Sharing  Faith by Word and Deed

Everyone has heard of the name John Wanamaker, especially those in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That is where this retail giant began his department stores at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861.  But everyone may not know that John Wanamaker was a devout Presbyterian who shared his wealth and his Christian faith by word and deed.

Born on this day July 11, 1838, he began to work as an errand boy and shopkeeper’s helper.  At age 18, he became a Christian and began to attend Sunday School and church.  His congregation was Bethany Presbyterian church in Philadelphia.  In fact, at twenty-five, he was ordained as a ruling elder in the church.

He had some ideas which were unorthodox in the retail marketing field.  Using four principles, which were honesty, a fixed price for goods, a money back guarantee, and happy contented employees, he thought (and thought rightly) that customers would come. Workers were given free medical care, free education, recreational facilities, pensions, and profit-sharing plans. No wonder that unions could not get a foothold in his stores.

As his businesses grew with more and more stores in more than one city, he began to give large portions of his wealth to religious and moral causes.  The Young Man’s Christian Association and the Sunday School movement were among those receiving large support. He said once “I cannot too greatly emphasize the important and value of Bible study — more important than ever before in these days of uncertainties, when men and women are apt to decide questions from the standpoint of expediency rather than the eternal principles laid down by God Himself.

Words to Live By: When you consider the last sentence about Bible study, we might think that he had made it in the current year in which we find ourselves instead of back in the late 1800’s.  But a faith and life lived in the light of God’s Word the Bible makes everything relevant to every age.  Bible study still has its place in every believer’s life walk.  Buy a faithful Bible study, like the Reformation Study Bible, with a good biblical commentary, like Matthew Henry, and (oh yes) a notebook to record what the Spirit reveals to you through His Word, follow everything up with prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplications (A.C.T.S), and you will be able to decide questions from the standpoint of God Himself.

My apologies for the very late delivery of today’s post. To make matters somewhat worse, this post is out of order and should have appeared next week, but for the fact that the text for Question #90 is unavailable to me at the moment. I expect to present that Question next week.

STUDIES IN THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM

Our guest author, Dr. David W. Hall, returns today with another installment in his series on Election Day Sermons. Dr. Hall has served as senior pastor of the Midway Presbyterian Church of Powder Springs, Georgia since 2003, and prior to that was pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1984-2002. He was educated at Memphis State University, graduating there with the B.A. degree in 1975 and prepared for the ministry at Covenant Theological Seminary, receiving the M.Div. degree in 1980. Whitfield Theological Seminary awarded him a Ph.D. in 2002. A prolific author, he has written well over twenty books. 

“An Oration in Commemoration of the Independence of The United States of America”
by Enos Hitchcock (July 4, 1793)

Enos Hitchcock (1744-1803) was a Harvard graduate (1767) and a chaplain for several brigades in the Colonial militia (seeing battle at Ticonderoga, Saratoga, Valley Forge, and West Point). He also served as chaplain of the Continental Army from 1779-1780. He preached in other New England churches after the Revolutionary War, prior to settling as the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1783 until his death. During his pastorate, the church grew and built an impressive church in 1794-75 at the corner of Benefit and Benevolent streets. Later his church which was Arminian under his leadership became Unitarian, shortly after his time.

Among his other fiery sermons was a 1780 sermon accusing Benedict Arnold of ‘perfidy” (see: https://rihs.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/a-perfidious-wretch-hitchcocks-sermon-on-arnolds-treason/). He was involved in various causes, ranging from education to abolition, even purchasing a slave but manumitting him in his will. His diaries were published in 1899 and are available at: https://archive.org/details/diaryofenoshitch00hitc.

Hitchcock delivered this anniversary sermon seventeen years after the Declaration of Independence in a Baptist church, preaching this on the same day as Samuel Miller’s sermon on the anniversary of America’s Independence (see link to previous sermon). However, he begins with a passage from the Declaration rather than from Scripture. He believed the providential wonders seen here were also of benefit to all mankind. This sermon celebrated the birth day of a nation, born “when your country was bleeding at every pore, without a friend among the nations of the earth. God alone was her friend! The justice of her cause was registered in the high chancery of heaven. The stars fought in their courses for her; and the event justified a step which had so astonished the world.”

This great land bore tremendous promise for industry, agriculture, and development—surely, he preached, the providential blessing of God. To match these natural resources, Hitchcock also noted: “The features of our policy have a strong resemblance to the magnificent and well-proportioned features of our country. No longer do we subscribe to the absurd doctrine of the divine right of kings, no longer bow our necks to the galling yoke of foreign legislation. Independent of these servilities, we enjoy the divine right of governing ourselves.” He was a thorough-going republican who detested absolute power, anarchy, and tyranny. He reflected the wisdom of the day: “Every good government must exist somewhere between absolute despotism and absolute democracy. In either of these extremes, neither liberty nor safety can be enjoyed.”

He also thought it self-evident that: “The state where the people choose their magistrates for a fixed period, and often assemble to exercise the sovereignty, is a democracy, and is called a republic; such were Athens and Rome, and such are the United States of America.” He saw the republicanism of America as a moderate form, which “was most congenial to the rights of man, and the enjoyment of equal liberty—that liberty, which to independence unites security—which to the most ample elective powers, unites strength and energy in government.”

Hitchcock also realized the imperfection of governments and the need for virtue among the electors: “The most perfect model of government that imagination can form will be useless, if the state of mankind renders it impracticable.” He rendered a quite glowing assessment of the office-holders in all branches as satisfying the high demands of representative government.  He also spied “American genius springing forward in useful arts, projecting great and astonishing enterprizes, tearing down mountains and filling up vallies, and making efforts unknown in those countries where despotism renders everything precarious, and where a tyrant reaps what slaves have sown.”

Not every revolution would automatically advance liberty: “Indeed a dark cloud at present vails the fair countenance of liberty in France. Inexperienced in the science of a free government, and unprepared for the enjoyment of it by a previous course of education, of intellectual improvement, and moral discipline, they have tarnished their glory by excesses; and, in the paroxysms of their zeal, have carried excess to outrage.”

He preached that “Knowledge and true religion go hand in hand. When the former is obscured, the latter is mutilated, and enveloped in the shades of superstition and bigotry. And whenever the civil power has undertaken to judge and decide concerning truth and error, to oppose the one, while it protected the other, it has invariably supported bigotry, superstition and nonsense.”

In contrast to Miller’s sermon from last week, this one seldom refers to biblical texts. His sermon concluded:

May we ever show ourselves worthy of the blessings we enjoy, and never tarnish the bright lustre of this day, by any unbecoming excesses. Americans! think of the many privileges which distinguish your condition. Be grateful for your lot; and let your virtue secure what your valour, under God, hath obtained; and transmit to latest posterity the glorious inheritance. May the political edifice erected on the theatre of this new world, afford a practical lesson of liberty to mankind, and become in an eminent degree the model of that glorious temple of universal liberty which is about to be established over the civilized world.

This sermon may be found online at: http://consource.org/document/an-oration-in-commemoration-of-the-independence-of-the-united-states-of-america-by-enos-hitchcock-1793-7-4/.

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

For others like this order a copy of Twenty Messages to Consider Before Voting from Reformation Heritage Books.

A Note on William Stuart Red (from the Introduction to A History of the Presbyterian Church in Texas) :

God in His providence took the Reverend W. S. Red, D.D., from his earthly labors, on this day, July 8, 1933, before he had completed this last task, so very dear to his heart—the writing of the history of his Church in Texas.

Mr. Red from early youth had exhibited an abiding interest in the “beginnings” of his Church. This is not surprising when his early environment is considered. He was born of pioneering parents, staunchly Presbyterian with a long Presbyterian heritage, who took a leading part in the work of the Church in Texas. His father came to Texas in 1844, during the days of the Republic. He was an elder in the historic Prospect Church and a charter member of the Board of Trustees of Austin College. His mother was a pioneer in the education of women, being associated with Dr. Miller [i.e., James Weston Miller, 1815-1888] in founding one of the first Presbyterian schools for young women . His uncle, Dr. Miller, took part in the organization of the Synod of Texas (PCUS), being its first Stated Clerk. His early childhood was spent in the shadow of the “Cradle of Presbyterianism,” old Chriesman’s school house. He spoke of passing this historic place, when, as a boy, he made his regular horseback trips to mill.

Mr. Red devoted practically his whole life to gathering this material. Many weary hours were spent in the basement of the old Main Building at the University, delving into the Austin and Bexar Archives. This was years before a library had been built or an archivist had catalogued these papers.

It was a grief to him that Presbyterians did not feel, or perhaps realize, the importance of preserving their precious documents. Consequently, he was a prime mover in securing for our Church the Historical Foundation, as is shown from [Foundation director] Dr. Tenney’s letter: “The service your husband has rendered all along through these years, from 1903, has been very great; but strange to say, in such a manner as that his name does not get into it . . . He does not concern himself with the outward reward and glory here; his zeal is for the Kingdom, yet just because of this we who appreciate his unselfish and sacrificial service feel that his name should be associated with his service.” [Letter to Mrs. Red from Dr. S. M. Tenney, dated January 25, 1927.]

Words to Live By:
He seemed to be larger than life, but then aren’t all Texans?  Yet it is important to remember that his love for the state of Texas was grounded in Christian Presbyterianism in Texas.  Paul’s haunting question in the New Testament was “How shall they hear without a preacher?”  Rev. Red wanted Presbyterian preachers to train and serve their Lord and God so that his fellow Texans could hear the unsearchable riches of God’s grace.  That is true for all of our states.  Pray for where God has placed you on this day that the everlasting good news of eternal life might impact your state.

For Further Reading:
Dr. Red’s magnum opus, A History of the Presbyterian Church in Texas, is not currently available in digital format, and print copies are somewhat scarce, the book having been published in 1936. Another, earlier work by Dr. Red is available on the Internet: Texas Colonists and Religion, 1821-1836: A Centennial Tribute to the Texas patriots who shed their blook that we might enjoy civil and religious liberty. (1924).

What follows is a letter from Dr. J. Gresham Machen, in which he declines an invitation to serve as president of the William Jennings Bryan University. That school was officially chartered in 1930 “for the purpose of establishing, conducting and perpetuating a university for the higher education of men and women under auspices distinctly Christian and spiritual, as a testimony to the supreme glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Divine inspiration and infallibility of the Bible.” In 1958 the school was designated a college and in 1993 its name was shortened to Bryan College. The text of this letter appeared on the pages of THE PRESBYTERIAN, vol. 97, no. 27, on this day, July 7, 1927 and Samuel G. Craig, editor of THE PRESBYTERIAN, here provides a brief introduction to Dr. Machen’s letter of reply:—

Dr. Machen Declines the Presidency of Bryan University.

In reply to the request to accept the presidency of the proposed Bryan Memorial University, Professor J. Gresham Machen wrote the following letter—a letter we count it a privilege to print in full because of what it tells us about Dr. Machen himself as well as what it tells us about his convictions relative to the conditions at Princeton Seminary, in the church-at-large, and in the field of education. Did the fact not stare us in the face, we would think it a thing incredible that two General Assemblies should have withheld their approval of such a man with such convictions and outlook as the professor of Apologetics in one of our theological seminaries—a man so well fitted to present that “fresh and powerful apologetic which will make its appeal to the perplexed mind of the modern world,” and which is so much needed to-day, according to the report relative to the church’s progress by the Special Commission of Fifteen:

June 25, 1927.

F.E.  Robinson, Esq.,
President of the Bryan University Memorial Association, Care of Malcolm Lockhart, Esq.,
840 West End Avenue, New York City.

Dear Sir:

On my return from a lecture trip in Great Britain, Mr. Lockhart has conveyed to me the question of the Bryan University Memorial Association as to whether I could consider accepting the presidency of the University.

In reply, I desire above all to say how very great is my appreciation of the honor which has thus been conferred upon me. Particularly at the present moment, when I have just been subjected by the General Assembly of the church to which I belong to a most extraordinary indignity, it is profoundly encouraging to me to know that there are those who do not acquiesce in such a low estimate of my services and of my character. In these days of widespread defection from the Christian faith, I rejoice with all my heart in the warmth of Christian fellowship that unites me with those who, like you, love the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and are willing to bear the reproach to which a frank acceptance of the gospel subjects them in the presence of a hostile world.

At the same time, though to my very great regret, I am obliged to say that I should be unable to accept the important position to which your suggestion refers.

In the first place, I do not feel that just at the present moment I can honorably leave my present position. Princeton Theological Seminary is an institution which for a hundred years, and never more successfully than now, has been defending and propagating the gospel of Christ. It is now passing through a great crisis. If the re-organization favored by the General Assembly which has just met at San Francisco is finally adopted next year—if the proposed abrogation of the whole constitution of the Seminary and the proposed dissolution of the present Board of Directors is finally carried out; if, in other words, the control of the Seminary passes into entirely different hands—then Princeton Theological Seminary, as it has been so long and so honorably known, will be dead, and we shall have at Princeton a new institution of a radically different type. But meanwhile—during this coming year—the Seminary is still genuinely and consistently evangelical. And it is by no means certain that the work of destruction will really be authorized next May. The report of the Committee that dealt with the subject this year was adopted only because of the gross misrepresentations of fact that the report contained, and it is quite possible that the true facts may still become generally known and that the sense of fair play which, we hope, is still possessed by the rank and file of our Presbyterian Church may make itself felt, so that the right of thorough-going conservatives in the Presbyterian Church to have at least one seminary that clearly and unequivocally represents their view may still be recognized and Princeton may still be saved. Meanwhile—until this issue is decided—I do not think it would be right for me to desert my colleagues here or to desert the institution that I so dearly love.

In the second place, I doubt very seriously my fitness for an administrative position like that which you have done me the honor of connecting with my name. My previous efforts, to say nothing of their imperfections even in their own sphere, have been of an entirely different kind. The very importance of the position which you are seeking to fill makes me question very seriously, to say the least, whether I am at all fitted to be its occupant.

In the third place, I am somewhat loath, for the present at least, to relinquish my connection with distinctively Presbyterian work. I have the warmest sympathy, indeed, with interdenominational efforts of various kinds; I have frequently entered into such efforts on my own part; and I understand fully that the real attack is not directed against those points wherein Calvinism differs from other systems of evangelical belief, and is not directed even against those points wherein Protestantism differs from the Roman Catholic Church, but that it is directed against the points wherein the Christian religion—Protestant and Catholic—differs from a radically different type of belief and of life. That radically different type of belief and of life is found to-day in all the larger ecclesiastical bodies; and in the presence of such a common enemy, those who unfeignedly believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ are drawn into a new warmth of fellowship and a new zeal for common service. Nevertheless, thoroughly consistent Christianity, to my mind, is found only in the Reformed or Calvinistic faith; and consistent Christianity, I think, is the Christianity easiest to defend. Hence I never call myself a “Fundamentalist.” There is, indeed, no inherent objection to the term; and if the disjunction is between “Fundamentalism” and “Modernism,” then I am willing to call myself a Fundamentalist of the most pronounced type. But after all, what I prefer to call myself is not a “Fundamentalist,” but a “Calvinist”—that is, an adherent of the Reformed faith. As such, I regard myself as standing in the great central current of the church’s life—the current which flows down from the Word of God through Augustine and Calvin, and which has found noteworthy expression in America in the great tradition represented by Charles Hodge and Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield and the other representatives of the “Princeton School.” I have the warmest sympathy with other evangelical churches, and a keen sense of agreement with them about those Christian convictions which are to-day being most insistently assailed; but, for the present at least, I think I can best serve my fellow-Christians—even those who belong to ecclesiastical bodies different from my own—by continuing to be identified, very specifically, with the Presbyterian Church.

Finally, however, let me say how warm is my sympathy with you in the noteworthy educational effort in which you are engaged. Very amazing to me is the complacency with which many persons contemplate the educational conditions that prevail at the present time. As a matter of fact, we have fallen, I think, into a most deplorable and most alarming intellectual decline. I do not, indeed, under-estimate the achievements of modern science in the material realm; and the Christian man should never commit the serious error of belittling those achievements. This is God’s world, and those who penetrate into its secrets are students of God’s works and benefactors of their fellow-men. But such material advances have gone hand in hand with an intellectual decadence in many spheres—an intellectual decadence which is now threatening to engulf all of human life. I do not see how anyone can contemplate present-day educational conditions without seeing that something is radically wrong. And about one thing that is wrong—indeed by far the most important thing—there can be no doubt. It is found in the widespread ignorance of the Christian religion as that religion is founded upon the Word of God. If, indeed, the Christian religion were not true, I should not desire to see it continued on the earth, no matter what benefits its continuance might bring.

But then, as a matter of fact, I hold that it is true; and I do not believe that there can be any truly comprehensive science that does not take account of the solid facts upon which the Christian religion is based. Hence I sympathize fully with your desire to promote an education that shall be genuinely Christian. And I pray that those who, like you, wherever they may be, cherish such a desire, may not be discouraged by the opposition of the world. You represent a cause which cannot ultimately fail. And even now, despite all the forces of unbelief, despite hostile actions even of the organized church, the gospel of Jesus Christ still shines out from the Word of God and is still enshrined in Christian hearts.

Very truly yours,

(Signed) J. Gresham Machen.