Happy birthday to John Calvin!

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If you are Reformed, you probably know something about John Calvin. He is widely recognized as the author of the Institutes of Christian Religion (1536, 1559), and as the leader of the Reformed wing of the Reformation (in contrast to Martin Luther’s Lutheran wing). He was born in Noyon, France on July 10, 1509. Today is his birthday, and thus, Log College Press is celebrating with select resources about the man and his theology. Consider these works for an in-depth study of the man and his legacy.

John Calvin.jpg

As Calvin would say,

I have always been exceedingly delighted with the words of Chrysostom, “The foundation of our philosophy is humility;” and still more with those of Augustine, “As the orator, when asked, What is the first precept in eloquence? answered, Delivery: What is the second? Delivery: What the third? Delivery: so, if you ask me in regard to the precepts of the Christian Religion, I will answer, first, second, and third, Humility (Institutes 2.2.11).

As Reformed Christians, we do not exalt Calvin beyond measure, but we are thankful for the grace of God that accomplished so much good in his life. He was a very humble man, and that is seen in the writings referenced above which explore his life and many contributions to the world, and to the kingdom of God. We remember a good man today who was born over 500 years ago.

Henry Kollock: Christ Must Increase

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When Henry Kollock delivered a sermon before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was just 24 years old and newly-appointed to serve as a Professor of Divinity at the College of New Jersey at Princeton. His sermon was titled Christ Must Increase. A Sermon Preached Before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America; by Appointment of Their Standing Committee of Missions, May 23, 1803, which can be found in Vol. 4 of Sermons on Various Subjects, and it left a mark on his hearers.

Kollock, Henry, Christ Must Increase Title Page.jpg

In this sermon, based on John 3:30, Kollock argues that it is a definite truth that Christ and his kingdom will increase, and that this truth gives both consolation to believers and a direction to duty.

Drawing from the Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, Malachi and the writing of John in Revelation, among other Scripture texts, Kollock argues that as the kingdom of God grows on earth — like a mustard seed — every nation will be blessed to call Jesus Lord.

And what a consolation this is to those who love Jesus, to know that His work will advance and none can hinder it. When we look around and see so many people lying in darkness, void of the gospel, it is heartbreaking. But the promises of God assure us that the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection will reach every land, and that people all around the world will indeed praise him.

This knowledge leads to our duty as believers, for “we are workers together with God,” who must needs accomplish his purposes in the earth. We have a duty to pray for the extension of Christ’s kingdom in the world, and a duty to labor for the same, according to our place and calling. We can contribute to the work of missionaries, even if we are not called to be missionaries. An obligation is upon us to be missionary-minded.

Take time to read this missionary sermon by Henry Kollock, which is over 200 years old. It will still stir the hearts of any today who love the name of Jesus and desire to see his name magnified to the furthest ends of the earth. It is promised that “He will increase,” and this sermon offers assurance, consolation and direction to every believer to whom this promise is precious.

Joseph Bullen was born 270 years ago

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It was on July 8, 1750, in Brimfield, Massachusetts, that pioneer Presbyterian missionary Joseph Bullen was born. He studied at Yale, graduating in 1772, and became pastor of a Congregational church two years later, in Westminster, Vermont. He also worked as a teacher, a miller, and a farmer, and served as a chaplain in the American War of Independence, and later was elected to serve in the Vermont legislature. He and his wife Hannah had nine children.

In 1796, he answered the call of the New-York Missionary Society to serve as a missionary to the Chickasaw Indians in the Mississippi Territory. A charge was given to him in March 1799 by John Rodgers. Later that year, he made his way through wilderness to reach his destination, receiving a letter of safe passage from Chickasaw chief William Colbert. Robert M. Winter writes, “On June 2, 1799, Bullen preached the first sermon in the Chickasaw Nation, also the first Presbyterian sermon in Mississippi” (Outposts of Zion: A History of Mississippi Presbyterians in the Nineteenth Century, p. 10).

This photo shows the reconstructed log cabin church known as the Bayou Pierre Presbyterian Church, at Port Gibson, Mississippi, organized by Joseph Bullen, as it stood in 1807. It was one of several Presbyterian congregations organized by Bullen in …

This photo shows the reconstructed log cabin church known as the Bayou Pierre Presbyterian Church, at Port Gibson, Mississippi, organized by Joseph Bullen, as it stood in 1807. It was one of several Presbyterian congregations organized by Bullen in the Mississippi Territory.

Bullen recorded his experiences in a journal, extracts of which from the year 1800 were published by the New York Missionary Magazine and Repository of Religious Intelligence. He returned to New England briefly and was re-authorized to continue serving as a missionary to the Chickasaw Indians, which he did, organizing a school, and planting churches in the Mississippi Territory. Other missionaries came and, by their combined labors, the Presbyterian Church obtained a foothold in the “Old Southwest.” In 1816, the Presbytery of Mississippi was organized, and Bullen was chosen as its first Moderator. He died on March 26, 1825, and is buried in Jefferson County, Mississippi. Today, we remember his labors on behalf of the kingdom of Christ, especially as the first pioneer Presbyterian missionary in Mississippi.

Family Religion in Clarence E.N. Macartney's Boyhood Home

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Clarence Edward Noble Macartney (1879-1957) was an American Presbyterian clergyman and author who played an important role in the PCUSA’s “fundamentalist-modernist” controversy of the 1920s and 1930s. Macartney is known, for example, for his famous 1922 sermon “Shall Unbelief Win?” — a response to Harry Emerson Fosdick’s "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” Both of these significant sermons have recently been added to Log College Press.

From his posthumously-published The Making of a Minster: The Autobiography of Clarence E. Macartney (1961), pp. 63-64, we glean some insight into the background of this staunch defender of the faith. What is particularly interesting is the place that family worship held in his home as he grew up in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. His family was members of the RPCNA congregation pastored by Robert James George (whose address on family religion is available to read on Log College Press). In this extract, Macartney speaks of his first religious impressions.

I received my earliest and most abiding religious impressions where they are always first received, in the home. Family worship was universal in the homes of our neighborhood, and we had “worship” every morning before breakfast and at night before going to bed. Father would say to one of the children, “Bring the books,” whereupon the black-bound Bibles were brought from the shelf in the dumbwaiter which now serves as a closet. After we had sung a Psalm we then read around the circle the verses of the chapter for the day, after which we knelt for prayer, by Father when he was at home, or, if he was away, by Mother. My first lessons in religion and in reading I had on those mornings at family worship, sitting on my father’s knee as he, with his long forefinger, pointed out the words to me. The 121st Psalm was a favorite. We always sang that great “Traveler’s Psalm” when any of the family was starting off to college, or on a journey. The benediction of that family altar has, I am sure, followed all of us through life thus far, and will, I hope, follow us up to the gate of heaven. Father was wont to conclude his petitions at the family altar with the prayer, “May we all get home at last!” Still on life’s pilgrimage, the children who remain can hear the music of that grand 121st Psalm as we sang it in the Scottish metrical version:

“I too the hills will lift mine eyes,
From whence doth come mine aid
My safety cometh from the Lord,
Who heaven and earth hath made.”

The most treasured recollection of my mother’s religious training is that of singing by our bedside at night in her clear, sweet voice the words of the hymn,

“There is a happy land,
Far, far away.”

On Sabbath afternoons in the springtime and summer mother took us down to a moss-covered rock under the sassafras trees on the hillside and told us the deathless tales of the Bible. She had a little red-bound hymn book out of which we sang with her some of the hymns. Covenanters were not supposed to sing the hymns; only the Psalms of David, and those Psalms are, indeed, the sweetest music this side of heaven. Yet Mother was always free in her religious life, and did not hesitate, on occasions, to sing the hymns. I am sure that the singing of those hymns on the summer afternoons on that moss-covered rock on the hillside in the long ago did much to introduce us to the warmth and tenderness of personal religion.

Family worship as boy left a deep impression on the man who later devoted his life to the ministry of the gospel, and as a witness to Old School, Biblical religion. Seeds planted early may, in the providence and mercy of God, bear much good fruit.

Presbyterians and the Revolution

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In 1876, on the centennial anniversary of America’s birth as a nation, William Pratt Breed published a volume titled Presbyterians and the Revolution, which examined the historic connection between Presbyterianism and resistance to tyranny.

As Breed notes, Calvinism has imbued a spirit of civil and ecclesiastical liberty into the freedom-loving peoples of Switzerland, France, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, and the American colonies, not to mention the Waldenses and others. Presbyterians have long stood at the forefront of the struggle for “lex rex,” or limited, just government, in opposition to tyranny both in the state and in the church. The heritage of the Scottish Covenanters and French Huguenots in this regard contributed much to the American Presbyterian witness on behalf of Biblical liberty.

Here is the Table of Contents for Breed’s work:

  1. Presbyterians and the Centennial

  2. Presbyterianism A Representative Republican Form of Government

  3. Presbyterianism Odious to Tyrants

  4. Presbyterians Spirit in Harmony With That of the Revolution

  5. The Westmoreland County Resolutions

  6. The Mecklenburg Declaration

  7. Presbyterian Zeal and Suffering

  8. Formal Action of the Presbyterian Church

  9. Declaration of Independence and Dr. John Witherspoon

  10. Organization of the Confederacy

  11. Monument to Witherspoon

Breed quotes from a classic work by Ezra H. Gillett (History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States) to show how closely allied Presbyterianism and the cause of American liberty were:

To the privations, hardships and cruelties of the war the Presbyterians were pre-eminsntly exposed. In them the very essence of rebellion was supposed to be concentrated, and by the wanton plunderings and excesses of the marauding parties they suffered severely. Their Presbyterianism was prima facie evidence of guilt. A house that had a large Bible and David's Psalms in metre in it was supposed, as a matter of course, to be tenanted by rebels. To sing "Old Rouse" was almost as criminal as to have leveled a loaded musket at a British grenadier.

Breed quotes Gillett further to list the heroic sacrifices of Presbyterian clergymen who served and suffered during the war. Among the names listed are John Rodgers, Azel Roe, Jacob Green, Henry Pattillo, David Caldwell, William Tennent III, Hugh McAden, Alexander MacWhorter and many others. We shared an honor roll of Presbyterians who served the cause of American liberty last year as well.

Breed pays special attention to the role of John Witherspoon, who was the only clergyman to sign the 1776 Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.

The Calder statue of John Witherspoon at the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

The Calder statue of John Witherspoon at the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (photo by R. Andrew Myers).

All of these names — their stories, their service, their sacrifices — recalled to mind by Breed, are worthy of remembrance today, just as they were in 1876. The cause of freedom, both civil and ecclesiastical, is always linked to the right honor of Christ the King, who rules the nations. The record of American Presbyterian contributions to civil liberty constitutes a noble history, though filled with flaws and inconsistencies, but that history is sometimes shrouded in mist, and is in danger of being forgotten. Presbyterians and the Revolution is book worth reading, especially on this Independence Day.

Andrew W. Blackwood: How Christ Enables Me to Solve My Problems

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The noted Presbyterian preacher and homiletics professor Andrew Watterson Blackwood (1882-1966) was a tireless worker for Christ. But twice in his life he was sidelined by “nervous breakdowns,” the first of which occurred while he was studying at Princeton. Later in life, he wrote an account of the lessons learned from those experiences. It appears in Jay E. Adams, The Homiletical Innovations of Andrew W. Blackwood, pp. 42-43.

HOW CHRIST ENABLES ME TO SOLVE MY PROBLEMS

In 1905 I suffered a nervous and physical breakdown, which lasted almost a year. In 1936 I had another breakdown, much worse, which kept me from teaching and preaching for a year and a half. Partly through a kind physician who loved the Lord, I regained health and strength of body and mind. During the past 18 years the Lord has enabled me to carry a full-time load as a professor, to conduct divine services almost every Lord’s Day in the past few years, and to write 18 books, 15 of them for ministers, and all 15 still on the active list. Now I am four years beyond the seminary’s age of retirement, and still He gives me work to do, with strength to do it, day by day, and peace of heart.

So I gladly accept an invitation to testify, not in a spirit of boastfulness, but of gratitude. As our late friend and neighbor Albert Einstein once told Mrs. Blackwood, with reference to his work in science, “I have nothing but what I have received.” He was thinking about greatness in the eyes of men; I am giving thanks for goodness from the hand of God….

…Gradually the Lord has taught me how to live from day to day, as ever in His sight. He has been teaching me what I should have learned as a young minister. Once I asked an older man, active and honored in state and church, “How is it that in a day, a year, or a lifetime you can do more work and better work than any person I have ever known?” He smiled as he told me, “My Lord taught me a long while ago to live without worry, work without hurry, and look forward without fear.” That sounds like Philippians 4:6, 7.

Looking back, I can see that apart from physical causes my breakdowns came from my shortcomings and failures, due no doubt to ambition. I had not learned to live and work and hope in the spirit of my older friend. Neither had I gained mastery over despondency, insomnia, and related disorders, which ought to have no place in a life where the Spirit dwells. I had not even learned how to deal with my body as my father, a horse-and-buggy doctor, took care of his team, and as I, a typical Scotsman, try to take care of my automobile. I do not mean that I ever drank, or abused my body in various other ways, but that I suffered from stress and strain, self-imposed, with resulting worry and waste. Friction in my soul!

Now as I look forward the sunset years I trust that I shall keep on learning how to live day by day, as ever in His sight. With Paul I hope that I shall always feel able to say, “for me to live is Christ”; and with Browning, “The best part is yet to be.” “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood .and righteousness.” Hence I look forward to the unseen world with peace, with hope, and with more than a few foretastes of heaven’s joy. I hope, too, that I shall not meet my Lord with empty hands and a broken heart.

Andrew W. Blackwood

Ruling Elder Moderators: A Sermon (or Address) by Ralph E. Prime

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To introduce this new addition to Log College Press, we quote from Joan S. Gray and Joyce C. Tucker, Presbyterian Polity For Church Officers, p. 42:

One fascinating document from the last decade of the nineteenth century is a pamphlet titled “A Sermon or Address on the Elder Moderator and the Ruling Elder.” This sermon was delivered before the Presbytery of Westchester of the Synod of New York at its meeting in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1894. Ralph E. Prime began by recounting his experience as the first elder to moderate his presbytery. One of the first questions which arose was whether he would preach the sermon, even though he titled it “A Sermon or Address.” The sermon was a learned lecture on the history of presbyterian polity and of the Presbyterian Church. Prime told story after story of elders serving as moderators of various judicatories in various places. About one-third of the way through his sermon Prime concluded that in matters related to polity it is, indeed, right to make changes! Having reached that conclusion, he turned to the text from Romans 11:13: “I magnify mine office.” And indeed Prime did! He called on elders to exercise their office according to the highest standards of faithfulness.

Ralph E. Prime, Sr. (1840-1920) was a remarkable man. Born in Matteawan, New York, Prime went on to fight for the Union in the War Between the States, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel (he was nominated by President Lincoln to serve as brigadier general), and practiced law after the war was over for more than four decades. He was a city attorney for the town of Yonkers, New York, and served as deputy attorney general for the State of New York. He was a member of the New York Society of Military Order of the Loyal Legion, the Society of the War of 1812, the Empire State Society of Sons of the American Revolution, the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America, and as President of the American Flag Association. He was also a long-time Presbyterian ruling elder who served as clerk of his session, and as a delegate to five Pan-Presbyterian Alliance council meetings in Europe and the United States. He was a church historian, a published author and a Mason. To the point for this post, he was the first ruling elder to serve as moderator of his presbytery (Westchester) and synod (New York).

Being the first ruling elder of his presbytery to serve as moderator, Prime was forced to confront the question of whether it was proper for him as a ruling elder (and not a minister) to deliver the traditional moderator’s sermon. In fact, as he recounts the event, he was asked that very question (but it remain unanswered) before the vote to elect him to the position was taken.

In his discourse, Prime takes his audience through an historical tour of the precedents for him serving in the capacity of moderator. He relates the story of George Buchanan in Scotland, and others in England, and in the PCUSA and the PCUS, who all served as ruling elder moderators. He also examines the relevant portions of the book of church order, and affirms his conviction that there is one office of elder, teaching and ruling, before proceeding to “magnify” that office by expounding on what the Scriptures teach about the duties of elders, and stirring up his fellow presbyters to faithful service to the kingdom.

Recently, we have obtained a copy of this discourse, photographed it, and uploaded it to Log College Press. It is an interesting read to be sure, and it shows both the knowledge and passion of the author for this subject. We nevertheless take note of the ambiguity of the title - is it a sermon or is it an address? Read it for yourself and decide.

A poem for the last day of June by Lucien V. Rule

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As the first half of 2020 comes to a close, here is a sweet reminder that no matter what our lot, we have reason to fall to our knees with thanksgiving and offer praise to our Maker and Redeemer. This poem was published by Lucien V. Rule in 1903.

Worship

The passing days are full of pain
Unless she sweetly smiles on me;
And I would give all worldly gain
One kindly look of love to see,
Dear heart,
One kindly look of love to see.

The fields of June are golden fair,
The skies above are blissful blue;
But song is dumb with dark despair
Unless my love is fond and true,
Dear heart,
Unless my love is fond and true.

She guards her holy secret well,
Her trembling lips have naught to say;
But tender eyes more truly tell
The tale of love than poet’s lay,
Dear heart,
The tale of love than poet’s lay.

Ah, God, I thank Thee, and am glad
Again; and I will doubt no more;
My soul shall sing where it was sad,
And from its lowly sackcloth soar,
Dear heart,
And from its lowly sackcloth soar.

Sure, Heaven itself hath peace like this;
Sure, angels feel a love so sweet!
O sacred trust, O speechless bliss!
I fall silence at thy feet,
Dear heart,
I fall in silence at thy feet.

His daughter loved to read: a vignette about Rev. David and Lucy Laney

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Lucy Craft Laney (1854-1933) is a beloved name in Georgia. Her portrait hangs in the Georgia state capitol. Her labors for 50 years as principal of the Haines Institute for Industrial and Normal Education — the first school for African-American children in Augusta, Georgia — are treasured. She contributed much to the furtherance of education among African-Americans in her state. She was a life-long Presbyterian, and was also the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Rev. David Laney (1814-1894).

David was born a slave in 1814 in Sumter, South Carolina, and trained well in carpentry, but purchased his own freedom as well as that of his wife, Louisa Tracey Laney. Lucy was born twenty years later, in Macon, Georgia, the sixth child among ten biological siblings, several cousins and at least one orphan who was embraced by the family. David went on to become the first pastor of the Washington Avenue Presbyterian Church in Macon (ordained in 1866), and helped to found the Knox Presbytery and Atlantic Synod of the PCUSA. Lucy, meanwhile, was prepared from early in life to help educate young minds.

Mary Jackson McCrorey wrote a tribute to Lucy which appeared in the June 1934 issue of The Crisis. One vignette which she relates has to do with Lucy’s love of reading and her father’s encouragement.

Miss Laney was prepared — to begin with, by inheritance. She was bred, born and reared in a Christian family….

Her father was a Presbyterian minister with qualifications of marked leadership. Her mother and father had some education, they were for the times more than ordinarily intelligent, and they had high ideals in living. Both of them read good literature. He in particular read much of it. She handled a great deal of the kind while doing the delicate, careful work in looking after the home of her owner. They bought for their children good books and papers like those bought for their owners’ children. Miss Laney herself had read several of George Eliot’s books, Charles Lamb’s Tales of Shakespeare before reading several of Shakespeare’s plays and she had read other standard literature long before she left home to go to school. Years after when she was at her best in developing her school she would enjoy telling me how she would get away with the other children in the family by her love for reading. She would sit on the woodpile reading while the sisters were washing the dishes and the boys were carrying in the wood for the night. When they complained because she was not helping to wash the dishes, she would say, “Pa, I just must finish reading this book.” And he would say, “Let her alone. I want her to finish her book.” How she chuckled to tell of getting out of washing those dishes. She often said in a modest manner to make me think that her mother and father, and especially her father, were looking for evidences in her life of much they had hoped and prayed and worked for in the making of their family.

A child who reads will often grow up with a love for learning. Certainly this was the case with Lucy Craft Laney, and she passed on that love of learning to many during a long career spent educating the young of Georgia.

Friday Fun from Log College Press

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For a little Friday fun, we are sharing some interesting facts about select authors at Log College Press. It is intended as a revealing, even light-hearted, look at some curious and interesting facets of the group of writers that constitutes this assembly of Presbyterian writers.

We begin with some current stats of interest:

  • Who is the most prolific author on Log College Press? - B.B. Warfield (currently there are 253 works by Warfield on LCP)

  • Who is the oldest author on Log College Press? - Arthur Judson Brown (died at the age of 106)

  • Who is the youngest author on Log College Press? - Archibald Johnston (died at the age of 25) - although we also have a published letter by A.A. Hodge written when he was 10 years old.

  • In what year was the earliest Log College Press author born? - Robert Hunt was born c. 1568.

  • In what year did the most recent Log College Press author enter glory? - Ernest Trice Thompson died in 1985.*

  • Who was the most well-traveled author on Log College Press? - Pioneer missionary John Cuthbertson traveled an estimated 70,000 miles during his 40-year career.

  • How many African-American authors are on Log College Press? - 40

  • How many authors on Log College Press were formerly slaves? - 18

  • How many Native-American authors are on Log College Press? - 5

  • How many female authors are on Log College Press? - 16

  • How many authors were U.S. Presidents? - 3

And then we have some more subjective matters.

  • What is the most amusing title found on Log College Press? - Do Not Marry a Fop by William B. Sprague

  • Who was the most “dashing” author on Log College Press? - Chauncey Webster wore the top hat very well.

Chauncey Webster

Chauncey Webster

Let us know what else you would like to know about the authors found at Log College Press. We welcome suggestions for additions to the site as well. Meanwhile, have a great Friday!

*Part of the criteria to be an author featured on Log College Press is that the author must be born prior to 1900.

"Time Is," a poem by Henry J. Van Dyke, Jr.

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Henry Jackson Van Dyke, Jr. had many notable friends, including Mark Twain (he officiated at Twain’s funeral) and Helen Keller. Also among his circle of friends was Spencer and Katrina Trask, a remarkable couple — with ties to Princeton and Thomas Edison — whose estate near Saratoga Springs, New York, was known as Yaddo. On that estate a garden was built with a sundial for which Van Dyke wrote an inscription, which has since become one of his most famous poetic works. The poem he wrote was, in part, read at Princess Diana’s 1997 funeral. It is the second half, often referred to as “Time Is,” which is most remembered and is perhaps most beloved. It can be read in Music and Other Poems (1904).

Katrina Task’s sundial at Yaddo.

Katrina Task’s sundial at Yaddo.

Katrina’s Sun-Dial

Hours fly.
Flowers die:
New days,
New ways:
Pass by!
Love stays.

Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not.

American Presbyterians in Europe

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St. Augustine, when he speaks of the great advantages of travelling, says, that the world is a great book, and none study this book so much as a traveller. They that never stir from home read only one page of this book. -- John Feltham, The English Enchiridion (1799)

Like many today who might be itching to travel again, American Presbyterians in the 19th century also sought the benefits of a long voyage, and Europe was one particular favorite destination. Among the life experiences of authors found at Log College Press, trips to Europe are a recurring theme, and our Travelogue page highlights this.

The letters, journals, books and poetry that resulted from such trips are a valuable historical record of life on one side of the pond as viewed through the eyes of residents from the other side. In today’s post, we take a closer look at these memorials of their experiences.

  • James Waddel Alexander — J.W. Alexander traveled to England, France, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland on a six-month tour of Europe in 1851. He met Adolphe Monod in Paris. Later, in 1857, he returned to Europe and met Charles H. Spurgeon in England, and Thomas Guthrie in Scotland, while also visiting France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. His reports on these travel experiences are recorded in Forty Years' Familiar Letters, and also in James W. Garretson, Thoughts on Preaching & Pastoral Ministry: Lessons from the Life and Writings of James W. Alexander.

  • Joseph Addison Alexander — J.A. Alexander spent a year in Europe (1833-1834). Time was spent in England, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. From diary extracts given in H.C. Alexander’s The Life of Joseph Addison Alexander, we learn many fascinating details about the people he met, and the poems he wrote, inspired by his European travels.

  • Henry Martyn Baird — Baird spent much of his childhood in France and Switzerland, and then after graduating from the University of New York, lived in Greece and Italy during 1851-1853, and studied at the University of Athens. Besides his many written studies of the French Huguenots, he authored Modern Greece: A Narrative of a Residence and Travels in that Country (1856).

  • Robert Baird — Baird visited Europe many times as recorded in H.M. Baird’s biography The Life of the Rev. Robert Baird, D. D. (1866). Baird himself wrote about his travels in Visits to Northern Europe (1841) and Old Sights With New Eyes (1854). His travels also enabled him to write with personal knowledge about Protestantism in Italy.

  • John Henry Barrows — Barrows’ world travels, detailed in A World Pilgrimage (1897), included England, France, Germany, Greece and Italy.

  • Robert Jefferson Breckinridge — R.J. Breckinridge was appointed by the PCUSA General Assembly to serve as its representative in Europe, leading to a trip to England, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. His travels are detailed in Memoranda of Foreign Travel (1839 and, in 2 vols., 1845).

  • George Barrell Cheever — Cheever’s journey though the French-Swiss Alps is recorded in Wanderings of a Pilgrim in the Shadow of Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau Alp (1848).

  • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler — Cuyler’s travels through England, France, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Greece, and the Czech Republic, are recorded in From the Nile to Norway and Homeward (1881).

  • George Duffield IV — Duffield’s travels were published in the Magazine of Travel during 1857, and later republished in Travels in the Two Hemispheres; or, Gleanings of a European Tour (1858).

  • Henry Highland Garnet — Garnet traveled to Europe in 1851, including England, Ireland Scotland and Germany. His speeches from some of those locations are found here.

  • Stephen Henry Gloucester — Gloucester, pastor of the Lombard Street Central Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, visited England and Scotland in 1847-1848. The record of his trip, and letters which he wrote home, can be found in Robert Jones, Fifty years in the Lombard Street Central Presbyterian Church (1894).

  • Charles Hodge — From 1826 to 1828, Hodge traveled to Europe, studying in Paris and and wrote a handwritten journal of his experiences (primarily in Germany) available to read here. See also A.A. Hodge’s The Life of Charles Hodge for more on these travels, including letters written to home.

  • Alexander McLeod — McLeod visited England and Scotland in 1830. His experiences are recounted in Samuel Brown Wylie’s Memoir of Alexander McLeod (1855). Wylie’s own trip to Europe in 1802-1803 is also discussed in this volume.

  • James Clement Moffat — Moffat recounts his experiences in the summer of 1872 in Song and Scenery; or, A Summer Ramble in Scotland (1874).

  • Walter William Moore — Moore recounts his experiences in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands in A Year in Europe (1904, 1905).

  • James W.C. Pennington — The “Fugitive Blacksmith’s” s travels to England, Scotland and Germany are detailed in Christopher L. Webber, American to the Backbone: The Life of James W. C. Pennington, the Fugitive Slave Who Became One of the First Black Abolitionists. He was the first African-American in Europe to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

  • Samuel Irenaeus Prime — Prime’s travels were recorded in Travels in Europe and the East: A Year in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, 2 vols. (1855, 1856).

  • Joel Edson Rockwell — Rockwell’s journey through France, Germany, Italy, England, Scotland and Ireland is chronicled in Scenes and Impressions Abroad (1860).

  • William Buell Sprague — Sprague writes in the preface to his Visits to European Celebrities (1855), “In 1828, and again in 1836, I had the privilege of passing a few months on the continent of Europe and in Great Britain. In both visits, especially the latter, I was more interested to see men than things; and I not only made the acquaintance, so far as I could, of distinguished individuals as they came in my way, but sometimes made circuitous routes in order to secure to myself this gratification.” See also his Letters From Europe, in 1828 (1828).

  • Thomas De Witt Talmage — A world traveller, Talmage wrote Great Britain Through American Spectacles (1885); From the Pyramids to the Acropolis: Sacred Places Seen Through Biblical Spectacles (1892); and The Earth Girdled: The World as Seen To-Day (1896).

These are some of the men at Log College Press who spent time in Europe, and their writings often tell us about life abroad, and often inspired them in various ways, just as travels inspire us. It is human nature to want to travel, and if we are limited in our ability to do so at present, we can at least turn to others who have done so and be inspired by them.

W.G.T. Shedd was born 200 years ago

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On June 21, 1820, in Acton, Massachusetts, one of the premier 19th century American Presbyterian theologians was born — William Greenough Thayer Shedd.

He studied at Andover Theological Seminary, graduating in 1843. He went to minister in Brandon, Vermont and also briefly at the Brick Church in New York City. His academic skills led him to serve further as a professor of English literature at the University of Vermont, professor of sacred rhetoric at Auburn Theological Seminary, professor of church history at Andover Theological Seminary, and professor of sacred literature and systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary. He died in New York City on November 17, 1894.

He is perhaps best-known today for his profound writings, some of which are still in print, which include:

  • Dogmatic Theology (3 vols);

  • A History of Christian Doctrine (2 vols.);

  • Homiletics and Pastoral Theology;

  • Sermons to the Natural Man and Sermons to the Spiritual Man;

  • The Doctrine of Endless Punishment;

  • A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary Upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans;

  • Theological Essays and Literary Essays;

  • Calvinism: Pure and Mixed - A Defence of the Westminster Standards; and

  • Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: A Miscellany.

Michael Jensen has made the case that Shedd is one of those theologians especially worth getting to know. Read his writings and more about the man here, and remember that he was born on this day 200 years ago, while his contributions to the church endure.

New Devotional Writings and Sermons by T.D. Witherspoon

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As we continue to build our Presbyterian library at Log College Press, we wanted to highlight some new additions to the Thomas Dwight Witherspoon page that are well worth checking out. These new materials comprises mostly devotional pieces and sermons which he published in the 1880s and 1890s.

Here is a list of some of the new additions:

  • Saul Preaching Christ (1883);

  • Samuel the Judge (1883);

  • Paul at Corinth (1884);

  • Confidence in God (1884);

  • The True Oblation (1884);

  • God’s Great Sacrifice (1884);

  • Desire for Communion (1884);

  • The Material Decays — Only the Spiritual Abides: A Baccalaureate Sermon (1884);

  • Sowing in Tears (1884);

  • Paul Before Agrippa (1885);

  • The Gracious Invitation (1885);

  • The God of Jeshurun [opening sermon before the PCUS General Assembly] (1885);

  • The Christian’s Surrender to Christ (1885);

  • The Priceless Legacy: A Sermon to Young Men (1890); and

  • Christ as the Rain (1891).

The last devotional meditation was written on a rainy Lord’s Day and uses the imagery in Scripture from Hosea 6:3 (“He shall come to us as the rain”) to portray Christ as a gentle rain who gives life and refreshment to our souls.

Feel free to browse, meditate on and download these works for further study. T.D. Witherspoon is a treasure, and we hope to keep adding to his page as we go along, D.V. Also, if you have not already, be sure to check out his Five Points of Presbyterianism.

Early American Covenanter Doctrine of the Civil Magistrate's Power Circa Sacra

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The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and sacraments for the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God. — 1646 Westminster Confession 23:3

The Westminster Assembly’s doctrine of church-state relations as outlined in chapter 23 particularly was a testimony against Erastianism, despite the fact that a few members of the Assembly were of the Erastian party. The Assembly’s position was contra-Erastian, and instead, an affirmation of the Presbyterian view that civil and ecclesiastical authorities are to work together, in their proper and distinct spheres, to advance the kingdom of God on earth — a position sometimes referred to as the Establishment Principle — exemplified in the very existence of the Westminster Assembly, which was summoned by the British Parliament to remedy the ecclesiastical situation in that nation.

The principle of national establishment of religion was partially rolled back by the 1788 amendments to the Westminster Standards by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA), and even the present-day Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) — which does affirm the duty of nations and their rulers to covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ to advance his kingdom on the earth — objects in its current Testimony to the portion of WCF 23:3 which follows the colon.

But a paper written in 1834 by William Sloane and affirmed by the RP Synod explains and defends the Westminster view of the relationship of church and state. An Erastian view — in which the civil ruler is the supreme authority in ecclesiastical matters — has reference to the power of the magistrate in sacris, that is, in sacred things. But the title of Sloane’s paper is Argument on the Magistrate’s Power Circa-Sacra, that is, about sacred things, which reflects the historic Presbyterian position (a position sketched notably in William Hetherington’s introduction to Robert Shaw’s Exposition of the Westminster Confession).

Sloane’s paper has recently been added to Log College Press and can be read here. In this published overture, Sloane explains what Scripture and the Confession teach in regards to the duty of magistrates with respect to upholding and defending the church, in contrast to Erastians, Papists and those who believed that the civil magistrate should have nothing to do with religion at all. He responds to common objections against the establishment principle; and argues that as God is the creator of both civil and ecclesiastical government, distinct but coordinate authorities intended to serve God on earth, and that all persons are bound by the second commandment, according to each person’s place and calling, to remove all monuments of idolatry (WLC 108 - which was never altered by the PCUSA, et al.), magistrates have certain duties to protect the church and uphold true religion in society.

For the full argument by William Sloane concerning the magistrate’s power and authority in matters circa sacra, visit his page here. It is a valuable window into the views of the early American Covenanter Church and the confessional position on church-state relations as inherited by them from the Westminster Assembly.

A.A. Hodge's Table Talks on the Lord's Day

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From the Table Talks of A.A. Hodge, today we glean some extracts having to do with the Lord’s Day, or Christian Sabbath. He has written more extensively on this topic in other locations, such as this treatise on The Day Changed and the Sabbath Preserved, but these bite-sized extracts are also worthy of consideration.

The Essence of the Sabbath.

That a regular portion of time, appointed by God, to be observed by all men, should be set apart for rest and the worship of God,—this is the essence of the Sabbath ; that one-seventh of time should be so set apart is, relatively to this, the accident. It is, however, the case that one-seventh of time has been positively set apart by God for a Sabbath, and a particular one-seventh of time. The choice has not been left to us.

Duration and Extent of the Sabbath Law.

"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," is as much a moral law as "Thou shalt not steal" — the law founded on the relations of property. Its duration and extent are determined by the character of the institution and the abiding reason for it; and also by Scripture, in the New Testament portion of which its permanence is incidentally recognised, though there is no specific re-establishment of it, any more than of infant church membership.

The Lord’s Day and the Sabbath the Same.

Our "Lord's Day" and the Jewish "Sabbath" are not different in essence. Both are days of rest and festival, not of gloom. The essence of the Sabbath could not be changed without changing the nature of man. But the accidents of it may be changed by competent authority, and were actually changed by the college of Apostles, for a sufficient reason.

The Change of Day.

The stream of Sabbath observance on the seventh day of the week came right down to the time of the Apostles; it took a bend at that point; and it has come right on ever after. Only they could have altered it; the authority of no other would have wrought such an universal change in the Christian world. The adequate reason for the change was, the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ and the new creation it secured. The competent authority was that of the Apostles, and no other. (The trouble with the hierarchical bishops now is, that they are all Apostles, though they have not seen the Lord — not a soul of them!)

Holiness and Health: Words of Wisdom from William Nevins

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William Nevins, whose ordination sermon was preached by Samuel Miller in 1820, died at a young age (37). In the last year of his life (and ministry as pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Baltimore), while battling illness, his diary records his thoughts on health matters. In his city, the cholera raging. But what mattered more to him was faithful service to the Lord. Hear his thoughts on health and holiness from his diary, letters and from his pulpit, extracted from his Select Remains, published after his death by William S. Plumer.

In one undated letter, Nevins writes:

If all my relatives were followers of the Lord, I should feel easy about them, though in the midst of pestilence. Death, even by the cholera, is gain to the Christian.

From his diary:

August 28, 1832. The cholera is raging in the midst of us, but praised be God, I and mine are spared, not for our deserts, but for his great mercies. I feared that when 1 should be called to visit a subject of this disease, I should be appalled at the prospect; but when the summons actually came, I was enabled to obey it without the smallest hesitation or trembling, and to determine at once to comply with every similar call in future, the which I have been aided to do, God gives his servants grace just when they want it; not in anticipation of their necessities. When I think of dying, I feel, if not an unpreparedness, yet an unwillingness to leave the world now, and an inability to exclaim, 'Oh death, where is thy sting?’ but I trust it would not be so, were I actually called to die. I am persuaded there is nothing which the grace of God cannot do for me.

November 20, 1832. On the 26th of September, I was taken ill of a bilious fever, by which I have been laid aside until now, and from which, I have not yet entirely recovered. What thanks do I not owe to my preserving God, that he spared me when so many others were taken! How gracious was he, when the pangs were upon me! But now, that they are removed, how soon I forget God! I am afraid my sickness has not been sanctified to me, I find the same wicked heart in me as ever. Oh how sinfully I live from day to-day! How I suffer little matters to disturb my peace and ruffle my temper, and lead me into sin! How the very minutiae of this world affect me! I am ashamed of the petty cares and anxieties of which I am the subject. I am careful and troubled about many things, and so neglect the one thing needful; and then how many fears I have, unworthy of a Christian. Oh for that perfect love which casts out fear; oh, to know that I am one to whom the gracious God says, ' fear thou not, for I am with thee; I am thy God.’

July 9, 1833. I have been reading Baxter on our unreasonable unwillingness to die, that we may possess the saint's rest. Oh that God would make me willing to do and suffer all his will, just because it is his will. Oh that he would deliver me from all fear of death. His grace is sufficient, and his word is given, and his promise is sure. I will trust him and not be afraid. I shall not be left. He will not disappoint my confidence in him.

August 17, 1833. I have about me a dread of disease and death, such as I was not wont to have before the pestilence came, and which is very unbecoming a Christian. Oh to be delivered from it. Oh for that love which casts out fear.

September 13, 1833. I cannot bear the idea of living along from day to day, unprofitably to myself and others, without making any progress in personal holiness, and without benefiting the souls of others. I desire this day to live usefully — to do something for the glory of God and the good of man, and I resolve that with the Lord's help I will.

September 26, 1833. I would not let this day pass, without noting it as the anniversary of my sickness. This day, one year, I was attacked by that illness, which brought me nearer the grave than I ever was before. But God mercifully spared me, and has lengthened out my term, while he has cut short that of others. Poor brother Fullerton is taken in the dawning of life and usefulness.

December 21, 1833. I thank the Lord for that calm and even and happy state of mind in which I have been for the last few days. May he continue and increase my peace, making it like a river, flowing in a constant, gentle and unrippled current, increasing daily in extent and depth, until it shall reach the interminable ocean of serenity. I feel as if God will revive us. Oh may he not be offended by any act or omission. May none of us grieve the good Spirit of the Lord.

January 30, 1834. Nothing gives me more pain than the fear that I am living to no purpose, neither growing in grace myself, nor promoting the salvation of others. Oh God, let it not be so. Make me useful. Let me not live in vain. " I desire to have these several things, viz.

1. In all I do, a single eye to the glory of God.

2. A uniform and deep sense of my entire dependance on God, especially for the success of my ministry.

3. I desire to feel continually the sweet and powerful constraining of a Saviour's love. I would feel him to be ever and very precious to me.

4. I would endure as seeing him who is invisible. 1 would feel continually, 'Thou God seest me.'

5. I desire to be delivered from all sin. I would be a partaker of the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I would be sincere, upright, true.

6. I desire to be able to say, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none on earth I desire besides thee.' Oh to have such a love for God and such a delight in him.

7. I desire to be willing to die, whenever the Lord wills to take me. I want to be weaned from this world before I am taken from it. I would not be driven away. I would go willingly.

8. I desire to have no will of my own in any thing, but to say and feel always, ‘Thy will be done.’

February 3, 1834….I choose for my motto this, ‘To me to live is Christ.’

May 3, 1834. I returned yesterday from Philadelphia and New York, where, for three or four weeks, I have been for my health, which has failed me. The Lord has laid me aside from his active service, for how long 1 know not ; whether altogether, he knows. May his will be mine, and may they not merely accidentally coincide, but may his will be mine because it is his. On the first of May, in Philadelphia, I wrote as follows:

O Lord, let me have now, though all unworthy, a little sweet communion with thee: canst thou, with all thy care of worlds, attend to me? Thou canst, for even worlds are no cares to thee! And wilt thou? Wilt thou so condescend, not merely to such littleness, but to such guilt? O how unworthy I am of what I ask! I am convinced that no one is more unworthy than I am. How can any one be more unworthy ? If mercy were any thing merited, I should be sure of never receiving it. Oh how I spoil my actions by my motives ! My heart is not right even when my conduct is. Oh thou who ponderests hearts and weighest spirits, sanctify my motives. Make them such as thou wouldst have them.

May 6, 1834. I ask not, O Lord, that thy will may coincide with mine, but mine with thine. I am only in a very subordinate sense in the hands of physicians and other advisers. I am in the Lord’s hands. There I ought to be. There may I delight to be. O for confidence.

May 13, 1834. Will the Lord deign to restore my voice to me, and to allow me once more to preach Jesus? I am not needed; and I am unworthy. But may such he employs. I shall esteem it a great favor. I shall praise him forever for it. I am too fond of life and this world. Oh, I am too unwilling to die. I cannot say to death, ‘Where is thy sting?’ I would be weaned from earth and time. I would desire to depart and be with Christ. I would see and feel that to be far better. Oh for sweet and complete submission to the divine will.

May 20, 1834. Will the Lord dictate the means I should employ for the recovery of my health, and then bless those means. O may I love Jesus more before I preach him again, and have a clearer and more satisfactory experience of the work of grace on my own heart, that out of the abundance of the heart, my mouth may henceforth speak to sinners. I would be careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer, &c. Phil, iv, 6. Then I shall enjoy that peace of God, which passeth all understanding.

May 24, 1834. How I am held in bondage by the fear of death ! O that Christ would deliver me ! It was one great purpose of his death, to deliver those who, through fear of death are, all their lifetime, subject to bondage. Strange that I should be afraid and unwilling to go to my Father, to my Saviour, to my home and inheritance. Ah, it is because of unbelief. Last night I waked up with a pain in my breast, and how unduly it alarmed me—how unmanly, above all, how unchristian are my fears ! O that God would say to me, ' fear thou not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am thy God,' — that he would speak these words to my heart. O, I needed this affliction, and I ought not to desire its removal until it has answered the purpose for which it was sent. I have been an unfaithful minister. I wonder God should have borne with me so long. Wonderful is the patience of God ! To reflect on it, will be among the employments of eternity; — to contemplate and admire the long-suffering and forbearance of God ! How slow he is to anger!

My throat affection seems not so well for the last few days. But let not this distress me. I am in the best hands — in hands divine — in the very hands that were pierced for me, and from which no foreign power can pluck me. If I die, yet dying is not going out of those hands, or if it is, it is going from the hands to the bosom of God, — a gainful and blessed exchange. Will the Lord dictate what means I shall use for recovery, and bless those means, else the most wisely adapted will be of no avail.

June 1, 1834. Again, as last Sunday, I am detained from the house of God, and it is now more than two months since I preached. The Lord has some object in this affliction. May I not defeat it. O how strange it seems to me to have no voice to preach of Jesus. Shall I never again be permitted to tell sinners of him? Will the Lord counsel me in regard to going to Norfolk to-morrow. Let thy will be done. O Lord, thou canst make me well, and thou canst make me holy; speak but the word, and I shall be whole both in body and in soul. Thou art the physician of both. Thou alone canst mend thy own work. O for the privilege of preaching the gospel again! Lord sanctify this affliction to me. Help me to cast my burden on thee, and to make the best of every thing.

June 4, 1834. I am at Norfolk for the benefit of my health. How vain are all means without God’s blessing! And what slight remedies prove successful in his hands! May he bless the retirement this visit affords me to my soul! Ah, this is what is most out of order. I ask for health, but for grave I cry. Lord, hear my cry. I cannot move along without grace. Grace I ask, to be, and do, and suffer all though have me to. If Christ has no more work for me to do, how little he lets me off with; for how very little I have done for him. I have not been laborious for my Saviour; and much that I have seemed to do for him, I have reason to fear has been done for myself. Why should I not be willing to be released from further labor, if the Lord has no more for me to do. O, why so very reluctant to depart and be with Christ. Will the Lord be my wisdom and strength to-day.

June 20, 1834. I am in New York again for my health. I bless the Lord that I seem to be getting better….

I am in quest of health. How much more important to ‘follow holiness!’ I hope I desire the latter, the rather of the two — holiness, conformity, moral conformity to God, submission to his holy will.

July 11, 1834. I must record it to the praise and glory of God, that I feel better to-day than I have felt since I was taken sick. May I increase in holiness more rapidly than in health, being strengthened in the inner as well as outer man. O that God would give me the ‘earnest of the Spirit,’ that I also may be always confident, that in being absent from the body I shall be present with the Lord. I am persuaded God will be my counsellor.

It was in November 1834 that Nevins’ wife passed away and went to be with the Lord. It was nearly twelve years to the day after their wedding when she died of cholera. Six weeks later his mother-in-law also passed away. The grief, and submission to the divine will, expressed by Nevins in his diary is profound. But to keep with the particular theme of this post, we pass over this tremendous loss and resume our extracts, this time from a letter dated June 21, 1834:

Health is a precious blessing, but it is not the blessing of greatest price. Holiness is the inestimable pearl. What a wonderful book the Bible always is, but especially sometimes. How it speaks to the heart! It seems to be all alive!

After a partial recovery in the summer of 1834, Nevins’ health deteriorated especially after his wife’s death. In the spring of 1835, doctors sent him to Saint Croix in the West Indies (at that time owned by Denmark, now a part of the U.S. Virgin Islands) in hopes that the climate would benefit him. However, his body was in a long, slow decline from which he would not recover.

In September 1835, having returned to Baltimore, he made a substantial donation to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He told a friend, “There are one hundred dollars for the Board. It is, I suppose, the last donation I shall ever make to the cause of Christ. If you see any suitable way of saying it, I would like to have it known that the nearer I get to heaven, the dearer is the cause of missions to my heart.”

He died on September 14, 1835. His last words were: “Death — death, now, come Lord Jesus — dear Saviour.”

William and Martha Nevins are buried together at Westminster Burial Ground in Baltimore, Maryland.

William and Martha Nevins are buried together at Westminster Burial Ground in Baltimore, Maryland.

Most of his written legacy was published after his death, and his writings are indeed a treasure, some of which are still in print today, particularly, his Practical Thoughts and Thoughts on Popery. Read more about the man and his writings here, and consider his words — that health is a precious blessing, but holiness is an inestimable pearl.

These concluding thoughts come from an 1832 sermon which Nevins preached to his congregation in Baltimore while the cholera epidemic was raging.

There is a great deal of dying now. And it is apprehended by many that there will be more. Death is abroad. The insatiate archer has got a new arrow in his quiver, severer and sharper than any of the rest. A new terror clothes the brow of the king of terrors. The aged are sickening and dying, nor are the young men and maidens exempt. And it is appointed to us to die. We shall be sorry to part with any of you; but if you must go, we cannot feel indifferent as to how and where you go. There is a direction we would have you take, and a conveyance we would have you employ. If you must leave earth, let it be for heaven. If you must go, go by the safe way and regard your company. There is but one safe way into eternity. There is only one rod and one staff that can comfort in death. It is not morality, nor philosophy, nor the poetry of Christianity. And there is but one companion of the way, who can give the charm of society to death. You know his name. It is Jesus. Oh, that you did but trust in him! Oh, if you only loved him! Oh, would you but obey him! Oh, that you were not ashamed of him! Into his hands I am willing to resign you.

Alexander McLeod was born almost 250 years ago today

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"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." — Matthew Poole 

On June 12, 1774, in the Isle of Mull, Scotland, Alexander McLeod was born. He came to the United States as a young man in 1792, and would go on to become one of the leaders not only of his own denomination, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, but was well-respected as a leading voice among all branches of American Presbyterianism.

His pastoral ministry, where he served at Coldenham, New York and in New York City, lasted from 1801 until his death on February 17, 1833, which was mourned by many. He was instrumental in confirming the RPCNA’s early institutional opposition to slavery. McLeod also contributed to the founding of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, among many other endeavors on behalf of both the kingdom of God and the common good, which have had a lasting influence that endures today.

McLeod played a role in the founding of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary beginning as early as 1807 (Robert M. Copeland, Spare No Exertions: 175 Years of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, pp. 19, 23). McLeod was additionally involved in the establishment of the American Colonization Society; with Samuel Miller he furthered the work of the New York Bible Society; with John Stanford he worked to establish the New York Society for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb; and with Philip Milledoler he helped to organize the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews. He was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1809 at Middlebury College, Vermont. In 1812, he was unanimously elected to serve as Professor of Mathematics (replacing his first cousin, John Maclean, Sr., in that capacity) and as Vice-President of the College of New Jersey (Princeton), but he respectfully declined this invitation in order to serve his flock. In the midst of his regular preaching duties, he was also a prolific writer, publishing many works and contributing to many periodicals.

From his famous Ecclesiastical Catechism, he writes concerning the present disunity of the Church:

Seeing there are many distinct denominations of Christians, what is their duty toward one another?

To form one church of societies retaining their peculiar habits and prejudices, would only produce confusion, or substitute a base neutrality for Christian zeal It is the duty of every denomination to reform abuses, and endeavour, after conformity to the plan of church order appointed by Christ, that the Catholic Church may attain to the unity of the Spirit, and become visibly connected in the bond of peace.

In 2019, Log College Press republished one of McLeod’s major works, Messiah, Governor of the Nations of the Earth. Today, we remember that he was born almost 250 years ago and yet his voice still speaks to our generation.

An Action Sermon by David McAllister

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In 1891, the Eighth Street Reformed Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania observed its 25th anniversary. Rev. David McAllister was serving as pastor at the time. In a memorial volume recently added to Log College Press, Quarter-Centennial of the Pittsburgh Congregation of the Covenanter Church, 1866 to 1891, in which, among other discourses and sermons are found, there is an action sermon which he delivered which we take note of today.

An action sermon is a term for “the sermon preached at the communion service” (Hughes Oliphant Old, Holy Communion in the Piety of the Reformed Church, p. 648), as was customary in the Scottish Presbyterian tradition. And as was also customary, the text McAllister chose for the occasion was taken from the Song of Solomon, chap. 2, ver. 16: “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.” The title of his sermon was “The Relations of Covenanting and Communion.”

McAllister says of this verse, “This is the endearing expression of the bride, the church, concerning her husband, the Lord and Saviour. It is also the language of each believing soul concerning Christ.”

The marriage tie is thus the human relationship which our Lord has specially honored by making it a most eminent figure of the bond of union between himself and his people. This Song of songs and Song of love draws aside the curtain from the privacies and confidences and intimacies of that union which makes of twain one flesh and one true moral personality. The sensual mind looks upon the revelation and sees nothing but the reflection of its own carnality. But the spiritual mind looks upon the sacred mysteries, and sees shadowed forth, in all the emblems and tokens of pure and hallowed wedded love, the obligations and privileges of the covenant relation between Christ and those whom he chooses and possess as his own.

No wonder, then, that this Song of songs is so intimately associated with communion seasons. Perhaps no part of the Bible, unless it be the accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper as given by Paul in 1st Corinthians, and by the different evangelists, is so often the subject of sacrament meditations. How appropriate did we all feel the passage of Scripture to be the other evening, when in our preparation for this day’s festivity, we meditated in our prayer meeting on the “Banqueting House and the Banner of Love!” And now, as we draw near the banquet itself, how fitting is it that we should say in the language of our text, “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies!”

This affectionate declaration of the bride is the avowal of the covenant relation between the Bridegroom and herself. Her Beloved is hers and she is his. This declaration also affirms the fellowship or communion between the Bridegroom and all the individual members who constitute his bride, the church. They are the lilies, transformed in purity of character into the likeness of the Beloved, “the Lily of the valleys,” and therefore among them he delights to feed. In most intimate communion he feasts with all those who are in the covenant with himself. Let us bring together, then, these thoughts of covenanting and communion, and seek to trace the connection between them.

McAllister goes on to do just that, affirming that

  1. “The covenant relation constitutes the union which is essential to all true communion”;

  2. “Covenanting pledges the exclusive possession which promotes and intensifies communion”;

  3. “Covenant engagements serve to remove hindrances to communion”;

  4. “Covenanting quickens the gracious exercises in which communion positively consists”; and

  5. “By covenanting the believer is brought into special fullness of fellowship with Christ as the Covenant Head of all his people.”

The essence of McAllister’s argument in this sacramental sermon is that the covenant relationship between Christ and his church, portrayed in the Song of Solomon, is expressed most suitably in the public covenanting that pledges his church to love and serve him which, as he describes it, is both an inward and spiritual communion with the Lord, and a personal engagement and public identification with Christ and his kingdom on earth by means of solemn vows and holy conduct, walking in the faith of Christ by the lively work of the Holy Spirit.

There are three practical lessons with which McAllister leaves his hearers concerning the connection between covenanting and communion:

  1. “It teaches us to seek a firmer hold by faith upon the provisions of the covenant of grace”;

  2. “It suggests to us how we may make our whole life a season of communion with our Lord”; and

  3. “Our subject to-day points us to the perfect union and communion of the heavenly home.”

Though there are many hindrances in this life to the fullest and highest expression of the covenant relationship of believers to Christ, yet resting on the knowledge that “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” every believer may take comfort in knowing that

…the interruption and marring of the believer’s of the church’s communion with the Lord shall have an end. Christ shall perfect his work in every believing soul. The eternal day shall break. The shadows of sin and sorrow shall forever flee away. Over every mountain which separates his own from Christ he will come, and finally separate them from all that can hinder their communion with himself. His own in covenant relation, he will make them every one his own in every faculty and purpose and desires and activity. And then the marriage supper of the Lamb in all its fullness of glory and happiness will have come, and the bride, made ready for it, will know through the eternal ages the inexhaustible meaning of the words: “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.”

What sweet communion indeed!

William S. Plumer's Impeccable

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At Log College Press, we are excited to report that we expect our newest publication to be available soon: William S. Plumer’s Impeccable: The Person and Sinless Character of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Originally published in 1876, this new edition of a remarkable volume is edited by Miles Smith and includes a foreword by Dr. Blair Smith.

More good news to report: we are having a launch sale this week for Plumer’s book which includes all our titles:

Preorder Impeccable today for $9.00 - 25% off the retail price.

All titles in our Bookstore are 25% off through June 12!
(Orders will ship after Impeccable arrives from the printers next week.)

Plumer, William Swan, Impeccable.jpg

The endorsements for Plumer’s Impeccable are indicative of its value to the church:

“William Swan Plumer’s short treatise, Impeccable, contends for the ‘spotless rectitude’ of Christ Jesus. Plumer’s command of theology evidences his skill as a gifted scholar. His concern for the flock of God discloses the heart of a caring shepherd. And so, he writes with precision to enlighten the mind, with compassion to reinforce godly faith, and with ardor to remove any ‘uneasiness felt.’ Impeccable stands on its own as a compelling case for Christ as non potest peccare. But the short treatise offers more. The pastor scholar Plumer exemplifies the type of spiritual leadership so desperately needed for the church around the world today.” — David B. Garner, Ph.D., Academic Dean, Vice President of Global Ministries, and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

 “William Swan Plumer (famous for his one volume Commentary on Psalms, said by Spurgeon to be the best) has, with perception and clarity, dealt with the essential issues in the Biblical teaching on the impeccability of Christ. He is right to the point in stating that ‘uncertainty is not necessary to freedom"; that is, his lack of indwelling sin and the intense holiness of his person never meant that he was not severely tempted to sin. Plumer properly shows how we need to keep in mind the relationship of the divine person to his two natures, and that he really was a true person – not a sort of machine. In his victory over the fiercest onslaughts of evil and temptation that ever came against a descendant of Adam lies our victory. Plumer will show you how!” — Douglas F. Kelly, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Reformed Theological Seminary

 “The re-publication of William Plumer’s nineteenth-century work on the sinlessness of Christ reaches into the vault of the historical past to bring out hidden treasure. Plumer’s work is brief but full of insight and breathes the air of wisdom of the church throughout the age. This little book is well worth the read.”— J. V. Fesko, Ph.D., Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi

Be sure to take advantage of this great opportunity, and order your copy of William S. Plumer’s Impeccable today!