Let the Missions Conference Continue!

Yesterday’s post concerned a sermon by the Rev. Dr. William Henry Green which was delivered in the University Place Church, New York, on Sabbath evening, May 5, 1861 and on behalf of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. The University Place Church must have been holding a missions conference that year, because we’ve located another sermon on mission, delivered the next day, May 6th, 1861, and at the same location.

This next sermon is by the Rev. Cyrus Dickson, whom I’m unfamiliar with, though there is an extensive biography of him that you can read online. [That’s Rev. Dickson’s photo on the right.]. Having the text of these two sermons, the one by Dr. Green and now this one by Rev. Dickson, it is interesting to compare them and to wonder what each thought of the other’s message as they sat in that conference.

The full title of Rev. Dickson’s sermon is :

The Duty of the Church to Evangelize the World, with the means and motives for the work. A sermon preached for the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, May 6, 1866, in the Presbyterian Church, University Place, New York.

And so without further introduction, let’s hear from Rev. Dickson. He takes as his text Paul’s words in Romans 10:13-15:

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? . . .”

The text is part of Paul’s defense of the cause of Missions. The Jews objected to the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. Regarding themselves as the peculiar people of God, they imagined that the Gentile must, in some way, become a Jew in order to salvation. They exhibited dissatisfaction at any efforts to evangelize them, and sometimes, indeed, were willing to resist it even unto blood.

In this Epistle the Apostle, having shown the lost estate by nature and practice of the Gentile, and the equally hopeless condition of the Jew, and his deeper and more deserved condemnation, for resisting the light and refusing the mercy and grace of God, declares that both Jew and Gentile—that is, the whole race, are guilty before God, and stand in unanswering silence convicted and condemned at His judgment seat.

He then opens up the glorious way of salvation through the incarnation, substitution, sufferings, sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten and well-beloved Son—how God can now be just and yet justify the ungodly; how, having borne our sins in His own body on the tree, suffering the just in the place of the unjust, He can bring us nigh to God; that God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish but have eternal life; that Christ of God is made wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption to every one that believeth; that whosoever believeth or calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved, for with God, as between Jew and Gentile, there is no difference, for He is rich in mercy to all that call upon Him; that this Gospel of the grace of God was intended, not for the Jew alone, but for the race—that it is a universal religion, unrestricted by nation, or language, or condition, or color, or country.

He assigns the Fatherhood of God, the common origin and guilt and ruin of the race, the complete adaptation of the Gospel to all, as some of the reasons why, regardless of Jewish passion and prejudice, these glad tidings should be preached to every creature and to every age. Nay, he denounces the expulsion, for long generations, of the Jews from the pale of the Church because of their rejection of this Gospel, and refusal to communicate it freely to the nations, and predicts that, after the “fullness of the Gentiles shall be brought in,” the conversion of both Jew and Gentile shall vindicate its universal fitness.

The same great truths demonstrate our duty and enforce our obligation to evangelize the world. The demonstration needs perpetual repetition, for the Church seems to have fallen into the same mistaken sentiment as the Jew, for although eighteen centuries have passed away, yet there still remain more heathen today than there were inhabitants in the world at the time of the Incarnation. Blessed with the light of the Gospel, she often acts as i it were exclusively her own, and sitting at her ease and satisfied with her blessings, leaves countless millions to perish in darkness. She needs to be reminded perpetually that her God is the God and Father of all; that her Saviour is the Saviour of all; that His invitation—the invitation which she is commissioned and commanded to repeat—is, “Whosoever,” regardless of condition or color or country, whosoever calls upon the Lord shall be saved! That having provided a universal religion, He demands its universal extension, and being rich in mercy to all that call upon Him, He requires the Church to communicate to all the nations the knowledge of His being and the freeness and fullness of His grace. [emphasis added.]

For how can they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? How can they, in their sins and sorrows and ignorance, call upon Him for help, of whose love and grace, of whose willingness and power to save the guilty and the lost they know nothing? And without this knowledge they must perish! How shall they know of His mercy and grace unless the Church preaches to them these glad tidings of the blessed God? This is the ordained way, “by the foolishness of preaching,” to enlighten, evangelize and save the race. Hence the ascending command of her King and Saviour, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” And in view of the greatness of the work, and the weariness and worldliness and weakness of His people, adds: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

How can these preachers go, unless sent and supported by God, and sent and supported by His people? In this great work God is the worker, and His people are honored to co-work with Him. Exalted privilege, divine communion between the Church and her glorious Head!

The part of the Lord Jesus is to supply the gifts, the means, the instrumentalities. The part of the Church is to employ them. These are amongst His great ascension gifts, for “he gave to some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, that is, missionaries, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. In all ages of the Church He has supplied her with ample means for her appointed work. He never reaps where He has not sown, and when He appoints the work He supplies the workers.

To read the whole of Rev. Dickson’s sermon on missions, click here, continuing at the bottom of page 5. 

Are We Guilty of Unbelief?

Surprising things turn up when searching the calendar, day by day, for anything Presbyterian. In this case, a sermon by the Rev. Dr. William Henry Green, a Hebrew scholar who, from 1851 until his death in 1900, served as Professor of Biblical Literature at the Princeton Theological Seminary. In its historical context, this sermon was delivered on the very eve of the American civil war, yet the words bear a striking pertinence to our situation today. Indeed, as Dr. Green himself points out, the words of his text in Isaiah 49 apply in every instance where the Church has found herself in times of distress. Green’s sermon rests on the understanding that believing Israel in the Old Testament is the Church more fully revealed in the New Testament. From that basis, he goes on to show that God chose the Church as His instrument for the propagation of the Gospel, and the means that God has chosen will not fail in accomplishing His purposes, not because the Church is sufficient, but because God Himself is sufficient and never-failing. 

A sermon by the Rev. W. Henry Green … preached in the University Place Church, New York, on Sabbath evening, May 5, 1861 : in behalf of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church.

He said to Me, “You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will show My glory.”—Isaiah 49:3

A new torrent of emotions is rushing through the American heart. The inexorable logic of events has thrust before us the ruin of our beloved country as a contingency that is possible, perhaps even probable, and at our very doors.

The occurrences of the last few weeks have prepared us to appreciate better than we could have done before the feelings awakened in a devout Jew by the prediction of the coming Babylonish exile. It was not only his patriotism which was touched by the ruin coming on his country, but his religious emotions were stirred to their very depths. His patriotism was entwined with his religion. The land that he loved was the Lord’s land. The nation to which he belonged had been chosen by God from all the families of mankind to be His peculiar people. It was their mission to perpetuate and to spread throughout the world the knowledge of the true religion, and thus all nations were to be blessed in them. Jerusalem, the royal capital, was the city of the great King, where He had fixed His earthly dwelling-place; it was the only spot on earth where those atoning sacrifices could be offered, by which God was propitiated, and which were permanent types and pledges of the future more perfect sacrifice. And now shall Israel be cast off, the holy land be ravaged, Jerusalem destroyed, and the temple burned? Are then God’s purposes of grace annulled? Is the end of Israel’s existence defeated? And are the glorious hopes which had been indulged, of blessings to come forth from them upon the world, doomed to sudden and bitter disappointment?

The prophet meets and answers these gloomy apprehensions in the text. Israel has been guilty, and a period of severe chastisement and trial is before him. But God has not forsaken him, nor are the ancient promises forgotten. The Lord still says to His sinful, suffering people, and may He in His sovereign grace vouchsafe a like word of mercy to our own afflicted land, “Thou are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

It is obvious that these words of consolation and encouragement contain nothing of a local or temporary nature. They are not directed exclusively, nor even peculiarly to that particular distress, which gave occasion to their utterance, but are equally adapted to every similar source of disquietude or anxiety that may disturb the people of God. They describe the divinely ordained mission of God’s chosen people. And that is a fact for all time. If we were to confine our attention on the one hand to the Church’s want of fidelity to the trust committed to her, her worldliness, her feeble faith, her flagging zeal, her intestine strifes, her imperfect consecration and the low state of her piety; or, on the other hand, to her weakness as compared with the obstacles I her way, the vastness of the work to be performed, or the power of those agencies and influences which are hostile to her welfare and her progress, we might easily give way to despondency and feel as though the world’s salvation could never be achieved by such an incompetent and unworthy instrument. In fact, we can only escape this conclusion by directing our eyes to some such ground of confidence as that contained in the text, which is independent of all external circumstances, which rests not upon the constancy or the efficiency of the Church, but is based entirely upon the changeless purpose of an unchanging God. With this view let us turn our thoughts to this universal antidote to discouragement in the work in which the Church is engaged.

I. The first consideration which presents itself, is that the Church has been taken by God into His service. “Thou art my servant, O Israel.” This carries with it a sure pledge of the accomplishment of the task, whatever it be, to which the Church is appointed. If the Church had undertaken some work of her own motion, the case would be different. We would then have to weigh carefully the reasons for and against her success. It would be a question, whether she with her ten thousand could meet and vanquish the enemy that comes against her with twenty thousand,—whether she contains within herself a strength and resources adequate to the enterprise. But if she is in the service of the Almighty, and not working on her own account, these considerations are irrelevant and vain. The workman is furnished with means and facilities by his employer. If a palace be building, the question of its completion rests not upon the scanty resources of the laborers engaged, but upon the wealth of the royal treasury. They who do the work of God are privileged and expected to draw upon His inexhaustible supplies. Whatever the task He has appointed them, He will provide all that is requisite for its accomplishment. It is His power and grace that are pledged for the issue. . . .

Furthermore, if the Church is the Lord’s servant, working out His ideas and not her own, then, and then only can she be certain that what she is doing is in harmony with His universal plan. God is the supreme director of all things. He guides or controls the movements of all His creatures, so that they combine to effect His predestined end. All things work together to bring about what He has purposed. This is not only to be regarded as the certain resultant of conflicting forces operating in the sphere of the world or of the universe; as though some were favorable and others adverse, yet the latter should be overbalanced by the former. But every thing that occurs conspires to urge forward God’s grand design. There is nothing, and there can be nothing, which is, properly speaking, adverse to it. That which so appears to our narrow vision, would, if we could take a more comprehensive view, be seen to enter as a constituent into the plan, and to contribute its quota to the general design. Now, if the plan upon which the Church is engaged is God’s plan, then it is certainly in harmony with His universal scheme. It will fit in with the rest of His glorious designs, and the whole momentum of this divine machinery is given to propel it forward. On the other hand, any plan not in accordance with this grand universal scheme must inevitably be thwarted, for it runs counter to movements which God has instituted; and it relies for its strength and support upon materials which the Creator designs to subserve a totally different end from that to which it would turn them.

Then too, if God has selected the Church to be His servant in a given work, this is because she is or shall be made a fit instrument for what He designs her to do.. For every function to be performed in nature He has an appropriate agent, which accomplishes precisely what it was intended to accomplish. It is the same in the moral and spiritual world. He selects His own instruments and they are just the ones for His purpose. His ways, it is true, are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. If we had been called upon to choose an agency for spreading the gospel over the earth, we certainly would never have thought of selecting one which would slumber over its task as the Church has done, or which would be chargeable with such criminal inconsistencies and such shameful neglects of duty. And yet these blots upon the Church, though they may well cover her with confusion, so far from defeating God’s design, or proving that so incompetent an instrument must hinder its accomplishment, only show how comprehensive that design must be, that He should make choice of such an instrument to effect it. If nothing more were to be done than to send the gospel over the earth, this could be brought about much more speedily than by our laggard efforts. It would be a profitable though humbling task to search out those enlarged views of the design of God, which are suggested by His selection of so weak and sinful an agent as the one best suited to accomplish it. Assuredly it stains all human pride and glorying, and reveals the magnitude of the work of salvation, and renders the ultimate triumph of sovereign grace more illustrious.

Nevertheless, this inevitably follows. The plan of God in the salvation of men cannot be defeated by the unfaithfulness or the incompetency of the Church as His instrument in spreading the gospel. Because her seeming unsuitableness, sinful and inexcusable as it is, is really part of her fitness, when the full comprehensiveness of God’s plan is regarded. He selected the Church, knowing precisely what she was and would be, to be His servant, and nothing can ever occur to disprove the wisdom of this choice. . . .

(emphasis added)

To read the whole of Rev. Green’s sermon, click here.

What Constitutes Schism?

In the May 4, 1936 edition of the Presbyterian Guardian (now on-line), Dr. J. Gresham Machen wrote an article on what constituted schism.  The times in which he was writing were perilous times for both Reformed ministers and the members of their churches. Already a Mandate had been passed by the 1934 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., which threatened suspension of any elder, teaching or ruling, who would support by their presence, purse, and prayers any board outside of the denominational boards. Indeed, young pastors could not be received into churches or presbyteries who refused to support the official boards of the church. In the midst of this, a Presbyterian Constitutional Covenant Union had been set up by the small Presbyterian conservative faction in the church.  One of the principles of that Covenant union plainly contemplated separation from the main-line church if it continued in its apostasy.

Responding to that Covenant Union were those ministers and churches who denounced the sin of schism, plainly inferring that any who contemplated separation would be guilty of the sin of schism.  It was that false charge which Machen proceeded in this article to refute, and refute very strongly.

Consider his words here.  He wrote just eight months before his untimely death, “It is not schism to break away from an apostate church.  It is a schism to remain in an apostate church, since to remain in an apostate church is to separate from the true church of Jesus Christ.”  He then went on to explain that as of May 4, the Mandate of 1934 and 1935 had yet to be declared constitutional.  It was simply an administrative pronouncement up to that time.  If the General Assembly of 1936, to be held in several weeks, approved it, then it would be an action of the church.  If that happened, as we know from the position of hindsight that it did, then all true believers had it as their duty to depart from the denomination because that church had placed the word of man above the Word of God and has dethroned Jesus Christ.

Dr. Machen  was seeking to go to the last measure to keep the church from going down this path of apostasy.  Yet it would be a vain seeking as the May 1936 General Assembly did approve the Mandate of 1934, and the die was cast.  All those ministers, who had rejected the earlier Mandate, and had appealed to the next highest court their suspension from the ministry by their respective presbyteries, had their appeals denied.

To read the full article by Dr. Machen, click here.

Words to Live By:  God alone is Lord of the conscience and has left it free from any doctrines or commandments of men, (a) which are in any respect contrary to the Word of God,or (b) which, in regard to matters of faith and worship are not governed by the Word of God.

A Chaplain of the Stonewall Brigade

It was said that no danger deferred him; no sacrifices were too great for him to make.

The year was 1862. For those living in that section of Virginia now bordered as present day West Virginia, the great civil war was an imminent and daily reality of danger and disruption. It was a time of separation from family, soldiers on long distance marches, and life-threatening casualties from battle. And Stonewall Jackson always had his fair share of them.  Into this scene, Abner Crump Hopkins entered.

Born in 1835 in Powhatan County, Virginia, young Abner was educated at Hampden-Sydney College, graduating in 1855 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Whatever was used of the Holy Spirit to call him into a relationship with Jesus Christ, we do not know. But we do know that he was born again after his collegiate years.  With a call to be a minister, Abner entered Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia during the years of 1857-1860. Licensed and ordained by East Hanover and Winchester Presbyteries, he took the congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Martinsburg, Virginia. It was evidently a happy ministry until Federal troops invaded the town.  Leaving behind family and friends, Abner Hopkins was commissioned as a Confederate chaplain by the Second Virginia Infantry Regiment on May 3, 1862.

Right at the very beginning, Chaplain Hopkins made it his determination to share the suffering, marches, and perils of the men in the regiment.  Indeed he was so successful in this determination to be faithful always in his post of duty that the officers and  men of his regiment, and other units, sought him out for spiritual comfort. Opportunities to proclaim the gospel of grace came frequently from nightly prayer meetings at headquarters as well as on the Sabbath, which brought many souls into the kingdom.

On two occasions during the war, the hardships of this life and ministry produced emotional and physical breakdowns which set him apart from his military “congregation.”  But after times of rest and recovery, he always returned to the military  to further minister God’s Word. He was a part of the great “revival” which took place in the Southern army, especially during the latter part of the War.

After the close of the war, he returned to the civilian world as a pastor. His longest pastorate was in the Charleston area of West Virginia, where he was faithful in one congregation for forty-five years.  He was known all over the South, in that he served one year as the moderator of the 1903 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. He died in 1911.

Further study :
The grave site of the Rev. Abner Crump Hopkins.
His diary is preserved at the Virginia Historical Society Library. The diary contains entries describing participation of the Second Virginia Infantry Regiment in the battles of the Seven Days’, Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Bristoe Station, and 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaigns.

Also on this day :
May 3, 1895 marks the birthday of Cornelius Van Til, born this day in 1895 in the Netherlands. For more on Dr. Van Til, including a photographic retrospective, click here.

Words to Live By:   How important it is to pray now for future difficult situations in your family or work or congregation, so that you will be faithful to the Word of the Lord and His will when the time of those difficult situations arrive.

Consternation! He’s Back!

It was the happiest time in the ministry of John Knox in the sixteenth century.  Ministering in what he had called “the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of the apostles,” Geneva, Switzerland was where John Knox spent his exile from his beloved Scotland. It was not a vacation in any sense of the word. He preached three sermons a week, ministered to the English and Scottish exiles there, and studied the Scriptures in the Hebrew and Greek for the purpose of translating a new version to be known as the Geneva Bible afterwards.

On the tenth of March, 1557, Knox received a communication from five nobles in Scotland which stated that the faithful believers in Scotland “have a godly thirst day by day of your presence ” back in Scotland. Further, these believers are “not only glad to hear of your doctrine, but are ready to jeopardize their lives and goods in the forward setting of the glory of God, as He will permit.” In essence, John Knox was missed by the faithful back in Scotland who wanted  him to return to them.

After receiving counsel from John Calvin and other godly ministers in Geneva, they with one consent urged him to return home.  He left at the end of September, 1557, reaching Dieppe, France, on February 19, 1559. He had been there once before, and preached with great success to the Protestants of that area. However, upon arriving, he received two letters which brought him grief, as those same five nobles now urged him to delay his return to Scotland. He replied with vigor, urging them to change their minds about this delay. Meanwhile, in the intervening seven weeks before he was to receive an answer, he preached the Word of God in Dieppe with great results, with the number of the faithful increasing in that area.

John Knox finally received an answer with a renewed invitation to return to Scotland.  Accompanying that letter was a bond or covenant in which the Protestant nobles pledged themselves to “maintain, set forward, and establish the Most Blessed Word of God and His congregation.”

With that, Knox tried to enter through England, but was not permitted to do so by the Queen. So he sailed directly to Leith, Scotland, landing on May 2, 1559, never again to leave his place of birth. It was said that the provincial council had been meeting for several days scheming on how to proceed to the trials of Protestant ministers in the kingdom. When they were in the midst of a meeting on May 3rd, one of the number rushed into the chamber to say, “John Knox! John Knox is come! He is come! He slept last night in Edinburgh!” Panic struck the meeting as they broke off their meeting with great haste and confusion. Nothing better could prove the importance of his timely arrival than the consternation it brought in the hearts of his antagonists.

Words to Live By: We will ever see attempts by Satan to hinder the great work of Reformation, both then and now. We thus need to see with the eyes of faith the oft quoted conviction of the apostle Paul, when in 1 Corinthians 16:9, he exclaimed that “a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” Nothing has changed today for biblical faith and life. For every wide door for service, there will be many adversaries of the gospel. Be faithful, and despite their presence, work for Christ now.

“I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about.” —(Psalm 3:6, KJV)