In 1926, J. Gresham Machen received nomination to the chair of apologetics and ethics from the Board of Directors at the Princeton Theological Seminary.  In the normal course of things, this nomination would have been routinely approved by the General Assembly as it met later that same year.  Machen, however, had previously opposed in 1920 the Philadelphia Plan for merging nineteen Presbyterian denominations into a single federated body.  He had published two books, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (1920) and Christianity and Liberalism (1923), both of which presented strong arguments against modernism and unbelief.  In short, Machen had become a very public voice raised against modernism, and so he had enemies.  A campaign of opposition was raised against his nomination and the matter remained unresolved up until the reorganization of Princeton Seminary and the departure of Dr. Machen and other faithful professors.

Today’s post is especially interesting for two reasons.  First, it is, I think, the earliest example in print of someone describing J. Gresham Machen in terms of Bunyan’s famous character from Pilgrim’s Progress, Mr. Valiant-for-Truth.  Ned Stonehouse, in his Biographical Memoir of J. Gresham Machen, popularized this description, but apparently Rev. Lipscomb was perhaps the first to draw the association. Second, the manner in which Machen is described by comparison with other outstanding men of his era provides some unique insights into his character, though our modern ignorance of the men referenced saps the full force of the comparisons.

An Appreciation of Dr. J. Gresham Machen
By Rev. T.H. Lipscomb, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South
[excerpted from THE PRESBYTERIAN 96.36 (9 September 1926): 9, 18.]

After five days of listening to sermons and addresses by Dr. J. Gresham Machen, we heartily endorse the statement in THE PRESBYTERIAN of June 10, that he is unsurpassed in his ability to impart knowledge to others, and that he is or should be one of the chief glories not only of Princeton Theological Seminary, but of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

Dr. Machen has been lecturing before a Methodist “Seashore Divinity School” at Biloxi, Mississippi, on “What is Christianity?” and preaching twice on Sabbath also.  We had expected to find him a thorough scholar and a thorough Christian, with what super-additions of genius and grace we know not.  To our delight and unceasing joy we find him endowed with an intellectual clarity and felicity of expression which causes to flow forth into the minds of even unlearned hearers a sparkling stream of pure truth, quickening and convincing out of a mass of detailed knowledge from which most scholars bring forth only negations or inconclusive theories.  His mental idiosyncrasy in this regard is quite marked—hitting the nail on the head, causing the sparks to fly ; and in the light of vindicated truth driving error from the field.  We recall, as we think of him, Bunyan’s Mr. Valiant for Truth, and we would that the ten thousand silver trumpets might sound to do him honor—they will some day if not now, as he, too, crosses over into the Celestial City.  Then woe to those who have said, “Let not such light of truth which also refutes and condemns error shine among us.  We must be tolerant and considerate of error nowadays.”  A graduate of a Northern theological seminary myself (Drew ’03), and having heard many of the ablest scholars of Europe and America, we affirm frankly and sincerely that we now of no man in any church so eminently qualified to fill a chair of “Apologetics and Christian Ethics,” provided you want that chair filled, the Christian faith really defended and Christian ethics elucidated and lived.  For, let me add that Dr. Machen is an humble saint, as well as a rare scholar, not a “saint of the world,” who stands for nothing and against nothing, but a saint of God who loves truth, seeks truth, finds truth, and upholds truth against all adversaries, however mightily ; in this respect like Paul, Peter and John, and following our Lord Jesus Christ, who “to this end was born” “to bear witness to the truth.”  You rightly say in an editorial, “The toleration of error within the churches means the persecution of truth.”

But we have seen Dr. Machen in social life, sharing with him the hospitality of a Southern home ; we have been with him on a pleasure trip to Ship Island, and we must confess that we have silently looked for those terrible “tempermental idiosyncrasies” which the General Assembly branded him with as questioning his fitness for a chair in the seminary which he has served for twenty years, and which his name to-day and the name of R.D. Wilson now make illustrious among believers the world around.  We say frankly the “tempermental idiosyncrasies” do not exist in any other sense or degree than they exist in every man.  We have had two other prominent believers at Biloxi : one a Southern Methodist Bishop of renown, the other the dean of one of our theological seminaries.  They each have “idiosyncrasies” in speech, in gesture, in manner, in personality fully as pronounced as any that Dr. Machen may possess.  Dr. Machen has something of the crisp, almost snappy vocalization of S. Parkes Cadman ; he has something of the serious dignity of Marcus Dods ; he has at times, when a truth is shining radiantly in his mind and he is sending it home, something of the fire of Olin A. Curtis.  He has something of the spiritual elevation of W.L. Watkinson.  We scarcely think it defensible, however, to say that unique qualities of personality disqualify a man for a position.  There have been German theologians of highest renown, so eccentric as to go to a class room in a night gown, or stand on a corner reading while car after car passed, until the students came, found their professor, and took him to his desk.  The story is told of a prominent American Church historian that in arranging passage for Europe he forgot to include one of his own children and hurried back to the city to correct his mistake.  Yet for over twenty years he has continued in a professorship for which he is eminently qualified.  We have not heard that Dr. Machen has been accused of such eccentricities.

Dr. Machen we have found to be indeed, meeting him for the first time, a genial, cultured, Christian gentleman ; modest and almost diffident by nature, and quite considerate of his opponent in all the obligations of Christian courtesy and fairness.  In social conversation he is quite free and at perfect ease.  I saw him sit for an hour on shipboard, surrounded by young ministers, answering kindly and well a running fire of questions to the satisfaction of all.

We cannot understand the action of your General Assembly.  If it ultimately “repudiates” J. Gresham Machen, we can only interpret the shout in the camp of the Modernists already heard as the shout of the Philistines, in anticipation of the defeat of the armies of the living God.  What are orthodox words when deed belie them?

West Point, Mississippi.

From a short series that we ran some years ago, this particular post is timely:

“The great thing in the Church is CHRIST, the blood of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the presence of Christ among us. The great thing is Christ, but there is also advantage in a certain government of the Church of Christ. I am a Presbyterian, not only of situation, but of conviction and choice. Our Presbyterian way is the good middle way between Episcopacy on the one side, and Congregationalism on the other. We combine the two great principles that must be maintained in the Church—Order and Liberty; the order of government, and the liberty of the people.”—Merle d’ Aubigne.

TEN REASONS FOR BEING A PRESBYTERIAN.

EIGHTH REASON.

8. I am a Presbyterian—because I love and pray for unity; not uniformity at the expense of truth, but unity based on truth and charity. Our Presbyterian Church has its congregations knit together in mutual dependence and sympathy, as one body in the unity of the Spirit, having one Lord and Head, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. And all are united under one superintendence and government, holding the same standards, and maintaining the same principles, the strong helping and bearing the burden of the weak, the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel. We thus enjoy a visible, as well as a spiritual unity, according to the scriptural idea of the Church, the body of Christ.—(Ephesians iv. 8–16.)

Obviously the important thing here is not the date of the article, but the message of how a godly home bears a great blessing for generations to come. May we all seek to live to glorify our Lord with our lives, in all that we do and say.

[excerpted from THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER, Vol. XXXI, No. 23 (5 June 1852):  89, column 5.]

THE FAMILY OF PRESIDENT EDWARDS.

It was an unspeakable privilege in the view of the late President [Jonathan] Edwards, that when surrounded by a young and growing family, and when his duty to his people, especially in seasons of revival, necessarily occupied his whole attention, he could safely commit his children to the wisdom and piety, the love and faithfulness of their mother [Sarah Pierpont Edwards]. Her views of the responsibility of parents were large and comprehensive.

“She thought that, as a parent, she had great and important duties to do toward her children before they were capable of government and instruction. For them she constantly and earnestly prayed, and bore them on her heart before God, in all her secret and most solemn addresses to him; and that, even before they were born. The prospect of her becoming a mother of a rational, immortal creature, which came into existence in an undone and infinitely dreadful state, was sufficient to lead her to bow before God daily for His blessing on it; even redemption and eternal life by Jesus Christ. So that, through all the pain, labor, and sorrow which attended her being the mother of children, she was in travail for them that they should be born of God.

She regularly prayed with her children, from a very early period, and, as there is the best reason to believe, with great earnestness and importunity. Being thoroughly sensible that, in many respects, the chief care of forming children by government and instruction, naturally lies on mothers, as they are most with their children at an age when they commonly receive impressions that are permanent, and have great influence in forming the character for life, she was very careful to do her part in this important business. When she foresaw or met with any special difficulty in this matter, she was wont to apply to her husband for advice and assistance; and on such occasions they would both attend to it, as a matter of the utmost importance. She had an excellent way of governing her children; she knew how to make them regard and obey her cheerfully, without loud, angry words, much less heavy blows.

She seldom punished them; and in speaking to them, used gentle and pleasant words. If any correction was necessary, she did not administer it in a passion; and when she had occasion to reprove and rebuke, she would do it in a few words, without warmth and noise, and with all calmness  and gentleness of mind. In her directions and reproofs in matters of importance, she would address herself to the reason of her children, that they might not only know her inclination and will, but at the same time be convinced of the reasonableness of it.

She had need to speak but once; she was cheerfully obeyed; murmuring and answering again were not known among them. In their manners they were uncommonly respectful to their parents. When their parents came into the room, they all rose instinctively from their seats, and never resumed them until their parents were seated; and when either parent was speaking, no matter with whom they had been conversing, they were all immediately silent and attentive. The kind and gentle treatment they received from their mother, while she strictly and punctiliously maintained her parental authority, seemed naturally to beget and promote a filial respect and affection, and to lead them to a mild, tender treatment of each other. Quarreling and contention, which too frequently take place among children, were in her family wholly unknown.

She carefully observed the first appearance of resentment and ill-will in her young children, toward any person whatever, and did not connive at it, as many who have the care of children do, but was careful to show her displeasure, and suppress it to the utmost; yet not by angry, wrathful words, which often provoke children to wrath, and stir up their irascible passions, rather than abate them.

Her system of discipline was begun at a very early age, and it was her rule to resist the first, as well as every subsequent exhibition of temper or disobedience in the child, however young, until its will was brought into submission to the will of its parents; wisely reflecting, that until a child will obey its parents, he can never be brought to obey God.

[emphasis added.]

With this post, we’re “a day late, and the dollar doesn’t buy what it used to.”

According to this account by Dr. J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., there was apparently some confusion during the Second General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church [nee Presbyterian Church of America], over the matter of how exactly to dispose of the 1903 PCUSA amendments to the Westminster Confession. Buswell writes here in THE CHRISTIAN BEACON, 17.17 (5  June 1952): 2, 4.

THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION AND THE AMENDMENTS OF 1903.

We who are Calvinists are such not because we admire the work of a man, but because we admire the work of a man who clearly expounded the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures. When we speak of great historical Calvinistic documents the word “Calvinistic” signifies the preservation in sharp and clear outline of what the Bible teaches. The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, is a basic document for all English-speaking Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational, and Baptist churches. The Savoy Confession of the historical Congregational Churches (Congregationalism before the apostasy of that denomination) is The Westminster Confession with a change in one chapter only. The Philadelphia Confession, which is a basic document for large groups of Baptist churches in the Southern states and in England, is The Westminster Confession with changes in two chapters only. The New Hampshire Confession, which is accepted by many Baptist churches in the Northern states is largely adapted from The Westminster Confession. It is therefore an interdenominational document in the truest sense. It is a rich deposit of treasure in the common heritage of Bible-believing Christians. We Calvinists accept The Westminster Confession not as being an infallible document, not as being verbally inerrant, but as being thoroughly based upon the Scriptures, and as setting forth in clear and positive language the integrated system of doctrine which the Scriptures teach.

In 1903 the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. adopted certain amendments in order to please groups which were doctrinally weak and poorly instructed. Dr. Benjamin Warfield, one of the greatest Calvinistic teachers of the past generation, strongly protested against the adoption of these amendments, but when they were adopted, Dr. Warfield declared (as Dr. J. Gresham Machen related the matter to me) that these amendments, weak and misleading as they were, did not actually change “the system of doctrine.”

In the months preceding May, 1936, Dr. Machen explained to me that he did not wish to take his stand as contending for any change in the constitution of the Church (Presbyterian, U.S.A.) as it then existed, though he hoped that the amendments of 1903 might sometime be eliminated. His great fight at that time was that the Foreign Mission Board (and other agencies of the Church) might at least be true to the simple elementary principles of the Gospel. He could be loyal to the constitution as it was then, since, as Dr. Warfield had said, the constitution, in spite of the weak and misleading character of the 1903 amendments, still set forth the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures.

I understood Dr. Machen to advocate that if we should be compelled to form a new church, it would be wise to start with the doctrinal constitution just as it had been in the U.S.A. Church at the time the controversy arose. It was on this basis that Dr. Machen organized the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.

In May, 1936, Dr. Machen and the rest of us were unfrocked and put out of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. An incident took place in the fall of 1936 at the Second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America which, I have recently learned, has caused confusion in the minds of some of our friends. I am glad to take this occasion to make a correction. The incident was as follows : When the proposal to adopt the Westminster Standards came before the Assembly, as moderator, I suggested that it would expedite matters if we adopted the Standards as they then existed in the U.S.A. Church, and then proceeded with deliberation to remove the 1903 amendments and make such a declaratory statement as might seem appropriate. At this point Dr. Machen gained the impression that I had somehow changed my convictions, and that I wished the amendments of 1903 to be retained, which certainly was not the case. He made a forceful address urging the adoption the Confession without the 1903 amendments. I could readily see that either I had misunderstood his former opinions, or he had changed his mind. I did not consider the matter worth a reply, since we were all agreed that the 1903 amendments should ultimately be eliminated.

I should never had referred to the matter again had I not been informed rather recently that some sound Calvinistic bodies overseas have been told that “the Bible Presbyterian Church is un-Calvinistic, since one of the leaders of the Bible Presbyterian Church, moderator of the Second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America, actually spoke in defense of the weak and misleading 1903 amendments of the Westminster Confession.”! I did not at any time speak in defense of the 1903 amendments. When the Bible Presbyterian Church was formed, it adopted The Westminster Confession, without the objectionable 1903 amendments.

[excerpted from The Christian Beacon, vol. 17, no. 17 (5 June 1952), pages 2, 4.]