April 2012

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April 10 : Thomas R. R. Cobb

10 April, 2012 in April 2012 by davidtmyers | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History: 

 To Be a Christian Attorney was his Highest Aspiration

Thomas Reade Roots Cobb was born at Cherry Hill, Jefferson Country, Georgia on April 10, 1823.   While still a child, his parents moved the family to  Athens, Georgia and he later attended the University of Georgia, graduating at the top of his class.  From that day forward, Thomas Cobb aspired to be a Christian attorney.

His membership was in the Presbyterian Church in Athens.  As a deeply religious man, he labored during the day as an attorney, and prayed in the church in the evenings.  Whether working on behalf of the state of Georgia through the courts, or laboring in revival meetings, he was the same earnest worker.   He was successful in implementing the reading of the Bible in schools in Georgia.

In the field of law, he was considered to be “the James Madison” of the South.  Not only did he contribute to countless law documents for the state, he authored the Constitution of the Confederate States of America.  It is written in his handwriting.  He was the founder of the Georgia School of Law.

Like the majority of Southerners and even Southern Christians in that era, Cobb looked to the argument of States Rights in defense of Southern secession. Indeed, he wrote a large tome which sought to defend the practice of slavery.  When elected to the Confederate Congress in 1861, he chaffed at the slowness of the legislative branch to prosecute the defense of the South.  So he entered the Confederate army as a Colonel of the Georgia troops, which he called Cobb’s Legion.  His troops fought in the battles of the Seven Days, Second Manassas, the Antietam campaign, and Fredericksburg, Virginia.  At the latter battle, he fought as a Brigadier General.

It was in the last battle that he suffered a mortal wound.  Assigned to guard the Sunken Road, an artillery shell burst near him and wounded him mortally.  Within a few hours, he would die.  There is a monument in that battlefield on the Sunken Road which tells of his death.  Before his death, another Presbyterian military officer by the name of Thomas Jonathan Jackson, or Stonewall Jackson, would visit him and  pray with him.  Cobb is buried in Athens, Georgia.

He was survived by his wife, the former Marion Lumpkin, and four daughters in 1862.  As recently as 2004, because of his stand on slavery, a controversy arose as to whether his home should be restored to a museum.  It eventually was, and today can be visited in Athens, Georgia.

Words to Live By: While we would oppose his stand on racial slavery, still we are left with the recognition that in other matters, here was a man who feared God and worked righteousness in his public and private life.  For all of us, our Christian ideals are to be manifested outside the four walls of the church, indeed, into all of life, so that God’s name can be glorified, and God’s kingdom can be advanced.
Perhaps the most searching question in application might then be, “In my life, what sins am I blind to? How am I a creature of my culture? How and where is the Word of God not thoroughly and consistently worked out in my life?”
May God have mercy upon us all. We are, all of us, mired in sin and without hope before a righteous God, but for the grace and mercy found in Jesus Christ alone.

Through the Scriptures: 2 Samuel 22 – 24

Through the Standards:  The state of grace

WCF 9:4
“When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so, that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.”

For further reading:
We find that two articles on the legal profession were published in the Southern Presbyterian Review :
1. “Relations of Christianity to the Legal Profession,” by an anonymous author, SPR, vol. 5, no. 2 (July 1859): 249-270.
2. “Morality of the Legal Profession,” by Robert L. Dabney, SPR, vol. 11, no. 4 (January 1859): 571-592.
and two articles published in Princeton Seminary’s Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review :
3. “A Course of Legal Study, by David Hoffman, reviewed by Samuel G. Winchester, BRPR, 9.4 (October 1837):509-524.
4. “Professional Ethics and their Application to Legal Practice,” [review of An Essay on Professional Ethics, by George Sharswood], by an anonymous author, BRPR, 43.2 (April 1871): 286-304.

 

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April 9 : Miss Louisa Lee

9 April, 2012 in April 2012 by archivist | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History:  

 A Fine Missionary and a Keen Soul-winner

The title of this devotional constitutes the comments sent back  in a communication to the Independent Board of Presbyterian Foreign Missions upon hearing the news that they had appointed Miss Louisa Lee as a missionary to India.  In fact, she was the first missionary sent out under the auspices of  that Independent Board on April 9, 1934. 

To be sure, this was not her first experience of being a herald of the gospel in India.  She had gone out under the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. in 1913.   Two years before that, she had graduated from the University of Washington at Seattle, with a bachelor of arts degree and a certificate in teaching.  Other educational schools she had attended were Wooster College and Miami (of Ohio) University.  Attendance at Union Mission Language School gave  her a working knowledge of both Urdu and Hindi languages.

Why did she leave her denomination’s board of foreign Missions? In one word, the infallibility of the Scriptures.  In 1934, an executive of the India Council, while acknowledging that her conviction of  Scripture’s infallibility was what had originally been the belief of the board in years gone by, yet currently informed her that  there was great doubt that the writers of the Scriptures were infallible in matters of history and science in the present age.

Louisa Lee, in complete disagreement with this missions executive,  not only held to the true faith of biblical Christianity, but expressed her resolution that it was a necessary qualification for every Gospel preacher, teacher and missionary.  Further, she would not be able to work alongside of anyone who denied the infallibility of Holy Scripture.

Leaving eventually after two decades under the Presbyterian U.S.A. board, she joined the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. She expressed her desire to the new board that she be allowed to  remain in India, because as she put it, “my home is in India; my heart is there; and I love the people.”

God’s Spirit would grant her another fifty-nine years of faithful service to the masses in India before being taken home to be with her Lord and Savior in 1972.  And part of that span of time was spent after a time of furlough in the United States, but finding no one to take her place in India.  So she returned to take up the mantle of communicating the good news of eternal life to all who would give her a hearing.  She was indeed a fine missionary and a keen soul-winner.

Words to Live By:   When was the last time you prayed for someone – a relative, a neighbor, a work associate, a school mate, a stranger you met this week – to be saved?  Louisa Lee was a keen soul-winner.  It all begins with prayer for lost sinners.  Then, a soul winner prays that God will provide the opportunity to say a word of grace to the lost person.  Last, you praise God for that opportunity, and pray that the Word of grace will bring forth fruit unto eternal life.

Through the Scriptures: 2 Samuel 19 – 21

Through the Standards:  Every sin deserves God’s wrath

WLC 152  — “What does every sin deserve at the hands of God?
A.  Every sin, even the least, being against the sovereignty, goodness, and holiness of God, and against his righteous law, deserves his wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come; and cannot be expiated but by the blood of Christ.”

WSC 84 — “What does every sin deserve?
A. Every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come.”

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April 8 : Rev. David McClure

8 April, 2012 in April 2012 by davidtmyers | 1 comment

Home Religion in Colonial America

In the years prior to the American Revolution, Presbyterians were already emigrating into Western Pennsylvania with their families. This was no easy move on their part. Native Indian tribes were resistant to this westward expansion. The further these Presbyterians moved away from civilization, the fewer helps and conveniences moved with them. More than that, these pioneers often left behind the anchor of an ordained ministry of the gospel.

In 1772, the Presbytery of Donegal appointed the Rev. David McClure to take a spiritual tour of Presbyterians west of the Allegheny mountains.  We know very little about him as a person.  He was from Ulster, or northern Ireland as we know it today.  Some said he was from Londonderry, Ulster.  He had traveled to Rhode Island, and then come down to the middle colonies.  First sent to the Delaware Indians, they had rejected his message of salvation.  So he became an itinerant minister and thus was open to the trip west for the Presbytery.

Writing a remarkable diary, he observed once that “truly the people here in this new country are as sheep scattered upon the mountains without a shepherd.  May the good Lord raise up and send forth faithful laborers into this past of His vineyard.”   He didn’t have long to wait for the fulfillment of that prayer.

Notice his words on April 8, 1773.  He comments in his diary, “The inhabitants west of the Appalachian mountains are chiefly Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.  They are either natives of the north of Ireland, or the descendants of such and removed here from the middle colonies. There are some Germans, English, and Scotch. The Presbyterians are generally well indoctrinated in the principles of the Christian religion.  The young people are taught by their parents and school masters, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and almost every family has the Westminster Confession of Faith, which they carefully study.”

Along with the Bible and the Westminster Standards, usually the Scotch-Irish families of the wilderness possessed Thomas Boston’s Fourfold State, and one of the commentaries, such as Matthew Henry.  With these within their grasp, time in the morning and evening of each day would be set aside for reading and prayers and memory work.  When a traveling pastor would come through, like David McClure, he would spend time asking the family members questions from the Bible and the Standards. Those who answered faithfully would be given communion tokens, upon which they would turn in and receive communion on the Lord’s Day.  Those who failed in their spiritual understanding would not receive the token and would be sufficiently warned to do better in their Christian experience the next time a minister would visit.

It was serious business being a Christian in colonial times.

Words to Live By:  What place does the Word of God and the Westminster Standards have in your home?  Are they strangers to the members of your family?  Do they have just a nodding acquaintance with you?  Or do they form the backbone of your faith and life?  It is not without purpose that our historical devotionals in this year’s reading include both Scripture and Standards on a day-by-day basis.  Apply them to your family members and their age groups, so as to bring back the early Presbyterian practice of being trained up in the fear of the Lord.

Through the Scriptures:  2 Samuel 16 – 18

Through the Standards:  (Note: in our last question and answer on the degrees of sin, continue to examine yourself and see if this sin is found in you.  If it has this past week or month, confess and forsake it.  If you are free from it, be aware of it so as to avoid it in your Christian life)

WLC 151
“Sins received their aggravations 4. From circumstances of time and place: if on the Lord’s day, or other times of divine worship; or immediately before or after these, or other helps to prevent or remedy such miscarriages; if in public, or in the presence of others, who are thereby likely to be provoked or defiled.”

Remembering Our Fathers and Brothers :

Image sources:
1. Reverse side of a communion token from the Newington Parish Church, Edinburgh, Scotland. Undated. Burzinski no. 5523.

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April 7 : God is sovereign even over our sin

7 April, 2012 in April 2012 by archivist | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History:   A Place of Peace Becomes a Place of War

In your mind, imagine a white country church nestled by the side of a Virginia county road.  Ordinarily, what might be heard from that church would be the singing of the hymns of the faith, testimonies of salvation from the church goers, solid preaching of the Word by the faithful pastor, fellowship suppers on the church lawn, and families coming and going on the Lord’s Day, or in the middle of the week.

What you wouldn’t expect to see or hear would be armies digging trenches for offensive and defensive positions, orders to fix bayonets, the hurrahs of Union men mixed with the Rebel yell, and dreadful sounds of wounds and deaths of men from battle.  Yet the latter picture more than the former was the case around Cumberland Presbyterian Church, northeast of Farmville, Virginia on April 7, 1865 during the day and evening.  This country church was on the stretch of journey of the retreat of the Army of Northern Virginia, under the command of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Escaping from Richmond and Petersburg, Lee’s scattered army was seeking to escape the pursuing Union armies of Gen. U.S. Grant.  Lee had hopes of joining another Confederate force in North Carolina.  But elements of the II corps under General A.A. Humphreys stopped their advance.  Entrenching around this Presbyterian church, the southern forces stopped two advances of this Union corps.  In what was interestingly a Confederate victory, the Army of Northern Virginia would reach Appomattox several days later and surrender their valiant forces to the North.

Words to Live By: In the midst of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War, or War Between the States, we can acknowledge the sovereign will of God, as its military leaders, both North and South, did back then.  We can rejoice that the gospel went forth in power through various spiritual awakenings and revivals among the soldiers, preparing this united nation to reach beyond its borders with the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ.  We can remember  the courage of military officers and common soldiers for their respective nations.  We can look back to this era when a once divided nation became the United States of America . . . again.

Through the Scriptures: 2 Samuel 13 – 15

Through the Standards:  (Note:As we consider the third aggravation of sin, remember the memo of previous days.  If you find yourself in these offenses, forsake them and find  your forgiveness in God.  Be warned as well, as we should not be ignorant regarding Satan’s devices)

WLC 151
“Sins receive their aggravations, 3. From the nature and quality of the offense: if it be against the express letter of the law, break many commandments, contain in it many sins: if not only conceived in the heart, but breaks forth in words and actions, scandalize others, and admit of no reparation: if any means, mercies, judgments, light of nature, conviction of conscience, public or private admonition, censures of the church, civil punishments; and our prayers, purposes, promises, vows, covenants,  and engagements to God of men: if done deliberately, wilfully, presumptuously, impudently, boastingly, maliciously, frequently, obstinately, with delight, continuance, or relapsing after repentance.”

April 6 : Birth of the RPC,ES

6 April, 2012 in April 2012 by davidtmyers | 4 comments

This Day in Presbyterian History:

From Twenty Nine Years of Age to One Hundred and Forty Three Years of Age

A new church was born on this date, April 6, 1965, at ten o’clock in the morning.  Actually, it was not a new church but simply the merging of two historic Presbyterian bodies dating back to the formation of our country.  The Evangelical Presbyterian Church had come out of the stream of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  The Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod had come out of the Scottish Covenanter  heritage.  Both churches had been courting each other from 1957 to 1964 with continual contact.

Each denomination held dearly to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as being the inspired Word of God, without error in whole and part, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.  Each church body held to the subordinate standards of the Westminster Assembly as being a summary of the teaching of the Old and New Testaments.  They proclaimed the good news of salvation to a lost world as the only  hope of reconciliation with the holy God.  The fundamentals of historic Christianity, being only Scripture, only Christ, only grace, only faith, and only to the glory of God, were part and parcel of their belief structure.

Each church had been weathered by internal divisions in their past history.   In the case of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, they had the experience of coming out of the apostasy of the mainline Presbyterian church in the mid 1930’s, where a stand for the fundamentals of the faith translated out to being deposed by the modernists who had gained control of the church.  Then in 1938 and 1956, further issues over eschatology and Christian liberty as well as independent agencies verses synod control agencies, truth in Christian living, and questions about separation from brethren, brought into existence the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in 1961.

In the case of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod, the issue in 1833 was the relationship of the church to the civil government.  They had no problem supporting the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but the Constitution a dozen or so years later was another matter.  Should its members vote, for example, in a country which did not recognize itself as a Christian nation?  Should they serve on juries, with oaths involved? Should they serve in the armed forces?  Should exclusive psalmody be the standard of  worship services?  All these were questions which were asked, debated, and voted upon by the church.

When the two bodies met concurrently in 1965 at Covenant College, the issues had been faced squarely by godly men for eight years.  Both churches voted to merge with each other, and combining their names into  the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod.  What has been a church of twenty-nine years became a church of one hundred and forty-three years years of age after one meeting!

Words to Live By:  The Psalmist David proclaimed words of wisdom for all church bodies and Christians when  he wrote “BEHOLD, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (KJV – Psalm 143:1)

Through the Scriptures: 2 Samuel 9 – 12

Through the Standards: (Note: For four days we are thinking about the degrees of sin and their aggravation.  If these characterize you, repent and confess them.  If they do not, be warned about them and beware their ugly risings in your heart and life)

The aggravation of sin in the parties offended

WLC 151 — “Sins received their aggravations, 2. From the parties offended: if immediately against God, his attributes, and worship; against Christ, and his grace; the Holy Spirit, his witness and workings against superiors, men of eminency, and such as we stand especially related and engaged unto; against any of the saints, particularly weak brethren, the souls of them, or any other, and the common good of all or many.”

 

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