STUDIES IN THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM
by Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn

Q. 75. What Is forbidden In the eighth commandment?

A. The eighth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever doth, or may, unjustly hinder our own or our neighbor’s wealth or outward estate.

Scripture References: I Timothy 5:8; Ephesians 4:28; Proverbs 21:6; II Thessalonians 3:7-10.

Questions:

1. What does this commandment teach the believer regarding his behavior?

This commandment teaches that the believer is forbidden any part of the area of theft regarding himself and others.

2. How could a believer steal from himself?

A believer could steal from himself by being idle when he should be at work; by not making use of the blessings that God has given him; by being wasteful of the material things God has given him.

3. What is the more direct teaching of this commandment?

The more direct teaching is the believer stealing from others.

4. What does the teaching contained in this commandment mean by stealing from others?

Stealing from others could be in the area of defrauding others in buying or selling; in the area of stealing money, a person’s name and reputation, and God Himself in not giving to Him what rightfully belongs to Him; extortion and all oppression (especially of the poor and afflicted).

5. Can theft be committed against the church?

Yes, it can be committed against the church either by simony or sacrilege.

6. What is simony?

This is a reference to Simon Magus in Acts 8:18, 19 who attempted to buy spiritual power for money. This could be done today, for example, in the case of a man who bought or sold in reference to a church and made profit.

7. What is sacrilege?

Sacrilege is the taking away of anything which has been dedicated to a sacred use. (Prov. 20:25; Mal. 3:8).

WILL A MAN ROB GOD?

Usually when this question is asked the mind focuses immediately on man’s responsibility to give of his tithes and offerings to God. Certainly, it does have to do with this portion of man’s responsibility. A man, a believer in Jesus Christ, can rob God in this way and many do in not being faithful in their giving habits to the church of Jesus Christ. However, a man can rob God in many other ways and do so while being very faithful in the giving of money, in his monetary stewardship responsibilities.

How else can a man rob God? He can rob God by forgetting the admonition in the Bible to keep holy the Sabbath Day. He can rob God in this way by only giving God a part of the day, congratulating himself
on attending church in the morning and then using the rest of the day for himself. This robs God of His due and makes him worse than many heathens who give one whole day each week to their false gods.

A believer can rob God by the wrong use of his body. He can call upon the body beyond the limits of endurance, be careless of the care of the body. A believer can rob God of the service he should be performing. God calls upon his children many times for tasks that must be accomplished. But many times because of wrong use of time and energy in other pursuits the believer is not ready physically for the testing time when it comes.

A believer can rob God by not allowing the grace of God to work in Him as the Lord would have it work. God so desires that we make use of that grace, that power of the Holy Spirit. But we so many times block it by our sin, by our preoccupation with self in our lives. And then we are, in effect, robbing God.

When a believer robs God, he is hindering his own “outward estate” for he is stealing from himself, from what God would give him in his life, all to the glory of God. He is not putting to full use the providence of God in his life. God has so much for all of His children. When we rob Him we are really robbing ourselves and our relationship is not what it should be to Him. We must learn to live Matt. 6:33 in order that we may never rob Him.

Published By: The SHIELD and SWORD, INC.
Vol. 5 No.6 (June 1966)
Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn, Editor

“The Dangers of Our National Prosperity; And The Way To Avoid Them”
by Samuel Wales (May 12, 1785)

Samuel Wales (1748-1794), a son of the manse, graduated from Yale, began his ministry at the age of 21, and later served as the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Milford, CT. Although his life was fairly short, in addition to being a pastor, he also taught at Yale. Epilepsy forced his early retirement, and he was disabled within a year of delivering this stirring sermon. He was known for his oratory, brilliance, and abilities; this sermon also shows his wisdom.

This sermon, based on Deuteronomy 8:11-14, was preached to the Connecticut General Assembly about nine years after the Declaration of Independence. It calls on God’s people to remember the Cause of any blessings. He believed that this OT passage applied to all people and particularly to those in America, who had recently seen an historic victory. Wales wishes to warn against presumptiveness or thinking that citizens are self-made.

The first half of the sermon seeks to identify temptations that come with prosperity. The second half wishes to “exhibit, in a very concise manner, that line of conduct which we ought to pursue, in order to secure through the divine favour the continuance of those blessings which we now enjoy.” From the outset, he affirmed: “Indeed never should it be forgotten that all the measures of civil policy ought to be founded on the great principles of religion; or, at the least, to be perfectly consistent with them: otherwise they will never be esteemed, because they will be contrary to that moral sense of right and wrong which God has implanted in the breast of every rational being.”

While extolling the greatness of God’s deliverance, notwithstanding, he noted that “security in happiness is not the lot of humanity.” Still the largest fear is the “want of religion.” Sounding like Calvin a few centuries earlier, he warned: “When we are favoured with a profusion of earthly good, we are exceedingly prone to set our hearts upon it with an immoderate affection, neglecting our bountiful Creator from whom alone all good is derived. We bathe and bury ourselves in the streams, forgetting the fountain whence they flow.”

This wise preacher noted:

We are much more inclined to murmur at God’s justice in adversity than to acknowledge his goodness in prosperity; more ready to view God as the author of evil than as the author of good. In the distresses of the late war, though they were most evidently brought upon us by the instrumentality of men, we were nevertheless much more ready to impute them to the hand of God, than we now are to acknowledge the same hand in the happiness of peace, and the other rich blessings of his providence and grace. When our wants are very pressing, we are willing, or pretend to be willing to apply to God for relief. But no sooner is the relief given than we set our hearts upon the gift, and neglect the giver; or rather make use of his own bounty in order to fight against him.

He stood with Moses in warning people not to forget the Lord or to love the creature more than the Creator. “Scarcely a prosperous period in their history can be pointed out,” he noted, “which was not followed by a decay of piety, and a corruption of morals.” The sermon then cites numerous OT examples of this, with Wales applying the OT to his audience: “Is it not a sad truth, that since the commencement of the late war, and especially since the restoration of peace, the holy religion of Jesus, that brightest ornament of our world, is, by many less regarded than it was before? And are not the sacred institutions of the gospel more neglected and despised? Are not the friends of Christianity treated with more disregard?”

Of the “evils which may be called symptoms and effects of irreligion,” he cited:

• Injustice to the best and most deserving friends of our country. This second evil, fueled by poor examples influenced others to be immoral: “And if our public conduct may be adduced by knaves and sharpers, as an example and pretext of injustice, will it not have a greater tendency to promote this evil than all our laws will have to prevent it? Too many are there of that smooth-speaking class of people, who mean to get their living out of others; who, whenever they can run into debt, consider it as so much clear gain.”
• Lack of true patriotism, which he defined as “a real concern for the welfare of our whole country in general.” “Genuine patriotism of the best kind,” Wales preached, “is peculiar to those only who are possessed of a principle of true virtue.” He elaborated on this: “That want of patriotism, of which we speak, produces very different effects in persons who are in different situations of life. It is nearly the same thing with selfishness. It often leads the ambitious and aspiring to seek their own promotion by very improper means. It leads them into a mad pursuit of low popularity, to the violation of honour and honesty and to the neglect of the public good.”
• Disrespect for civil rulers. While “Tyranny and despotism are undoubtedly very great evils,” Wales warned that “greater still are the dangers of anarchy.”
• Luxury and extravagant spending.

Wales realized that “Human nature is the same in every age, and similar causes will produce similar effects.”

The first remedy suggested by Wales to the General Assembly was that they identify these vices above and seek both to avoid them and to turn from them, not forgetting what the Lord had done.

Second, these people were to “use our best endeavours to promote the practice of virtue and true religion.” While distinguishing that America was not a theocracy, nor that every nation should follow all the Mosaic statutes, nevertheless, true religion was still critical: “The practice of religion must therefore be considered as absolutely essential to the best state of public prosperity, it must be so, unless we may expect happiness in direct opposition to the constitution of nature and of nature’s God. ‘Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.’ This is the course of nature, this is the voice of heaven, this is the decree of God.”

Third, Wales urged his audience to pray for outpourings of the Holy Spirit.

As a fairly young preacher himself (aged 37), he sagaciously called: “Young states are like young men; exceedingly apt, in imagination, to anticipate and magnify future scenes of happiness and grandeur, which perhaps they will never enjoy. It has lately become very fashionable to prophesy about the future greatness of this country; its astonishing progress in science, in wealth, in population and grandeur.”

His sentiment climaxes with this paragraph:

So, although we have gained that for which we most ardently wished, an happy period to the late war, yet we can by no means be certain but that some far greater evils are now before us. We may be over-run and ruined both for time and eternity by a torrent of vice and licenciousness, with their never-failing attendants, infidelity and atheism. We may be left to destroy ourselves by intestine divisions and civil wars: or we may be visited with such sickness and pestilence as would soon produce a far greater destruction than any war of what kind soever. God has many ways, even in the present world, to punish the sins both of individuals and of nations. He has ten thousand arrows in his quiver, and can always direct any or all of them unerring, to the victims of his wrath. No possible concurrence of circumstances can screen us from the notice of his eye or the power of his hand. Never, never, can we be secure but in the practice of true virtue and in the favour of God.

This sermon totaled nearly 10,500 words length. Readers may wish to consult a printed version, which is available in Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998). Moreover, an online version is posted at: http://consource.org/document/the-dangers-of-our-national-prosperity-and-the-way-to-avoid-them-by-samuel-wales-1785-5-12/.

By Dr. David W. Hall, Pastor
Midway Presbyterian Church

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.

A True Portrait of the Man

Mention the name of John Knox, and what comes to your mind?  Founder of Presbyterianism, the land of Scotland, Protestant Reformer, author, rigid leader, ever ready to prove his preaching orthodox by “apostolic blows and knocks”? Such is the picture which we have of this sixteenth century individual.

We always could expect negative views of him from his enemies in those centuries in assailing the character of this leader. They didn’t want his brand of Reformation truths and practices to become the norm in the Kingdom of Scotland. But often his friends in both those  years and today have felt that they must apologize for his fierce statements and actions, where and when no apology was needed. Of course, what doesn’t help is the familiar picture of John Knox, so familiar in all our minds, where his expression and especially his beard makes the present day characters of Duck Dynasty tame by comparison. And then there was that sermon written overseas entitled “First Draft of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regimen of Women,” which diatribe was against the female rulers of England. All this causes us to be thankful for the result of the establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland, and our country, but sometimes apologetic about the instrument used to bring it about.

Yet all these negatives were challenged by the discovery of four unpublished papers of John Knox in a collegiate library in London near the close of the nineteenth century. These papers were not originals to be sure, but transcripts from the originals written in the sixteenth century. And from them, we get a true portrait of the character of John Knox.

In addition, they reveal a little more of his ministry spent—are you ready for this?—in England. In fact, half of his ministry was spent either in England, or among English exiles in Germany and Geneva. Further, today in April 7, 1549, we remember his license being issued as a priest of the Church of England.

John Knox himself in his great work, The History of the Reformation in Scotland, describes his time in the Church of England with a very succinct paragraph on page 98. He said, “The said John Knox was first appointed Preacher to Berwick; then to Newcastle; last he was called to London and to the south parts of England, where  he remained to the death of King Edward the Sixth.” His whole five years of ministry was reduced to thirty-seven words.

The footnote under that quotation reads on the same page, “In this modest sentence John Knox disposes of his English residence of five years, making no reference to his appointment as a Royal Chaplain to Edward the Sixth, before whom he frequently preached at Windsor, Hampton Court, St. James’s and Westminster, nor to the share he took in preparation of the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles to the Church of England, nor to his declination first of the Bishopric of Rochester, and afterward of the vicarage of All Hallows in London. His appointment as preacher to Berwick and Newcastle was made by the Privy Council of England.”

As the English Reformer, the papers referenced above reveal the true character of Knox as exhibiting “a combination of tenderness with strength, of playful humor with the profoundest seriousness, of all genial sympathies with fervor of devotional and burning zeal for truth.”  (p. 443)  Knox is shown as a guide of souls in trouble, with remarkable wisdom and moderation. To be sure, John Knox did not compromise his divine calling as a pastor in the Church of England. He stood fast by his conviction that Scripture alone must command his actions as a servant of God.

Suffice to say, while this author rejoices in the Scottish Reformation, with no little gratitude that his ancestors were members of the Church of Scotland on his mother’s side, we must also rejoice in the influence that John Knox had on the English Reformation, where, preaching from the Word of God, he proclaimed the unsearchable riches of God’s grace, while defending the historic Christian faith from those who would seek to destroy it.

Then too, in cooperation with those Reformed members of the Church of England, Knox was a powerful influence in framing the Book of Common Prayer and the English Articles  of Religion. It was only with the death of Edward the Sixth that Mary Tudor came to the throne with the intention of restoring Romanism to the realm, which in turn forced Knox to flee to the Continent with countless other Protestants.

Words to Live By: “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness, God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” — 2 Timothy 2:24 – 26, ESV.

Recently a friend was inquiring about the history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod, which in 1965 merged with the original group known as the Evangelical Presbyterian Church [not the current ongoing denomination]. As explained below, this message was presented by the Rev. Harry Meiners at the occasion of the merger of these two denominations, though our post today is a shorter previous version that Rev. Meiners had prepared in 1961. Perhaps another day we will post the longer edition.

THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA, GENERAL SYNOD : A Brief Historical Sketch.
by the Rev. Harry Meiners [pictured at right]

presented by Rev. Harry H. Meiners Jr. at the Uniting Service of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America; General Synod on April 6, 1965 forming the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod.

At this historic Uniting Service the Stated Clerk of each of the two uniting churches has been asked to present a history of his respective church, limiting himself to eight minutes. My colleague has twenty-nine years to cover. The official history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Reformation Principles Exhibited begins with Adam and Eve! I shall endeavor, however to confine myself to a sketch of the past three hundred years.

The Reformed Presbyterian Churches in America are the lineal descendants of the Reformation Church in Scotland, and therefore, date back to the year 1560 for their origin. The General Synod and the Synod of today (divided in 1833) can, without one link broken, claim that they stand upon the platform of the Reformed Church in Scotland in those days of the second Reformation during the years 1638-1649. Then the Solemn League and Covenant was entered into, and the National Covenant of 1580 renewed.

These well-know covenants gave rise to the name “Covenanters,” so famous in Scottish history. Their persecution, from 1680 to 1688, forms a bloody page in the history of that country. The Sanquhar Declaration, made June 22, 1680, by Rev. Richard Cameron and his Covenanter followers, contains some of the germs of our own American Declaration of Independence. The Covenanters, loyal to King Jesus, could not accept the Erastian (Anglican or Episcopal) terms of the Revolution Settlement of 1668 – a position subsequently endorsed by the formation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. The Reformed Presbytery was re-constituted in Scotland in 1743 by Rev. John McMillan and Rev. Thomas Nairn. From the middle of the seventeenth century, there had been an emigration from the Reformed Presbyterian Churches in Britain and Ireland to the then American colonies or plantations. Many of these Covenanters had been actually banished by their persecutor, and many more were voluntary exiles for the Word of God and the testimony which they held. They came at first to the Carolinas, and then spread through

Tennessee and Kentucky. By way of Philadelphia they spread themselves over the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Later they came to New York and spread out through that state and on to northern and western localities. In 1752 Rev. John Cuthbertson arrived from Scotland and labored for twenty years among these scattered people. Most of them did not join other organized and existing churches. The Reformed Presbytery of America was constituted in 1774, and then re-organized in the city of Philadelphia in the spring of 1798. The first Synod was constituted in 1809 in Philadelphia; it became a delegated body in 1823. There was an unhappy division in 1833, upon the question of civil relations. The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America is the group that maintained that because the United States Constitution does not officially recognize Jesus Christ as Head of the nation, the Christian should not vote nor hold public office. The Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, General Synod does urge its members to vote and to hold public office. Today there are other differences between these two bodies — but there are cooperative relations between them and perhaps someday they may again join and work together.

The Theological Seminary of the General Synod was founded in 1807 in Philadelphia. Foreign Missions work was begun in India in 1836 and continues to this day. In northern India we have two mission stations and five congregations of national Indian Christians. Today the church also conducts mission work in Seoul. Korea (begun 1959) and Houston, Kentucky (begun 1907).

For a number of years the church grew smaller. There were congregations that left when there was a proposal to unite with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Others left when some wanted to use a musical instrument in public worship–those who opposed this departed. Others left when Synod voted to permit the use of hymns as well as Psalms in worship services.

Today we are growing again. There are now 23 congregations in the U.S., comprising three Presbyteries. There are 33 ordained ministers in the U.S., one in Korea, 7 in India. Total communicant membership is 2,500 in the U. S. and 180 in India. In India the Saharanpur Presbytery comprises five congregations. In America churches are located in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania. Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois. Kansas, and New Mexico. The church does not have its own college or seminary, but two of its ministers are teaching–Dr. Gordon H. Clark at Butler University and Dr. Charles F. Pfeiffer at Central Michigan University. The church employs a General Secretary, its only full-time servant of the denomination at large. All other denominational officers are pastors of local congregations or elders.

Young people’s conferences are held each summer by the Pittsburgh and Western Presbyteries and the Philadelphia Presbytery sends many of its youth to the Quarryville Bible Conference. All Presbyteries in the United States have Women’s Presbyterials.

The denomination publishes an official magazine, The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate, now in its 99th year of publication. It is published monthly October to May and bi-monthly June to September at $2.00 per year.

Union with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church has been worked on for several years, voted on favorably in 1964, and will be consummated in April, 1965. Thus these two churches hope to have a stronger witness to Biblical orthodoxy of a Reformed and Presbyterian nature in our generation.

October, 1961
Revised February, 1965
Rev. Harry H. Meiners Jr.
General Secretary of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod.