A Supreme Court Justice Plants a Church

When forty thousand Christians on December 4, 1973 started a new Presbyterian Church, they were understandably excited beyond measure for the fruition of plans to begin a Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching church true to the Scriptures, the Reformed Faith, and the Great Commission.  Though they essentially had left the Southern Presbyterian church (PCUS), they had a vision of impacting the whole nation.  So they named their denomination the National Presbyterian Church.  They immediately however encountered a road block to the choice of that name.  There already was a congregation by that name, the National Presbyterian Church, located in Washington, D.C., and this local church had a national mission to all the states and even beyond, primarily as an endorsing authority for military chaplains. So in the second year of its existence, the new denomination changed its name to the Presbyterian Church in America.

National Presbyterian Church [the congregation] had its beginnings in two PCUSA congregations located in the nation’s capitol. The First Presbyterian Church, which began in the last decade of the seventeen hundreds in our nation’s capitol, was the home of countless presidents.  Chief executives like Jackson, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, Cleveland made this their Washington home church.

The other congregation which joined to make National Presbyterian what it is today was Covenant Presbyterian Church.  It was begun when eleven ruling elders of  New York Avenue Presbyterian Church met in the home of Supreme Court Justice William Strong on March 11, 1883 to plant another Presbyterian church in the capitol.  Its first service was in 1889 and it was dedicated in 1901.  Early attenders were President Harrison and Alexander Graham Bell.  It became the home church of President Dwight David Eisenhower, when he was elected to this high position.

Both churches united and were designated as the National Presbyterian Church as an action of the Presbyterian Church USA in 1946.   Thus, they did not wish any confusion as to what would be considered the National Presbyterian Church.

In hindsight, the 1974 decision to change the denominational name rather than contest the matter, while gracious, was also providential. For so the churches, sessions, and elders who came out of the PCUS church in 1973 were then enabled to choose what their real calling was to be, namely, the Presbyterian Church in America.

Words to Live By: God never makes mistakes.  If an action in your life, or the life of your church, at first seems a puzzle, wait prayerfully for God’s providence to make it clear.

On March 10th, 1929, Dr. J. Gresham Machen delivered his last sermon before the students at the Princeton Theological Seminary. Machen had fought against the reorganization of the Seminary and had lost that battle. Modernists were now able to take control of the school and theological conservatives were being forced out. In the months that followed, plans were quickly laid for the establishment of Westminster Theological Seminary, and the new school opened in the fall of 1929 under Machen’s leadership. All of which makes this final Princeton sermon an important one in following both Machen’s ministry and the history of the modernist controversy.

[As first published in The Presbyterian, 99.13 (28 March 1929): 6-10.
(This is the original, unedited text—see note at the end).]

The Good Fight of Faith
A Sermon Preached in the Chapel of Princeton Theological Seminary, on Sunday morning, March 10, 1929.
By Rev. Professor J. Gresham Machen, D.D., Litt.D.

Phil. 4: 7: “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus.” I Tim. 6: 12 (part): “Fight the good fight of faith.”

The Apostle Paul was a great fighter. His fighting was partly against external enemies—against hardships of all kinds. Five times he was scourged by the Jews, three times by the Romans; he suffered shipwreck four times; and was in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren. And finally he came to the logical end of such a life, by the headsman’s axe. It was hardly a peaceful life, but was rather a life of wild adventure. Lindbergh, I suppose, got a thrill when he hopped off to Paris, and people are in search of thrills today; but if you wanted a really unbroken succession of thrills, I think you could hardly do better than try knocking around the Roman Empire of the first century with the Apostle Paul, engaged in the unpopular business of turning the world upside down.

But these physical hardships were not the chief battle in which Paul was engaged. Far more trying was the battle that he fought against the enemies in his own camp. Everywhere his rear was threatened by an all-engulfing paganism or by a perverted Judaism that has missed the real purpose of the Old Testament law. Read the Epistles with care, and you see Paul always in conflict. At one time he fights paganism in life, the notion that all kinds of conduct are lawful to the Christian man, a philosophy that makes Christian liberty a mere aid to pagan license. At another time, he fights paganism in thought, the sublimation of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body into the pagan doctrine of the immortality of the soul. At still another time, he fights the effort of human pride to substitute man’s merit as the means of salvation for divine grace; he fights the subtle propaganda of the Judaizers with its misleading appeal to the Word of God. Everywhere we see the great apostle in conflict for the preservation of the church. It is as though a mighty flood were seeking to engulf the church’s life; dam the break at one point in the levee, and another break appears somewhere else. Everywhere paganism was seeping through; not for one moment did Paul have peace; always he was called upon to fight.

Fortunately, he was a true fighter; and by God’s grace he not only fought, but he won. At first sight indeed he might have seemed to have lost. The lofty doctrine of divine grace, the center and core of the gospel that Paul preached, did not always dominate the mind and heart of the subsequent church. The Christianity of the Apostolic Fathers, of the Apologists, of Irenæus, is very different from the Christianity of Paul. The church meant to be faithful to the apostle; but the pure doctrine of the Cross runs counter to the natural man, and not always, even in the church, was it fully understood. Read the Epistle to the Romans first, and then read Irenæus, and you are conscious of a mighty decline. No longer does the gospel stand out sharp and clear; there is a large admixture of human error; and it might seem as though Christian freedom, after all, were to be entangled in the meshes of a new law.

But even Irenæus is very different from the Judaizers; something had been gained even in his day : and God had greater things than Irenæus in store for the church. The Epistles which Paul struck forth in conflict with the opponents in his own day remained in the New Testament as a personal source of life for the people of God. Augustine on the basis of the Epistles, set forth the Pauline doctrine of sin and grace; and then, after centuries of compromise with the natural man, the Reformation rediscovered the great liberating Pauline doctrine of justification by faith. So it has always been with Paul. Just when he seems to be defeated, his greatest triumphs, by God’s grace, are in store.

The human instruments, however, which God uses in great triumphs of faith are no pacifists, but great fighters like Paul himself. Little affinity for the great apostle has the whole tribe of considerers of consequences, the whole tribe of the compromisers ancient and modern. The real companions of Paul are the great heroes of the faith. But who are those heroes? Are they not true fighters, one and all? Tertullian fought a mighty battle against Marcion; Athanasius fought against the Arians; Augustine fought against Pelagius; and as for Luther, he fought a brave battle against kings and princes and popes for the liberty of the people of God. Luther was a great fighter; and we love him for it. So was Calvin; so were John Knox and all the rest. It is impossible to be a true soldier of Jesus Christ and not fight.

God grant that you—students in the seminary—may be fighters, too! Probably you have your battles even now; you have to contend against sins gross or sins refined; you have to contend against the sin of slothfulness and inertia; you have, many of you, I know very well, a mighty battle on your hands against doubt and despair. Do not think it strange if you fall thus into divers temptations. The Christian life is a warfare after all. John Bunyan rightly set it forth under the allegory of a Holy War; and when he set it forth, in his greater book, under the figure of a pilgrimage, the pilgrimage, too, was full of battles. There are, indeed, places of refreshment on the Christian way; the House Beautiful was provided by the King at the top of the Hill Difficulty, for the entertainment of pilgrims, and from the Delectable Mountains could sometimes be discerned the shining towers of the City of God. But just after the descent from the House Beautiful, there was the battle with Apollyon and the Valley of Humiliation, and later came the Valley of the Shadow of Death. No, the Christian faces a mighty conflict in this world. Pray God that in that conflict you may be true men; good soldiers of Jesus Christ, not willing to compromise with your great enemy, not easily cast down, and seeking ever the renewing of your strength in the Word and sacraments and prayer!

You will have a battle, too, when you go forth as ministers into the church. The church is now in a period of deadly conflict. The redemptive religion known as Christianity is contending, in our own Presbyterian Church and in all the larger churches in the world, against a totally alien type of religion. As always, the enemy conceals his most dangerous assaults under pious phrases and half truths. The shibboleths of the adversary have sometimes a very deceptive sound. “Let us propagate Christianity,” the adversary says, “but let us not always be engaged in arguing in defense of it; let us make our preaching positive, and not negative; let us avoid controversy; let us hold to a Person and not to dogma; let us sink small doctrinal differences and seek the unity of the church of Christ; let us drop doctrinal accretions and interpret Christ for ourselves; let us look for our knowledge of Christ in our hearts; let us not impose Western creeds on the Eastern mind; let us be tolerant of opposing views.” Such are some of the shibboleths of that agnostic Modernism which is the deadliest enemy of the Christian religion to-day. They deceive some of God’s people some of the time; they are heard sometimes from the lips of good Christian people, who have not the slightest inkling of what they mean. But their true meaning, to thinking men, is becoming increasingly clear. Increasingly it is becoming necessary for a man to decide whether he is going to stand or not to stand for the Lord Jesus Christ as he is presented to us in the Word of God.

If you decide to stand for Christ, you will not have an easy life in the ministry. Of course, you may try to evade the conflict. All men will speak well of you if, after preaching no matter how unpopular a Gospel on Sunday, you will only vote against that Gospel in the councils of the church the next day;you will graciously be permitted to believe in supernatural Christianity all you please if you will only act as though you did not believe in it, if you will only make common cause with its opponents. Such is the program that will win the favor of the church. A man may believe what he pleases, provided he does not believe anything strongly enough to risk his life on it and fight for it. “Tolerance” is the great word. Men even ask for tolerance when they look to God in prayer. But how can any Christian possibly pray such a prayer as that? What a terrible prayer it is, how full of disloyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ! There is a sense, of course, in which tolerance is a virtue. If by it you mean tolerance on the part of the state, the forbearance of majorities toward minorities, the resolute rejection of any measures of physical compulsion in propagating either what is true or what is false, then of course, the Christian ought to favor tolerance with all his might and main, and ought to lament the widespread growth of intolerance in America today. Or if you mean by tolerance forbearance toward personal attacks upon yourself, or courtesy and patience and fairness in dealing with all errors of whatever kind, then again tolerance is a virtue. But to pray for tolerance apart from such qualifications, in particular to pray for tolerance without careful definition of that of which you are to be tolerant, is just to pray for the breakdown of the Christian religion; for the Christian religion is intolerant to the core. There lies the whole offense of the Cross—and also the whole power of it. Always the Gospel would have been received with favor by the world IF it had been presented merely as one way of salvation; the offense came because it was presented as the only way, and because it made relentless war upon all other ways. God save us, then, from this “tolerance” of which we hear so much : God deliver us from the sin of making common cause with those who deny or ignore the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ! God save us from the deadly guilt of consenting to the presence as our representatives in the church of those who lead Christ’s little ones astray; God make us, whatever else we are, just faithful messengers, who present, without fear or favor, not our word, but the Word of God.

But if you are such messengers, you will have the opposition, not only of the world, but increasingly, I fear, of the Church. I cannot tell you that your sacrifice will be light. No doubt it would be noble to care nothing whatever about the judgment of our fellowmen. But to such nobility I confess that I for my part have not quite attained, and I cannot expect you to have attained to it. I confess that academic preferments, easy access to great libraries, the society of cultured people, and in general the thousand advantages that come from being regarded as respectable people in a respectable world—I confess that these things seem to me to be in themselves good and desirable things. Yet the servant of Jesus Christ, to an increasing extent, is being obliged to give them up. Certainly, in making that sacrifice we do not complain; for we have something with which all that we have lost is not worthy to be compared. Still, it can hardly be said that any unworthy motives of self-interest can lead us to adopt a course which brings us nothing but reproach. Where, then, shall we find a sufficient motive for such a course as that; where shall we find courage to stand against the whole current of the age; where shall we find courage for this fight of faith?

I do not think that we shall obtain courage by any mere lust of conflict. In some battles that means may perhaps suffice. Soldiers in bayonet practice were sometimes, and for all I know still are, taught to give a shout when they thrust their bayonets at imaginary enemies; I heard them doing it even long after the armistice in France. That serves, I suppose, to overcome the natural inhibition of civilized man against sticking a knife into human bodies. It is thought to develop the proper spirit of conflict. Perhaps it may be necessary in some kinds of war. But it will hardly serve in this Christian conflict. In this conflict I do not think we can be good fighters simply by being resolved to fight. For this battle is a battle of love;and nothing ruins a man’s service in it so much as a spirit of hate.

No, if we want to learn the secret of this warfare, we shall have to look deeper; and we can hardly do better than turn again to that great fighter, the Apostle Paul. What was the secret of his power in the mighty conflict; how did he learn to fight?

The answer is paradoxical; but it is very simple. Paul was a great fighter because he was at peace. He who said, “Fight the good fight of faith,” spoke also of “the peace of God which passeth all understanding”; and in that peace the sinews of his war were found. He fought against the enemies that were without because he was at peace within; there was an inner sanctuary in his life that no enemy could disturb. There, my friends, is the great central truth. You cannot fight successfully with beasts, as Paul did at Ephesus; you cannot fight successfully against evil men, or against the devil and his spiritual powers of wickedness in high places, unless when you fight against those enemies there is One with whom you are at peace.

But if you are at peace with that One, then you can care little what men may do. You can say with the apostles, “We must obey God rather than men”; you can say with Luther, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me. Amen”; you can say with Elisha, “They that be with us are more than they that be with them”; you can say with Paul, “It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?” Without that peace of God in your hearts, you will strike little terror into the enemies of the Gospel of Christ. You may amass mighty resources for the conflict; you may be great masters of ecclesiastical strategy; you may be very clever, and very zealous too; but I fear that it will be of little avail. There may be a tremendous din; but when the din is over, the Lord’s enemies will be in possession of the field. No, there is no other way to be a really good fighter. You cannot fight God’s battle against God’s enemies unless you are at peace with him.

But how shall you be at peace with him? Many ways have been tried. How pathetic is the age-long effort of sinful man to become right with God; sacrifice, lacerations, almsgiving, morality, penance, confession! But alas, it is all of no avail. Still there is that same awful gulf. It may be temporarily concealed; spiritual exercises may conceal it for a time; penance or the confession of sin unto men may give a temporary and apparent relief. But the real trouble remains; the burden is still on the back; Mount Sinai is still ready to shoot forth flames; the soul is still not at peace with God. How then shall peace be obtained?

My friends, it cannot be attained by anything in us. Oh, that that truth could be written in the hearts of every one of you! If it could be written in the hearts of every one of you, the main purpose of this seminary would be attained. Oh, that it could be written in letters of flame for all the world to read! Peace with God cannot be attained by any act or any mere experience of man; it cannot be attained by good works, neither can it be attained by confession of sin, neither can it be attained by any psychological results of an act of faith. We can never be at peace with God unless God first be at peace with us. But how can God be at peace with us? Can he be at peace with us by ignoring the guilt of sin? by descending from his throne? by throwing the universe into chaos? by making wrong to be the same as right? by making a dead letter of his holy law? “The soul that sinneth it shall die,” by treating his eternal laws as though they were the changeable laws of man? Oh, what an abyss were the universe if that were done, what a mad anarchy, what a wild demon-riot! Where could there be peace if God were thus at war with himself; where could there be a foundation if God’s laws were not sure? Oh, no, my friends, peace cannot be attained for man by the great modern method of dragging God down to man’s level; peace cannot be attained by denying that right is right and wrong is wrong; peace can nowhere be attained if the awful justice of God stand not forever sure.

How then can we sinners stand before that throne? How can there be peace for us in the presence of the justice of God? How can he be just and yet justify the ungodly? There is one answer to these questions. It is not our answer. Our wisdom could never have discovered it. It is God’s answer. It is found in the story of the Cross. We deserved eternal death because of sin; the eternal Son of God, because he loved us, and because he was sent by the Father who loved us too, died in our stead, for our sins, upon the cross. That message is despised to-day; upon it the visible church as well as the world pours out the vials of its scorn, or else does it even less honor by paying it lip-service and then passing it by. Men dismiss it as a “theory of the atonement,” and fall back upon the customary commonplaces about a principle of self-sacrifice, or the culmination of a universal law, or a revelation of the love of God, or the hallowing of suffering, or the similarity between Christ’s death and the death of soldiers who perished in the great war. In the presence of such blindness, our words often seem vain. We may tell men something of what we think about the Cross of Christ, but it is harder to tell them what we feel. We pour forth our tears of gratitude and love; we open to the multitude the depths of our souls; we celebrate a mystery so tender, so holy, that we might think it would soften even a heart of stone. But all to no purpose. The Cross remains foolishness to the world, men turn coldly away, and our preaching seems but vain. And then comes the wonder of wonders! The hour comes for some poor soul, even through the simplest and poorest preaching; the message is honored, not the messenger; there comes a flash of light into the soul, and all is as clear as day. “He loved me and gave Himself for me,” says the sinner at last, as he contemplates the Saviour upon the Cross. The burden of sin falls from the back, and a soul enters into the peace of God.

Have you yourselves that peace, my friends? If you have, you will not be deceived by the propaganda of any disloyal church. If you have the peace of God in your hearts, you will never shrink from controversy; you will never be afraid to contend earnestly for the Faith. Talk of peace in the present deadly peril of the Church, and you show, unless you be strangely ignorant of the conditions that exist, that you have little inkling of the true peace of God. Those who have been at the foot of the Cross will not be afraid to go forth under the banner of the Cross to a holy war of love.

I know that it is hard to live on the heights of Christian experience. We have had flashes of the true meaning of the Cross of Christ; but then come long, dull days. What shall we do in those dull times? Shall we cease to witness for Christ; shall we make common cause, in those dull days, with those who would destroy the corporate witness of the church? Perhaps we may be tempted to do so. When there are such enemies in our own souls, we may be tempted to say, what time have we for the opponents without? Such reasoning is plausible. But all the same it is false. We are not saved by keeping ourselves constantly in the proper frame of mind, but we were saved by Christ once for all when we were born again by God’s Spirit and were enabled by him to put our trust in the Saviour. And the gospel message does not cease to be true because we for the moment have lost sight of the full glory of it. Sad will it be for those to whom we minister if we let our changing moods be determinative of the message that at any moment we proclaim, or if we let our changing moods determine the question whether we shall or shall not stand against the rampant forces of unbelief in the church. We ought to look, not within, but without, for the content of our witness-bearing; not to our changing feelings and experiences, but to the Bible as the Word of God. Then, and then only, shall we preach, not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.

Where are you going to stand in the great battle which now rages in the church? Are you going to curry favor with the world by standing aloof; are you going to be “conservative liberals” or “liberal conservatives” or “Christians who do not believe in controversy,” or anything else so self-contradictory and absurd? Are you going to be Christians, but not Christians overmuch? Are you going to stand coldly aloof when God’s people fight against ecclesiastical tyranny at home and abroad? Are you going to excuse yourselves by pointing out personal defects in those who contend for the faith today? Are you going to be disloyal to Christ in external testimony until you can make all well within your own soul? Be assured, you will never accomplish your purpose if you adopt such a program as that. Witness bravely to the truth that you already understand, and more will be given you; but make common cause with those who deny or ignore the gospel of Christ, and the enemy will forever run riot in your life.

There are many hopes that I cherish for you men, with whom I am united by such ties of affection. I hope that you may be gifted preachers; I hope that you may have happy lives; I hope that you may have adequate support for yourselves and for your families; I hope that you may have good churches. But I hope something for you far more than all that. I hope above all that, wherever you are and however your preaching may be received, you may be true witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ; I hope that there may never be any doubt where you stand, but that always you may stand squarely for Jesus Christ, as he is offered to us, not in the experiences of men, but in the blessed written Word of God.

I do not mean that the great issue of the day must be polemically presented in every sermon that you preach. No doubt that would be exceedingly unwise. You should always endeavor to build the people up by simple and positive instruction in the Word. But never will such simple and positive instruction in the Word have the full blessing of God, if, when the occasion does arise to take a stand, you shrink back. God hardly honors the ministry of those who in the hour of decision are ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

But we are persuaded better things of you, my brethren. You have, indeed, your struggles here in the seminary : faith contents against doubt and doubt contends against faith for the possession of your souls. Many of you are called upon to pass through deep waters and to face fiery trials. Never is it an easy process to substitute for the unthinking faith of childhood the fire-tested convictions of full-grown men. But may God bring you through! May God bring you out from the mists of doubt and hesitation into the clear shining of the light of faith. You may not indeed at once attain full clearness; gloomy doubts may arise like angels of Satan to buffet you. But God grant that you may have sufficient clearness to stand at least for Jesus Christ. It will not be easy. Many have been swept from their moorings by the current of the age; a church grown worldly often tyrannizes over those who look for guidance to God’s Word alone. But this is not the first discouraging time in the history of the church;other times were just as dark, and yet always God has watched over His people, and the darkest hour has sometimes preceded the dawn. So even now God has not left Himself without a witness. In many lands there are those who have faced the great issue of the day and have decided it aright, who have preserved true independence of mind in the presence of the world; in many lands there are groups of Christian people who in the face of ecclesiastical tyranny have not been afraid to stand for Jesus Christ. God grant that you may give comfort to them as you go forth from this seminary; God grant that you may rejoice their hearts by giving them your hand and your voice. To do so you will need courage. Far easier is it to curry favor with the world by abusing those whom the world abuses, by speaking against controversy, by taking a balcony view of the struggle in which God’s servants are engaged. But God save you from such a neutrality as that! It has a certain worldly appearance of urbanity and charity. But how cruel it is to burdened souls; how heartless it is to those little ones who are looking to the Church for some clear message from God! God save you from being so heartless and so unloving and so cold! God grant, instead, that in all humility but also in all boldness, in reliance upon God, you may fight the good fight of faith. Peace is indeed yours, the peace of God which passeth all understanding. But that peace is given you, not that you may be onlookers or neutrals in love’s battle, but that you may be good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

[The above sermon was first published in The Presbyterian, volume 99, number 13 (28 March 1929): 6-10. The text provided above is unedited from that original printing. Please note that an edited version of this sermon was published in David Otis Fuller’s work, Valiant for Truth: A Treasury of Evangelical Writings (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1961), but that version lacks approximately 20 percent of the content as originally delivered by Dr. Machen.]

The late Rev. George P. Hutchinson wrote a very readable history of Presbyterianism in the United States, under the title of THE HISTORY BEHIND THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, EVANGELICAL SYNOD. That book is available to our readers courtesy of the PCA Historical Center. For our post today, we want to excerpt a small portion from Rev. Hutchinson’s book, here telling of how the Reformed Presbytery was organized on this day in 1774, and how later the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church came into existence in 1782 :—

The Reformed Presbytery of Scotland did, however, send in 1751 the Rev. John Cuthbertson, who ministered in America for 40 years until his death in 1791. On Cuthbertson’s first Sabbath in America he lectured on the passage in Luke (6:22-31) which begins, ‘Take no thought for your life,’ and ends, ‘But rather seek ye the kingdom of God.’ The words symbolized a ministry full of faith, labor, and sacrifice. Cuthbertson made his headquarters at Middle Octorara from which he served the Societies scattered throughout the Colonies. His travels and ministry are recorded in the diary which includes entries in both English and Latin. Perhaps the most familiar entries in the diary are: ‘Fessus, fessus valde—tired, very tired,’ and ‘Give all praise to my gracious God.’  Such an attitude of praise was necessary when, for instance, he wrote, after staying overnight with a parishioner: ‘Slept none. Bugs.’ Cuthbertson did much to make the organization of the scattered Societies more formal by ordaining elders and establishing sessions.  He was a hard worker, preaching as many as eleven times in one week and never using the same sermon twice.  Every Sabbath he would explain a Psalm, give a detailed lecture on a passage of Scripture, and preach a more popular sermon on the great themes of the Gospel.  Communion was held once a year among the Societies, and strict discipline was observed with regard to who was allowed to partake.

Cuthbertson sent repeated calls to Scotland for help, but it was not until 1773 that he was joined by Matthew Lind and Alexander Dobbin. On March 9, 1774, these three constituted the first Reformed Presbytery in America. The entry in the frontier preacher’s diary simply reads: ‘After more consultation and prayer, Presbytery.’  However, the first Reformed Presbytery was only destined to last eight years until 1782. In the meantime, the American Revolution!  The Covenanters in America had no more use for George III than their ancestors for Charles II. As Glasgow remarks: ‘To a man the Covenanters were Whigs. An unsound Whig made a poor Covenanter, and a good Covenanter made a loyal Whig.’ On July 2, 1777, Cuthbertson led some of his followers in taking an oath of fidelity to the cause of the Colonies.  In 1782 the three ministers of the Reformed Presbytery, under Cuthbertson’s leadership, joined with the Associate Presbytery to form the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.  Most of the Society People followed their leadership.  As a strict Covenanter later remarked: ‘The great majority of the Covenanters in the North followed their misguided pastor into the union.’

What is the explanation of this union? The position of the Covenanters in Scotland was that Christians should refuse ‘all voluntary subjection for conscience sake’ to the British Crown in protest against a Covenant-breaking government’s right to rule; whereas the Scottish Seceders had maintained that the Christian ought to acknowledge the civil authority of the Crown ‘in lawful commands.’  The Associate Presbytery in America had accordingly opposed the Reformed Presbytery’s position on the American Revolution.  However, now that the Colonies were no longer under the British Crown, the opinions of the American Covenanters and Seceders on the new civil government were in a state of flux, and could be more easily coalesced—especially in a time when the spirit of confederation was in the air.

Another apparent explanation is that the principle of the descending obligation of the Covenants seems to have come into question among some of the early American Covenanters.  This began to occur as early as 1760 according to Findley, an ex-Covenanter who found his way into the Associate Reformed Church.  He further maintains that the Reformed Presbytery agreed in 1774 or 1775 that ‘while the presbytery still continued to hold the covenants, testimonies, and sufferings of Scotland … in respectful remembrance,’ the only terms of communion insisted on by presbytery would be allegiance to the Scriptures and the doctrines of the Westminster Standards as agreeable to the Scriptures.  Cuthbertson himself is purported to have taught the personal rather than the national obligation to the Covenants.

Words to Live By:
An announcement by the one of our regional presbyteries  spoke of the principles and practices of the Peacemaking Institute to be presented in class form to elders and laypeople on a weekend.  Alas, even in the most biblical of churches, men and movements have not always gotten along with one another.  So what  we read here in this post of John Culbertson being on the “outs” with other Covenantal Presbyterians is not at all unusual in church history.  From the book of Acts 15, we read of Barnabas and Paul differing as to whether to take John Mark with them on another missionary journey.  The sad text is Acts 15:39 where we are told “the contention was so sharp between them (Barnabas and Paul), that they departed asunder one from the other. . . .” (KJV) Yet from this seeming disappointment, the Lord overruled and now two missionary teams went out to the watching world.  Later Paul would confess that John Mark was beneficial to him.  So all of God’s people need to be patient with one another, especially they who are teaching and ruling elders, study the blessing  of mutual peace on the witness to the watching world, and do the  work in union with God’s people, when we will be strengthened by one another’s spiritual gifts in the visible church. 

The Remarkable Trance of William Tennent
by Rev. David T. Myers

The third son of the Rev. William Tennent, best known for starting the Log College, was William Tennent, Jr. Born in Ireland in 1705, he, along with the other members of his parent’s family, came to America where the father began a Presbyterian church. Each one of the sons, Gilbert, Charles, William, and John followed their father’s footsteps into the fledgling American Presbyterian church, studying at the famous Log College. As William Tennent Jr began his theological studies under the tutelage of his father and brother Gilbert, the following experience took place. This story is found in a pamphlet located in our PCA History Center, entitled “The Remarkable Trance of Rev. William Tennent” :

“(William) was conversing, one morning, with his brother, in Latin, on the state of his soul, when he fainted and died away. After the usual time he was laid out: and the neighbors were invited to attend the funeral on the next day. In the evening his physician and friend returned from a ride into the country, and was much afflicted at the news of his death. He could not be persuaded that it was certain; and, on being told that one of the persons who had assisted in laying out the body thought he had observed a slight tremor of the flesh under the arm, although the body was cold and stiff, he endeavored to ascertain the fact. He first put his own hand into warm water, to make it as sensitive as possible, and then felt under the arm, near the heart, and affirmed that he felt an unusual warmth, though no one else could. He had the body removed to a warm bed, and insisted that the people who had been invited to the funeral, should be requested not to attend. To this his brother objected as absurd, the eyes being sunk, the lips discolored, and the whole body cold and stiff. However, the doctor finally prevailed, and no hopes were entertained of success except by the doctor, who never left him night nor day.”

The story goes on to state that this went on for three days, when plans again were made to bury his body. The brother, probably Gilbert, felt that it was useless to treat a lifeless corpse, when the following happened.

“At this critical and important moment, the body, to the great astonishment of all present, opened his eyes, gave a dreadful groan, and sank again into apparent death.”

This revival of life and then death experience went on twice more, with the last time “life seem to return with more power, and a complete revival took place, to the great joy of the family and friends, and to the no small astonishment and conviction” of those who had gathered for his funeral.

What was remarkable about the following twelve months of Williams’s life was, while he took about a year to regain his strength, he was totally ignorant of every transaction of his life previous to his sickness. William had to be taught how to read and write, as a child was taught in those days. His knowledge of theology was completely gone, until one day in small degrees, his memory was revived, with a perfect knowledge of the past transactions of his life.

In time, he was asked by his brother and another minister of what he remembered about this experience. He said:

“I found myself in an instant in another state of existence, under the direction of a superior Being, who ordered me to follow him. I was accordingly wafted along, I know not how, till I beheld at a distance an ineffable glory, the impression of which on my mind is impossible to communicate to mortal man. I immediately reflected upon my happy change, and thought ‘well, blessed be God, I am safe at last, notwithstanding all my fears.’ I saw an innumerable host of happy beings surrounding the inexpressible glory, in acts of adoration and joyous worship; but I did not see any bodily shape or representation in the glorious appearance. I heard things unutterable; I heard their songs and hallelujahs of thanksgiving and praise, with unspeakable rapture. I felt joy unutterable and full of glory. I requested permission to join the happy throng, when my conductor tapped me on the shoulder, and said, ‘You must return to the earth.’ This seemed like a sword through my heart. In an instant I recollected seeing my brother standing before me disputing with the doctor.”

Words to Live By:
As you have read this astonishing experience, remember the words of inspired Scripture recounting an earlier and most astonishing experience, as told in 2 Corinthians 12:2 – 4, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago – whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows – such a man was caught up to the third heaven. And I know how such a man – whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows – was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.”

Words fail this author, and no doubt many of our readers, to correctly interpret what was thus written. The story we have recounted today was reported by the unknown author of this pamphlet as well as by Archibald Alexander in his book on the history of the Log College.

William Tennent Jr himself, went on after this experience to be ordained as a Presbyterian pastor, and became the pastor of the first Presbyterian Church in Freehold New Jersey, serving that congregation for 43 years before his death on this day, March 8, 1777. He was buried under the floor of the church, now called Old Tennent Presbyterian Church.

Nearly one-third of all PCA churches pre-date the 1973 formation of the PCA, and for most of those churches, we do not presently know their exact date of organization. Typically it is the newer churches where we have that information. But of those we do know the calendar date of the church’s organization, so here for this day, March 7th, we take this occasion to praise God for the following congregation, their pastor and staff, and their faithful labors in proclaiming the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ alone:

Severn Run Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Millersville, Maryland, a member of the PCA”s Chesapeake Presbytery, was organized on March 7, 1993. Rev. Arch Van Devender planted this church, beginning his labors there in 1991, and he remains pastor there at Severn Run. And so on this occasion, we are pleased to reproduce from the Severn Run church’s web site:

A Brief History of the Severn Run Evangelical Presbyterian Church

The Severn Run Evangelical Presbyterian Church began as a work of Jesus Christ using the combined efforts of the Mission To North America [MNA] committee of the Potomac Presbytery, and the Severna Park Evangelical Presbyterian Church. It was originally conceived as an outreach to the Gambrills-Odenton-Millersville community which at the time [1990] was the fastest growing community in the State of Maryland.

A telephone call campaign (“It’s For You!”) was undertaken and successfully completed slightly under 20,000 calls to the local community to inquire if there was interest in a new local church. Many people responded positively and some 200 people ultimately came to our first service on 3 March 1991 from those contacted this way. Some of those are still with us.

Severn Run started out as a “mission church” in the PCA but became a full fledged church, on our second anniversary, March 7, 1993. Arch was called as the first official pastor and was ordained on the Fourth Anniversary of the church, March 5, 1995. After many years in temporary locations, God gave us our current home in Feb. 2000. It was the result of much labor and sacrifice on the part of the congregation and many friends from our sister churches in the area.

Throughout the years the church has earnestly endeavored to serve the Lord by being a place where people can find rest. Our motto, Rest Yourselves Under the Tree, refers to the hospitality offered to our Lord by His servant Abraham in Genesis 18:4. By exhibiting love to strangers, Abraham actually ministered to the Person of His Savior. In the same way Severn Run E.P. Church understands itself as being a community of believers where weary folks who are tired of traveling in a world that offers little hope or encouragement can be refreshed through the caring love shown by God’s people. Within this vision there are many and varied ministries through which the Lord reaches out His hands to those with whom we come in contact. Worship of our Sovereign God is understood as the deepest need for any person and as such is the cornerstone of the church’s hope for bearing fruit to the Kingdom of Christ.

So Severn Run E. P. Church continues to look forward to new ministries to our community and new ways that we can touch the lives of people to help spread the vision of our fellowship even further. We look back with grateful astonishment to what God has done through the history of our church. He has shown Himself faithful to us in all things, sustaining us when we were weak, encouraging us when we were timid, and providing for us when we were needy. He, and He alone, is the reason for our existence, and it is to Him that we look for all that we need in the coming years of our service. To Him, and to Him alone, be all glory, honor and praise, now and forever, world without end. Amen!

Does your church have an anniversary pending in the near future? The PCA Historical Center has some ideas on how your church can observe the occasion, to the glory of our Lord. Click here to read “Celebrating Your Church’s Anniversary.”