters: Review of Francis R. Flournoy, Benjamin Mosby Smith: 1811-1893 (1947) [2023], and Review of William E. Thompson, In Stonewall’s Long Shadow: James Power Smith, Aide de Camp (2020) [first appeared in The Confessional Presbyterian 18 (2022)].

Meanwhile, please feel free to browse the many resources available to our readers in print and in digital format. We appreciate hearing from our readers if they find matters needing correction, or if they have questions about authors or works on the site, or if they have suggestions for additions to the site. Your feedback helps the experience of other readers as well. Thank you, as always, for your interest and support. Stay tuned for more good things to come.

American Presbyterians and Sunday Mail

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In recent news, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service who was forced to resign over his refusal to work (deliver mail) on the Lord’s Day and, subsequently, filed suit against the agency for its denial of an accommodation of his religious belief in keeping the Lord’s Day holy, and thereby violating his civil rights. Gerald Groff, the postal employee in question, had worked at the Post Office since 2012, but a 2013 arrangement between the U.S. Post Office and Amazon led to a requirement that mail be delivered on the Lord’s Day, a duty which Mr. Groff was initially able to avoid until the issue was pressed upon him, leading to his resignation for conscience’ sake. The Supreme Court’s ruling was welcomed by many who have been concerned about the encroachment of business on the Christian Sabbath, especially non-essential labor that is mandated by the federal government of its employees.

It should be noted, though, that the 2013 Post Office-Amazon arrangement which led to Mr. Groff’s trial of conscience is not the first time this particular issue has been confronted in American history. This very issue, in fact, was of immense concern to 19th century Presbyterians.

As far back as 1808, Postmaster General Gideon Granger directed that post offices be opened on the Lord’s Day for the sorting of mail. One particular local postmaster in Washington, Pennsylvania, Hugh Wylie — who was also a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church — began to open his post office on the Lord’s Day not only for sorting of mail, but also for the distribution of mail. Eventually, the distribution of the mail began encroached upon the time of worship services, and complaints were made about the propriety of this sort of work occurring on this day of the week. Although the Post Office supported Wylie in his efforts to maintain the flow of mail, the Synod of Pittsburgh condemned Wylie and barred him from communion, and suspended him from the eldership. He appealed unsuccessfully to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

Meanwhile, in 1810, the U.S. Congress passed a law requiring postmasters to open their offices on the Lord’s Day. In the context of the approaching War of 1812, the argument of necessity held sway in the public mind given that need for expedited communication during wartime carried plausible weight. But the opposing argument that the nation itself was involved in a sinful course of action by diverting federal employees and citizens from the duties of the Sabbath by maintaining a regular course of business on that day also began to carry weight in the minds of Christian citizens. Petitions were sent from the PCUSA General Assembly in 1812 and 1815 to Congress urging repeal of the 1810 legislation. Although these and other petitions went unheeded by Congress, the 1819 PCUSA General Assembly ruled concerning its members that engaging in business or commerce — in particular, in relation to Sabbath mail delivery — on the Lord’s Day was a bar to communion (Baird’s Digest [1856], p. 33).

In the mid-1820s and early 1830s, a renewed effort was made by Christians of various denominations to pressure Congress to repeal its legalization of mail delivery on the Lord’s Day. Lyman Beecher helped to found the General Union for the Promotion of the Christian Sabbath in 1828, and his 1829 sermon on the Pre-Eminent Importance of the Christian Sabbath zeroed in the Sabbath desecration caused by thousands of federal employees being pulled away from public worship to transport and deliver the mail, arguing at one point: “the petitions are, not that Congress will do any thing for religion, but, simply, that by legislation they will do nothing against religion - simply that they will not, with the people's money, hire their twenty-six thousand Mail-carriers, Post-masters and assistants, to unite with the wicked in prostrating the holy Sabbath! We ask for no union of church and state: but, simply, that the moral influence of the Sabbath may not be thus bartered away for secular gain.”

In 1829, Senator Richard M. Johnson, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads and a devout Baptist, issued a report which shot down the petitions sitting before Congress to repeal the 1810 law, stating that “The transportation of the mails on the first day of the week, it is believed, does not interfere with rights of conscience” (Richard C. Wylie, Sabbath Laws in the United States [1905], p. 181). Stuart Robinson notes that “Colonel Johnson was by education and prejudice a Seventh Day Baptist, and the opinion gained general currency that his report was inspired, if not prepared, by a Seventh-Day Baptist preacher” (Sabbath Laws in the United States [1879]).

The controversy was not limited to the halls of Congress or the ecclesiastical courts, but spilled over into the press. Charles Hodge addressed the matter in The Biblical Repertory and Theological Review with his article The American Quarterly Review on Sunday Mails (1831). He objected to the manner in which this respectable journal portrayed the ongoing debate, and used the opportunity to articulate a clear understanding of the obligations of the Sabbath day for all Christians, and further argued that necessity was not at stake in the question of the propriety of mail delivery.

In his controversial 1832 discourse, Prince Messiah's Claims to Dominion Over All Governments; and the Disregard of His Authority by the United States, in the Federal Constitution, Reformed Presbyterian minister James R. Willson continued the argument against Sabbath mail delivery: “The Sabbath is very grossly and scandalously violated in all parts of the United States. It is true, the federal and state legislatures, and the courts of justice, do yet adjourn, on the Lord's holy day. But how do the officers of government spend their Sabbaths? Which of them reads the Holy Scriptures, ‘spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of religion?’ — The transportation of the mails — the opening of the post-offices, and the diffusion of political and other secular intelligence, profane the Sabbath, and corrupt the public mind.”

Stonewall Jackson is known to have been very particular about doing anything that would contribute to the delivery of mail on the Sabbath. Robert L. Dabney had this to say about it: “His convictions of the sin committed by the Government of the United States, in the unnecessary transmission of mails, and the consequent imposition of secular labor on the Sabbath day, upon a multitude of persons, were singularly strong. His position was, that if no one would avail himself of these Sunday mails, save in cases of true and unavoidable necessity, the letters carried would be so few that the sinful custom would speedily be arrested, and the guilt and mischief prevented. Hence, he argued, that as every man is bound to do whatever is practicable and lawful for him to do, to prevent the commission of sin, he who posted or received letters on the Sabbath day, or even sent a letter which would occupy that day in travelling, was responsible for a part of the guilt. It was of no avail to reply to him, that this self-denial on the part of one Christian would not close a single post-office, nor arrest a single mail-coach in the whole country. His answer was, that unless some Christians would begin singly to practise their exact duty, and thus set the proper example, the reform would never be begun; that his responsibility was to see to it that he, at least, was not particeps criminis; and that whether others would co-operate, was their concern, not his” (Life and Campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson) [1866], p. 88).

As late as 1889, Thomas P. Stevenson testified on behalf of the National Reform Association before the U.S. Senate in favor of a Sunday Rest Bill, submitting on that occasion a report on The National Mail Service and the Sabbath. Towards the end of his report he made this striking claim: “The action of the Government in this matter involves the whole nation in guilt and exposes the whole people to the righteous judgments of God. No man can say, ‘I never used the mails on the Sabbath; I am therefore not responsible.’ When irreligion and vice unsettle the foundations of social welfare, no man can assure himself that his personal or domestic interests will not be imperiled. When Israel went into captivity ‘that this land might enjoy her Sabbaths,’ the whole people suffered. A nation is justly held responsible for the action of its Government, because the nation is greater than the Government, and can reform it at pleasure. The violation of the Sabbath by the mail service involves in guilt not merely the officials in charge of the Post-Office Department, but the American people. The people have direct, legitimate, and, in some sense, authoritative access to the Government. Those who desire or would insist on the continuance of the Sabbath mail service, in the face of such considerations as we have urged, are a small minority of the population. It is only necessary for the people to speak; the Government will obey their voice.”

Eventually, in 1912, Congress finally acted to bar mail delivery on the Lord’s Day. It was to the great relief and acclaim of many Christians, but the greatest impetus for this change of heart on the part of the federal government was not the petitions of Sabbath-keepers, but the arguments of organized labor who emphasized the need of workers for a day of temporal and secular rest. Thus matters stood until the 2013 Amazon deal, and now in 2023, the highest court in the land has taken the part of a federal worker with a conscience about keeping the Lord’s Day holy. America’s controversy with the Lord, however, is far from resolved. The obligation upon all to uphold the Christian Sabbath, as stated in the Fourth Commandment, endures. Those who seek to witness to this truth rejoice with Gerald Groff, having won his day in court, and yet, as has been said in another context, “The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.”

For further reading on this topic, with additional details, see this 2020 article by Barry Waugh, “Mail Carrying on Sunday.”

Presbyterians of South Carolina

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𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐛𝐲𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐚

So long ago that all was wilderness
Where now our love has root,
There came from other lands in eagerness
For freedom, men of might, standing for right,
Who sowed the seed of faith. Then in the light
Of Christ there grew, in loving earnestness,
This Church, our home, their fruit.

Here persecution drove the steadfast Scot;
Men from North Ireland fled;
From England others sped;
Suffering, bereft, the high-souled Huguenot
Escaped to find a safer, happier lot,
Free heart and honest bread.

From these we spring in faith and in descent,
Their very names we bear.
The Christ for whom this blood, these lives were spent,
Shows us the world in anguish, sick with strife,
Wearily waiting rest, hoping to hear
Of God’s great peace! Oh! pray that we be lent
True wisdom, strength, the power to persevere,
To show God’s love, to tell of heavenly life,
Until our Lord appear.

— Louisa C. Smythe Stoney, in Margaret A. Gist, Presbyterian Women of South Carolina (1929), p. xiii

America's Debt to Calvinism

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"He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American liberty." — George Bancroft, Literary and Historical Miscellanies (1855), p. 406

The central thesis of this book — that John Calvin and his Genevan followers had a profound influence on the American founding — runs counter to widespread assumptions and rationale of the American experiment in government. — David W. Hall, The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding (2003), p. vii

On the Fourth of July, which is not only the date celebrated as the birth of the United States in 1776, but also the date on which Log College Press was founded in 2017, we pause to remember how God has dealt graciously with this nation in large part through the influence of the doctrines of grace and the principles of civil liberty which are associated with Calvinism.

American history has many streams running through it, including the Native American population, Spanish exploration, African-American slaves, and much more, but it cannot be denied that in the colonial era and in the early part of the republic, American principles and character were largely fashioned by the Protestant European settlers who came to this country and, looking to Scripture as their foundation, enacted laws, promoted education and even fought for freedom, on the basis of ideas taught in John Calvin’s Geneva.

To demonstrate this premise — which historically was unquestioned, but has been increasingly challenged in recent years — we will extract from the writings of some authors on Log College Press, and others, to show that many of America’s founding principles can be traced to the Calvinism that brought French Huguenots to Florida and South Carolina in 1562; English Anglicans and Presbyterians to Jamestown, Virginia in 1607; Pilgrims and Puritans to Massachusetts beginning in 1620; the Dutch Reformed to New Netherland (New York) in the 1620s; the Scotch-Irish, such as Francis Makemie in the 1680s, to Virginia and Pennsylvania; and the German Reformed settlers who, as did John Phillip Boehm in 1720, arrived in Pennsylvania and other ports of entry. Although painting a picture with broad strokes, and not at all unmindful of the secular character of this nation today under principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, it is worthwhile to consider how Geneva influenced the founding of America more than any other source. It has been well said by some that “knowledge of the past is the key to the future.”

Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, The Mayflower Compact, 1620

Egbert W. Smith writes, in a chapter titled “America’s Debt to Calvinism,” that:

If the average American citizen were asked, who was the founder of America, the true author of our giant Republic, might be puzzled to answer. We can imagine his amazement at hearing the answer given to this question by the famous German historian, [Leopold von] Ranke, one of the profoundest scholars of modern times. Says Ranke, ‘John Calvin was the virtual founder of America.’” — E.W. Smith, The Creed of Presbyterians (1901), p. 119

In a lecture given by Philip Schaff in 1854, he stated:

The religious character of North America, viewed as a whole, is predominantly of the Reformed or Calvinistic stamp…To obtain a clear view of the enormous influence which Calvin's personality, moral earnestness, and legislative genius, have exerted on history, you must go to Scotland and to the United States. — Philip Schaff, America: A Sketch of the Political, Social, and Religious Character of the United States of North America (1855), pp. 111-112

Nathaniel S. McFetridge devotes a chapter in his most famous book, Calvinism in History, to the influence of Calvinism as a political force in American history, and argues thus:

My proposition is this — a proposition which the history clearly demonstrates: That this great American nation, which stretches her vast and varied territory from sea to sea, and from the bleak hills of the North to the sunny plains of the South, was the purchase chiefly of the Calvinists, and the inheritance which they bequeathed to all liberty-loving people.

If would be almost impossible to give the merest outline of the influence of the Calvinists on the civil and religious liberties of this continent without seeming to be a mere Calvinistic eulogist; for the contestants in the great Revolutionary conflict were, so far as religious opinions prevailed, so generally Calvinistic on the one side and Arminian on the other as to leave the glory of the result almost entirely with the Calvinists. They who are best acquainted with the history will agree most readily with the historian, Merle D’Aubigne, when he says: ‘Calvin was the founder of the greatest of republics. The Pilgrims who left their country in the reign of James I., and, landing on the barren soil of New England, founded populous and mighty colonies, were his sons, his direct and legitimate sons; and that American nation which we have seen growing so rapidly boasts as its father the humble Reformer on the shores of Lake Leman [Lake Geneva].’” — N.S. McFetridge, Calvinism in History (1882), pp. 59-60

W. Melancthon Glasgow, referencing the great American historian George Bancroft, says:

"Mr. Bancroft says: 'The first public voice in America for dissolving all connection with Great Britain came not from the Puritans of New England, the Dutch of New York, nor the Planters of Virginia, but from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the Carolinas.' He evidently refers to the influence of Rev. Alexander Craighead and the Mecklenburg Declaration: and this influence was due to the meeting of the Covenanters of Octorara, where in 1743, they denounced in a public manner the policy of George the Second, renewed the Covenants, swore with uplifted swords that they would defend their lives and their property against all attack and confiscation, and their consciences should be kept free from the tyrannical burden of Episcopacy....It is now difficult to tell whether Donald Cargill, Hezekiah Balch or Thomas Jefferson wrote the National Declaration of American Independence, for in sentiment it is the same as the "Queensferry Paper" and the Mecklenburg Declaration." — W. Melancthon Glasgow, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America (1888), pp. 65-67

William H. Roberts, in a chapter on “Calvinism in America,” wrote:

Politically, Calvinism is the chief source of modern republican government. That Calvinism and republicanism are related to each other as cause and effect is acknowledged by authorities who are not Presbyterians or Reformed…The Westminster Standards are the common doctrinal standards of all the Calvinists of Great Britain and Ireland, the countries which have given to the United States its language and to a considerable degree its laws. The English Calvinists, commonly known as Puritans, early found a home on American shores, and the Scotch, Dutch, Scotch-Irish, French and German settlers, who were of the Protestant faith, were their natural allies. It is important to a clear understanding of the influence of Westminster in American Colonial history to know that the majority of the early settlers of this country from Massachusetts to New Jersey inclusive, and also in parts of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, were Calvinists.” — William H. Roberts in Philip Vollmer, John Calvin: Theologian, Preacher, Educator, Statesman (1909), pp. 202-203

Speaking of the Scotch-Irish, Charles L. Thompson wrote:

Did they abandon homes that were dear to them in Scotland first and then in Ireland? It was done at the call of God. They wanted homes for themselves and their children; but it was only that in them there might be a free development of the faith for which their fathers and they had suffered. Nor was their religion a thing of either forms or sentiment. It was grounded in Scripture. The family Bible was the charter of their liberties. To seek its deepest meanings was their delight. They, therefore, brought to to their various settlements in the new world a knowledge of the Calvinism which they had found in their Bibles, and a devotion to the forms in which it found expression giving definite doctrinal character to all their communities — character by which their various migrations may be easily traced. Whether in Nova Scotia, in Pennsylvania, in Kentucky and Tennessee, or wherever their pioneer footsteps led them, the stamp of their convictions, from which no ‘wind of doctrine’ and no ‘cunning craftiness’ could draw them, is seen in all their social life and on all their institutions. Almost universally they were Presbyterians and they are the dominant element in the Presbyterian Church today.

Alike among the Puritans, the Dutch and the Scotch-Irish, it was Calvinism which was the prevailing doctrine. Its relation to the life of our republic has often been recognized. — Charles L. Thompson, The Religious Foundations of America (1917), pp. 242-243

Loraine Boettner, in a section on Calvinism in America, quotes George Bancroft in regards to the American War of Independence:

With this background we shall not be surprised to find that the Presbyterians took a very prominent part in American Revolution. Our own historian Bancroft says: “The Revolution of 1776, so far as it was affected by religion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the natural outgrowth of the principles which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her sons, the English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvinists, and the Presbyterians of Ulster.” So intense, universal, and aggressive were the Presbyterians in their zeal for liberty that the war was spoken of in England as “The Presbyterian Rebellion.” An ardent colonial supporter of King George III wrote home: “I fix all the blame for these extraordinary proceedings upon the Presbyterians. They have been the chief and principal instruments in all these flaming measures. They always do and ever will act against government from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchial spirit which has always distinguished them everywhere.” When the news of “these extraordinary proceedings” reached England, Prime Minister Horace Walpole said in Parliament, “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson.” — Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (1932), p. 383

Speaking of Calvinism’s influence on America, H. Gordon Harold wrote:

Now back of every great movement lie its proponents. Who were the people that fostered rebellion and revolution in the New World? Who spoke openly against the tyrannies and indignities they experienced? Who stepped forward with ready hearts, willing to die in resistance to the injustices meted out to them in the wilderness of this remote continent? They were mostly as follows: Huguenots from France; men of the Reformed faith, presbyterians of the Continent, who had come from the Palatinate, Switzerland, and the Low Countries; Lutherans who had fled the agonies of the Thirty Years’ War; German Baptists who had endured persecution; and Presbyterians and Seceders (ultra-Presbyterians) from Scotland and Ulster; also the Puritan Congregationalists from England. Practically all of these were Calvinists, or neo-Calvinists, and a large number of them were Ulster-Scotch Presbyterians. — H. Gordon Harold in Gaius J. Slosser, ed., They Seek a Country: The American Presbyterians (1955), pp. 151-152

Douglas F. Kelly had this to say about the “Presbyterian Rebellion” of 1776:

The gibe of some in the British Parliament that the American revolution was “a Presbyterian Rebellion” did not miss the mark. We may include in “Presbyterian” other Calvinists such as New England Congregationalists, many of the Baptists, and others. The long-standing New England tradition of “election day sermons” continued to play a major part in shaping public opinion toward rebellion toward England on grounds of transcendent law. Presbyterian preaching by Samuel Davies and others had a similar effect in preparing the climate of religious public opinion for resistance to royal or parliamentary tyranny in the name of divine law, expressed in legal covenants. Davies directly inspired Patrick Henry, a young Anglican, whose Presbyterian mother frequently took him to hear Davies.” — Douglas F. Kelly, The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World: The Influence of Calvin on Five Governments From the 16th to the 18th Centuries (1992), pp. 131-132

At Log College Press, in appreciation of this great Calvinistic heritage which was bequeathed to 21st century Americans by Geneva and those who were inspired by her to come to these shores, we wish you and yours a very happy Fourth of July! And if we have not already “taxed” our readers’ patience without their consent (this blog post is admittedly longer than most), in the spirit of the day, we offer more to read from the following blog posts from the past. Blessings to you and yours!

• July 4, 2022 - Fourth of July Celebration at Log College Press

• July 3, 2021 - American Independence and Presbyterians

• July 4, 2020 - W.P. Breed: Presbyterians and the Revolution

• July 4, 2019 - Freedom’s Cost

• July 4, 2018 - American Presbyterians Wish You a Happy Independence Day!