September 2015

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September 5: Presbyterianism in Other Churches.

5 September, 2015 in September 2015 by archivist | No comments

With today’s episode, we come to the end of the first section of Rev. Kerr’s helpful little book, PRESBYTERIANISM FOR THE PEOPLE.

CHAPTER X.

PRESBYTERIANISM IN OTHER CHURCHES.

In the history of nations there have been, as before stated, two great principles of government contending from the beginning, monarchy and republicanism. In the one case, the people belong to their rulers; in the other, the rulers belong to the people. Under a monarchy the people are the servants, but in a republic they are the masters. Republicanism has the endorsement of God in the fact that the government of his people, as he organized it at first, was on that principle, and after they demanded a king in their civil administration self-government was still maintained in their religious institutions.

In 1 Sam. viii. we have an account of the change in the government of the people of Israel: “ The elders of Israel ” said to Samuel the prophet “ make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” “The thing displeased Samuel,” and he told the Lord, who said to him, “ They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.” Then follows a catalogue of those royal oppressions which would come upon them for rejecting the government ordained of God, and for committing authority into the hands of one man. In vs. 17, 18, God says, “And ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king, which ye shall have chosen you: and the Lord will not hear you in that day.” The people had reason bitterly to repent of their folly in thus surrendering God-given rights into the hands of a king.

The tendency of monarchy, when unrestrained by constitutions and representative assemblies, is to stereotype the institutions and condition of a people, while self-government encourages progress. As civilization has advanced men have always demanded liberty and a voice in their own government. In some cases this has caused sudden revolutions and great bloodshed. The demand has not always been wisely made, as in the French Revolution. The French kings, infatuated with an idea that they ruled by “divine right,” believed that the people were their property, and oppressed them through many generations. At last, in the reign of Louis XVI., the downtrodden masses arose in their might and overthrew the monarchy. This was right, and they ought to have stopped with dethroning the king, but they were so maddened by tyranny and poverty that they beheaded their unfortunate sovereign. The same history was enacted in England when Charles I. was put to death.

As knowledge increases among them men become independent and are unwilling to be oppressed. They feel that they have a right to decide who shall rule over them; they gradually learn that the government is for the benefit of the people, and not the people for the benefit of the government; and at last they demand the right to elect their own rulers. This is the fundamental principle of all republics; and it is the principle, not the form, which constitutes the real government. Great Britain is a monarchy in form, but it is more of a republic in principle. The people elect their own Parliament, and the Parliament makes the laws. In the British government there are left many traces of the old monarchical principle, but they are slowly being submerged under the advance of knowledge. In France, under Napoleon I., the government was in form a republic, but in principle and reality a despotism. He was called “the republican emperor.” By gradual encroachments this splendid tyrant had absorbed in himself the power of government, until what was republican in form became extremely monarchical in principle. At last it was overthrown. With regard to government, there is little in a name.

The great principle of republicanism is what mankind contend for, and not a name or a form; so, when the British people got liberty to elect their own rulers, they did not care enough for the name of a monarchy to fight about it. They had the substance of a republic, and wisely left the name to take care of itself.

Presbyterianism is ecclesiastical republicanism. The name is of little value as compared with the great principle for which, in Church and in State, martyrs have died. The Presbyterian Church has not the monopoly of this principle among the de-nominations. Presbyterianism is the opposite of episcopacy, and yet it can be conceived that the republican principle might grow up in the Episcopal Church and that it might die out of the Presbyterian body. It may also be conceived that neither denomination should be wholly Episcopal or wholly Presbyterian—that the two principles of monarchy and republicanism should exist together in the same body. But one must predominate. This is really the state of the case. There is no Church or State government which is purely monarchical or purely republican.

The Roman Catholic Church is a monarchy in form and in regulating principle, and it is nothing but a despotism from top to bottom. The Church of England is monarchical in form, but the principle of republicanism has been gradually making its way in the body, until now the people have almost as much power as the clergy. The same statement may be made with reference to the Methodist Episcopal Church. The principle of republicanism has made remarkable encroachments upon this great denomination. True, the bishops still have the power of appointing and removing pastors, which is monarchical, but when agreeable to the people they are allowed to remain much longer in one charge than formerly, and a strong sentiment is growing up in favor of their permanent settlement. Of more importance is the fact that the election of their lower officers is with the people. These officers go on and elect higher ones, called bishops, who are vested with greater powers than belong to the rulers of a spiritual republic. It is a republican house with a monarchical roof.

The Congregational and Baptist denominations have been making progress toward republicanism. They were at first almost pure democracies—that is, people without any rulers, people who made their own laws and administered them without the intervention of anything more than mere committees. The need of greater authority has caused these officers to take power into their hands, but always with the consent of the people. Some distinguished Baptist ministers—Spurgeon and others—have advised that their Associations and conventions be clothed with presbyterial, congressional or parliamentary power—that is to say, with judicial and administrative authority.

This process will go on. It will sometimes be temporarily checked or turned backward for a brief period, but the gravitation of history is toward republicanism in Church and in State. This is not directly the effect of the example of the Presbyterian Church, though other churches are indirectly indebted to that denomination. Geneva has been justly called “the Mother of Modern Republics,” and every historian knows that Presbyterianism was the mother of Geneva.

The logic of experience, which causes men to consider what is the best way to manage affairs, has caused them to gravitate, in civil and ecclesiastical government, toward republicanism. They seek liberty, which they cannot have under a civil or ecclesiastical monarchy or oligarchy, and they desire efficiency, which is hardly attainable in a pure democracy ; so they are adopting the middle principle, of appointing representatives and giving them power to rule, holding them responsible for their conduct of the affairs of government. The study of the inspired word with its expansive truths, that enlarge the range of man’s thinking and teach him to believe himself a son of God; the spirit of universal charity, which animates the whole body of Christians, causing them to do as they would have others do unto them; and the example of Scripture precedents,—have all conspired to republicanize Churches and States. Indeed, it is hardly possible that a community can be thoroughly Christian without in the course of time becoming in some degree republican.

Under the operation of these influences the Churches have been unconsciously approximating toward a common centre. By whatever ways they have come, it is certain that they are nearer together than ever before. May we dare to hope for a time when the denominations shall be like the States of the American Union—free, harmonious and independent, but one in a grand spiritual confederation for one another’s help and for the conquest of the world? The convergence of events seems to point to that splendid consummation.

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September 4: School’s Back in Session

4 September, 2015 in September 2015 by archivist | No comments

Dr. J. Gresham Machen’s address on “The Necessity of the Christian School” remains timely, and is permanently posted here. But to refresh your memory :

The Necessity of the Christian School
machen03by Dr. J. Gresham Machen, Professor of New Testament in Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa.. This is a reprint of a lecture given by Dr. Machen at the Educational Convention held in Chicago under the auspices of the National Union of Christian Schools, August, 1933.

Two Reasons for the Christian School
In the first place, then, the Christian school is important for the maintenance of American liberty.The Christian school is to be favored for two reasons. In the first place, it is important for American liberty; in the second place, it is important for the propagation of the Christian religion. These two reasons are not equally important; indeed, the latter includes the former as it includes every other legitimate human interest. But I want to speak of these two reasons in turn.

We are witnessing in our day a world-wide attack upon the fundamental principles of civil and religious freedom. In some countries, such as Italy, the attack has been blatant and unashamed; Mussolini despises democracy and does not mind saying so. A similar despotism now prevails in Germany; and in Russia freedom is being crushed out by what is perhaps the most complete and systematic tyranny that the world has every seen.

But exactly the same tendency that is manifested in extreme form in those countries, is also being manifested, more slowly but none the less surely, in America. It has been given an enormous impetus first by the war and now by the economic depression; but aside form these external stimuli it has its roots in a fundamental deterioration of the American people. Gradually the people has come to value principle less and creature comfort more; increasingly it has come to prefer prosperity to freedom; and even in the field of prosperity it cannot be said that the effect is satisfactory.

The result of this decadence in the American people is seen in the rapid growth of a centralized bureaucracy which is the thing against which the Constitution of the United States was most clearly intended to guard.

The Attack Upon Liberty
In the presence of this apparent collapse of free democracy, any descendant of the liberty-loving races of mankind may well stand dismayed; and to those liberty-loving races no doubt most of my hearers tonight belong. I am of the Anglo-Saxon race; many of you belong to a race whose part in the history of human freedom is if anything still more glorious; and as we all contemplate the struggle of our fathers in the winning of that freedom which their descendants seem now to be so willing to give up, we are impressed anew with the fact that it is far easier to destroy than to create. It took many centuries of struggle — much blood and many tears — to establish the fundamental principles of our civil and religious liberty; but one made generation is sufficient to throw them all away.

It is true, the attack upon liberty is nothing new. Always there have been tyrants in the world; almost always tyranny has begun by being superficially beneficent, and always it has ended by being both superficially and radically cruel.
But while tyranny itself is nothing new, the technique of tyranny has been enormously improved in our day; the tyranny of the scientific expert is the most crushing tyranny of all. That tyranny is being exercised most effectively in the field of education. A monopolistic system of education controlled by the State is far more efficient in crushing our liberty than the cruder weapons of fire and sword. Against this monopoly of education by the State the Christian school brings a salutary protest; it contends for the right of parents to bring up their children in accordance with the dictates of their conscience and not in the manner prescribed by the State.

That right has been attacked in America in recent years in the most blatant possible ways. In Oregon, a law was actually passed some years ago requiring all children to attend the public schools — thus taking the children from the control of their parents and placing them under the despotic control of whatever superintendent of education might happen to be in office in the district in which they resided. In Nebraska, a law was passed forbidding the study of languages other than English, even in private schools, until the child was too old to learn them well. That was really a law making literary education a crime. In New York, one of the abominable Lusk Laws placed even private tutors under state supervision and control. Read the rest of this entry »

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September 3: William Edward Biederwolf, Evangelist

3 September, 2015 in September 2015 by archivist | No comments

Exchanging a Cross for a Crown

Do you realize that, to the surprise of countless Christians, Presbyterianism has produced some of the most noteworthy evangelists in history, especially in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds?   We say “surprise to countless Christians” because it is wrongly thought that our understanding of Calvinism would prohibit us from being evangelists.  But it is rather a case of because we are convinced of Calvinist truth in the Holy Scriptures, that we are zealous of winning souls to the Lord Jesus Christ.  The inspired writer Luke sums up our confidence, when in Acts 13:48, he described the gospel’s effect being preached by Paul “as  many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” (ESV)

One of the greatest Presbyterian evangelists of that time period was William Edward Biederwolf.  Born in 1867, he was the seventh child of two German Presbyterians, Michael and Abolana Biederwolf of Monticello, Indiana.  After schooling in the area, he taught school for a while.  Attending Wabash College in Indiana, a Sunday School class began to pray for his conversion.  In fact, each of them wrote a letter, urging him to receive Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.  At age 20, he did just that, becoming a Christian.

He then went to Princeton University, and Princeton Seminary, graduating in 1895.  Marrying a hometown gal the next year, he studied overseas in Germany at the University of Berlin and the Sorbonne.  Well educated for his life’s calling then, he returned to the United States where he was called to the pulpit of Broadway Presbyterian Church in Loganport, Indiana in 1897.  It was a short ministry as the war clouds of the Spanish-American War loomed on the horizon. He enlisted as a chaplain of the 131st Second Voluntary Regiment  of the 13th Calvary, serving six months in Cuba.  He would write  on his experience and the regiment he served afterwards,  as a spiritual servant of Christ.

Beginning the new year and millennium of 1900, he entered evangelism as a full-time preacher of the gospel.  For the next 39 years before he passed away on September 3, 1939, he made three world tours of evangelism.  And yet the most dramatic evangelistic ministry he engaged in was in a town in Pennsylvania, called Oil City.  In the winter of 1914 on the eve of World War I, he had thousands attending in the bitter cold of north-west Pennsylvania, with the result that the whole town from the mayor down to the ordinary citizen, was stirred in  deep concern about the things of God and their place in it.

His closing years was spent associated with the Winona Lake Bible Conference and School of Theology.  After a long illness, he spoke the title of this devotional about his exchange of a cross of a crown to his wife, and died the next day.

Words to live by:  Christian reader, you can go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit, sharing by life and lips, to your unsaved loved ones, neighbors, school friends, fellow workers at your jobs, and even strangers whom you meet in divine appointments, the unsearchable riches of Christ and Him crucified, knowing that those who are ordained to eternal life, will believe the gospel and be saved.  Claim this text of Acts 13:48 as your confidence, and go, be witnesses of Christ.

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September 2: Andrew Melville’s Two-Kingdom Speech (1596)

2 September, 2015 in September 2015 by archivist | No comments

The day is lost to church history. We know the month and the year of the Two Kingdom Speech of Andrew Melville. That month and year was September 1596. But the exact day is lost to us.  So this author is going to put it on September 2, this day in Presbyterian history, because it is too important not to consider it.

The elders of the General Assembly were meeting in Cupar, Fife, Scotland. Due to a breach of faith on the part of King James, the assembly had decided to sent a deputation to seek the resolution of their concerns. Heading that deputation was James Melville, who was chosen because of his courteous manner and the apparent favor he had with the king. Along side him, out of the spotlight, was his uncle, Reformation leader Andrew Melville.

Barely had James Melville begun speaking before the king cut him off and accused him of meeting in a seditious manner with other elders of the kirk, and bringing causeless fears before the people of Scotland. Andrew Melville stepped in, despite his nephew’s attempt to keep him silent, by taking the king’s robe by the sleeve, and saying that the king was “God’s silly vassal.”

“Sir,” said Andrew Melville, “we will always humbly reverence your majesty in public; but since we have this occasion to be with your majesty in private, and since you are brought in extreme danger of your life and crown, and along with you the country and the Church of God are like to go to wreck, for not telling you the truth and giving your faithful counsel, we must discharge our duty, or else be traitors both to Christ and to you. Therefore, Sir, as divers times before I have told you, so now again I must tell you, there are two kingdoms in Scotland: there is King James, the head of the commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. Sir, those whom Christ has called and commanded to watch over his church, have power and authority from Him to govern his spiritual kingdom, both jointly and severally; the which no Christian king or prince should control and discharge, but fortify and assist; otherwise they are not faithful subjects of Christ and members of his Church. We will yield to you your place, and give you all due obedience; but again, I say, you are not the head of the Church; you cannot give us that eternal life which we seek for even in this world, and you cannot deprive us of it. Permit us then freely to meet in the name of Christ, and to attend to the interests of that Church of which you are the chief member. Sir, when you were in your swaddling clothes, Christ Jesus reigned freely in this land, in spite of all his enemies. His officers and ministers convened and assembled for the ruling and welfare of his Church, which was even for your welfare, defense and preservation, when these same enemies were seeking your destruction. Their assemblies since that time have continually have been terrible to these enemies, and most steadfast to you. And now, when there is more than extreme necessity for the continuance and discharge of that duty, will you (drawn to your own destruction by a most pernicious counsel) begin to hinder and dishearten Christ’s servants and your most faithful subjects, quarreling them for their convening, and the care they have of their duty to Christ and you, when you should rather commend and countenance them, as the godly kings and emperors did? The wisdom of your counsel, which I call devilish, is this, that you must be served by all sorts of men, to come to your purpose and grandeur, Jew and Gentile, Papist and Protestant; and because the Protestants and ministers of Scotland are over strong, and control the king, they must be weakened and brought low by stirring up a party against them, and, the king being equal and indifferent, both should be fain to flee to him. But, Sir, if God’s wisdom be the only true wisdom, this will prove mere and mad folly; His curse cannot but light upon it; in seeking both ye shall lose both; whereas in cleaving uprightly to God, His true servants would be your sure friends, and He would compel the rest counterfeitly and lyingly to give over themselves and serve you.” (Melville’s Dairy, pp. 245, 246, quoted in W.M. Hetherington, “History of the Church of Scotland” p. 105.

Words to Live By:
Charles Hodge says in commentary on Romans 13:2  “we are to obey all that is in actual authority over us, whether their authority be legitimate or usurped, whether they are just or unjust. The actual reigning emperors were to be obeyed by the Roman Christians, whatever they might think as to his title to the scepter. But if he transcended his authority, and required them to worship idols, they were to obey God rather than man. This is the limitation to all human authority. Whenever obedience to man is inconsistent with obedience to God, then disobedience becomes a duty.” (Commentary to the Epistle to the Romans, by Charles Hodge, p. 406)

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September 1: The Last Sermon of Mr. Larned

1 September, 2015 in September 2015 by archivist | No comments

LarnedSylvester02On August 27th, 1820, the Rev. Sylvester Larned appeared for the last time before the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans. He had remained in the city during the summer’s “sickly season.” Death from fever was everywhere, and Rev. Larned has spent those weeks and months ministering to the city’s poor who could not afford to flee the city. It was in that context that “The whole of his discourse was solemn, and he himself was unusually affected by the considerations he presented to his hearers; and as he concluded, he wept.”

‘To me to live is Christ; and to die is gain.’ — Philippians 1:21Open in Logos Bible Software (if available).

“To a sentiment like this, my hearers, what can we conceive superior in dignity of thought, or loftiness of feeling? How majestic does he appear who can look with so triumphant an emotion upon the grave,—and that too, not in the sternness of philosophy, nor the torpor of fatalism, but simply in the meek and confiding hope of salvation in Jesus Christ! In the present case, also, there are some facts which render the spectacle still more illustrious. When St. Paul uttered the language of our text, he was a prisoner at Rome. The terrible Nero had hunted long and eagerly for the aged saint, till at last the apostle was seized and conducted to that imperial monster, who had so often feasted on the blood and tears of the Church. Here it was that the godly old man—chained to a soldier, to prevent his escape, uncertain what day might prove his last, and listening, at every sound, for the fearful tread of the executioner,—here it was, under circumstances which might have appalled the stoutest heart, that he exclaimed, more like a conquerer than a captive,

‘To me to live is Christ; and to die is gain.’

Now what, my hearers, is life? It comprises, you well know, two leading ideas—activity and enjoyment. Every man has some great object upon which his activities are more awake than upon any other. Wealth to one, Beauty to a second, Fame to a third, and so on; and, I trust, experimental religion to a few, calls forth that paramount solicitude and exertion which show most decisively in what direction the main current of the feelings is set. By this rule, if you look at the apostle Paul, you may find out, at a glance, the real spring of his movements. His whole efforts were bent to the single aim of promoting Christianity, not only abroad, but in his own bosom—not alone in the display of its external embellishments, but in the urgency of its work upon the affections and thoughts.

The same is true in regard to the idea of enjoyment. There is scarcely a man in a thousand who does not show to the eye of his acquaintances, and indeed to his own eye, if he be candid and impartial, the actual feelings by which he loves chiefly to be engrossed. The secret will come out. The votary of pleasure, of fashion, of gold, and, may I add, of the Saviour, are sure to betray the supremacy of their attachment to their separate objects of pursuit.

By this rule, too, St. Paul appears in a character the most unequivocal. His enjoyments were in Christ. All his views of happiness appear to have centered on the one absorbing principle of union with Him, ‘in whom,’ to use his own words, ‘tho’ now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.’ Well then did the great apostle of the Gentiles say, that ‘To him to live was Christ.’ But, my brethren, does not his language convey a sentiment of conviction and reproof to you? Could you adopt it, and assert that the Lord Jesus constitutes the primary object of your lives, either by making you supremely active in His service, or by making you supremely happy in His promises?

These are inquiries which lie, depend upon it, at the very basis of personal religion. Easy as it may be to carry about us the semblance of a hope for eternity, the Bible declares that God looketh at the life, not simply in its visible conformities and observances, but in the entireness of its dedication to Jesus Christ. But the venerable Paul goes on to say, that ‘to him to die was gain.‘ How is this? How should a poor frail mortal, who had known only one world, feel a confidence so strong in approaching the untried scenes of another? The reason, my hearers, plainly was, that he had an interest in the Saviour’s blood.

This inspired his triumph, and having this, Death, was to him, as it is to every believer, a subject of thanksgiving and praise. It released him from all his sorrows; and many a one have the children of God in walking through this vale of tears. The hand of God’s bereavement, or the reverses of His Providence, break in upon their happiness so often, that, ‘if , in this life only, they had hope in Christ, they were, of all men, most miserable.’

And besides, in entering the grave, the Christian leaves his sins behind him; and I know of no one consideration more glorious or more animating to a renovated heart. Certain it is, that by just how much we are assimilated to the Redeemer, by just so much will the bare danger of violating his commandments, or incurring his displeasure, be to us a source of the most lively uneasiness and anxiety.

And then, more than every thing else, the hour of death, however shrouded for the time in gloom, ushers the experimental believer into a better and a brighter world. To him it is that God has promised ‘an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.’ The very moment life is gone, the certainty of Heaven comes home to him; and thus it happens that every one, rich or poor, bond or free, who can truly say, with the apostle, that ‘to him to live is Christ’, may say also with the same assurance, that ‘to die is gain.’

And here, my brethren, let me again inquire, if the sentiment of our text do not tacitly imply a reproach—or an expostulation to yourselves? In what sense is it that death, to you, would be ‘gain’?—Death, which will stop you short in your pursuits, and lay you motionless and cold, beneath the lids of the coffin—death, which will put forever beyond your reach the offers of mercy—which will cut short the busy activities of the world, and dismiss you at once to the tribunal bar of the Omnipotent God. Justly indeed might St. Paul contemplate these things with joy; for he was prepared to put off his clayey tabernacle. But, to us, the question comes most impressively up, whether we have any evangelical and well-grounded reason to believe that Christ has been formed in us the hope of glory?

“Now, my hearers, in looking at the subject which has been briefly examined, I cannot repress a remark, adapted, I think, to the serious reality of our present circumstances. It is this: At all times a becoming preparation for eternity presents itself to us as a most desirable attainment—but now more than ever, for the simple reason that now the distance between time and eternity seems to be most solemnly short. You can all attest how suddenly a few weeks past have hurried some of our fellow-beings from health to the tomb. Do not, however, mistake my meaning,—do not think I say this with a design to alarm. By no means. Your own good sense will teach you, that at a moment like the present, composure and tranquility, even without religion, ought carefully to be sought. But what I say is, have an interest in Jesus Christ. Then death will have no terrors, and the grave no victory.

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for you is, that you may be saved. Why will you put off the business of your immortal souls? Why will you rush forward with the infatuation of madness and the rashness of despair, when the arms of a compassionate Saviour are thrown open to welcome you with all your sins and all your fears? I entreat, and God grant you may remember the appeal—I entreat you to be up and doing—to work while it is called today, because the night cometh,—and how soon or suddenly we know not,—wherein no man can work.”

———

By the exertions of this Sabbath he appeared to be much overcome, but complained of no indisposition until early the next morning, when he was seized with fever, which no medical skill or appliances could subdue; and on Thursday evening, the 31st of August, the very day on which he completed his twenty-fourth year, he resigned, in the full confidence of a blessed immortality, his soul to God.

To read more of the life of the Rev. Sylvester Larned, along with a small collection of his sermons, click here :
Life and Eloquence of the Rev. Sylvester Larned; first pastor of the First Presbyterian church in New Orleans, by Ralph Randolph Gurley (1844).

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