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“A nail driven in a sure place.” 

William Miller Paxton is another of those names that seems now forgotten to the modern ear. He was notably a pastor in Pittsburgh, then a professor of homiletics (preaching), first at Western Theological Seminary, also in Pittsburgh, and later at the Princeton Theological Seminary, with a pastorate in New York City falling between those two appointments. His grandfather, the Rev. Dr. William Paxton, was also a noted pastor, who was born on April 1, 1760 and who died on April 16, 1845. But in researching the extended family, I was intrigued by this account and so am posting here today an account of the grandson, rather than the grandfather. The full account, and more, can be read here, but in abbreviated form and touching on just a few of the significant events in Dr. Paxton’s life, here is a portion of the eulogy given by Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield for his friend and colleague:—

paxtonWmMWilliam Miller Paxton was descended from a godly ancestry of thoroughly Presbyterian traditions…The earliest of his paternal ancestors who has been certainly traced—the fourth in ascent from him—is found a little before the middle of the eighteenth century living in Bart township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in a Scotch-Irish community which worshiped at Middle Octorara Church. The only son of this founder of the family served as an elder in that church; and out of it came his son, Dr. Paxton’s grandfather, the Rev. Dr. William Paxton, who, after having like his father before him fought in the Revolutionary War for the liberties of his country, enlisted as a soldier of Christ in the never-ceasing conflict for righteousness. Crossing the Susquehanna, he was settled in 1792 as pastor of Lower Marsh Creek church, in what is now Adams county, Pennsylvania, and there fulfilled a notable ministry of half a century’s duration.

Dr. Paxton’s father, Colonel James Dunlop Paxton, was a man of intelligence and enterprise, of fine presence and large influence in the community, engaged in the manufacture of iron, first at Maria Furnace, and later near Gettysburg and Chambersburg. It was at Maria Furnace that William Miller Paxton was born, on the seventh day of June, 1824. His youth was passed mostly at Gettysburg…his collegiate training at Pennsylvania College. He began the study of law, [but] united on profession of faith with the Falling Spring Presbyterian Church at Chambersburg, in March, 1845, …[and] Not more than a month after uniting with the church, on April 9th, 1845, he was received under the care of the Presbytery of Carlisle as a candidate for the ministry, and in the ensuing autumn he repaired to Princeton for his theological training.

…”I well remember,” he has told us himself, “that when I was a student, no young man could pass through his first year without being constrained to reexamine his personal hope and motives for seeking the sacred office.” No doubt this is primarily an encomium upon the pungency of the religious training of those four great men under whose instruction he sat—Drs. Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller, Drs. Charles Hodge and Addison Alexander….One of the things Dr. Paxton always congratulated himself upon was that he had had a double training in theology. “The class to which I belonged,” he tells us, “heard” Dr. Archibald Alexander’s “lectures upon Didactic Theology as well as those of Dr. Hodge. Dr. Hodge gave us a subject with massive learning, in its logical development, in its beautiful balance and connection with the whole system. Dr. Alexander would take the same subject and smite it with a javelin, and let the light through it. His aim was to make one point and nail it fast. I always came from a lecture with these words ringing through my mind, “A nail driven in a sure place.” [Dr. Warfield here employs a reference drawn from Isaiah 22:23]

…The greatest ecclesiastical event which occurred during Dr. Paxton’s New York ministry was, of course, the reunion of the Old and New School branches of the Church. He was of the number of those who did not look with satisfaction on the movement for union. Oddly enough, however, as a member of the Assembly of 1862, when corresponding delegates to the New School body were for the first time appointed, and of that of 1870, when the consummated union was set upon its feet, he was an active factor in both the beginning and end of the movement…When once the union was accomplished, he became one of the chief agents in adjusting the relations of the two long separated bodies.

…In 1883 he came to Princeton to take up the work of the chair of Ecclesiastical, Homiletical and Pastoral Theology, made vacant by the resignation of Dr. McGill. His church, which had grown steadily under his hands from 257 members to 409 in 1883, and whose affection for its pastor had grown with the years, was loath to give him up.

Words to Live By:
Dr. Warfield continued in his eulogy for Paxton, with a message that was close to Warfield’s own heart:—

…what he took his real stand upon was the perfectly sound position that our theological seminaries are primarily training-schools for ministers, and must be kept fundamentally true to this their proper work.
From this point of view he was never weary of warning those who were charged with the administration of these institutions against permitting them to degenerate into mere schools of dry-as-dust and, from the spiritual standpoint, useless learning. A very fair example of his habitual modes of thought and speech on this subject may be read in the charge which he delivered to his life-long friend, Dr. A.A. Hodge—whom he loved as a brother and admired as a saint of God—when Dr. Hodge was inaugurated as professor in this seminary. Permitting himself greater freedom, doubtless, because he knew he was addressing one sympathetic to his contentions, he becomes in this address almost fierce in his denunciations of a scholastic conception of theological training, and insistent to the point of menace in his assertion of the higher duty of the theological instructor. Pointing to the seminary buildings—he was speaking in the First Church—he exclaimed: “There stands that venerable institution. What does it mean? What is the idea it expresses? . . . Is it a place where young men get a profession by which they are to make their living? Is it a school in which a company of educated young men are gathered to grind out theology, to dig Hebrew roots, to read patristic literature, to become proficients in ecclesiastical dialects, to master the mystic techniques of the schoolmen, and to debate about fate, free-will, and the divine decrees? If this is its purpose, or its chief purpose, then bring the torch and burn it! . . . We do not in any way deprecate a learned ministry. We must have learning . . . .But whenever in a theological seminary learning takes the precedence, it covers as with an icicle the very truths which God designed to warm and melt the hearts of men. . . .No, no, this is not the meaning of a theological seminary . . .It is a school of learning, but it is also a cradle of piety!”

For a fuller biography of Dr. William Miller Paxton, click here [Presbyterians of the Past blog]

For access to works by Dr. Paxton, click here [Log College Press]

“A nail driven in a sure place.”

William Miller Paxton is another of those names that seems now forgotten to the modern ear. He was notably a pastor in Pittsburgh, then a professor of homiletics (preaching), first at Western Theological Seminary, also in Pittsburgh, and later at the Princeton Theological Seminary, with a pastorate in New York City falling between those two appointments. His grandfather, the Rev. Dr. William Paxton, was also a noted pastor, who was born on April 1, 1760 and who died on April 16, 1845. But in researching the extended family, I was intrigued by this account and so am posting here today an account of the grandson, rather than the grandfather. The full account, and more, can be read here, but in abbreviated form and touching on just a few of the significant events in Dr. Paxton’s life, here is a portion of the eulogy given by Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield for his friend and colleague:—

paxtonWmMWilliam Miller Paxton was descended from a godly ancestry of thoroughly Presbyterian traditions…The earliest of his paternal ancestors who has been certainly traced—the fourth in ascent from him—is found a little before the middle of the eighteenth century living in Bart township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in a Scotch-Irish community which worshiped at Middle Octorara Church. The only son of this founder of the family served as an elder in that church; and out of it came his son, Dr. Paxton’s grandfather, the Rev. Dr. William Paxton, who, after having like his father before him fought in the Revolutionary War for the liberties of his country, enlisted as a soldier of Christ in the never-ceasing conflict for righteousness. Crossing the Susquehanna, he was settled in 1792 as pastor of Lower Marsh Creek church, in what is now Adams county, Pennsylvania, and there fulfilled a notable ministry of half a century’s duration.

Dr. Paxton’s father, Colonel James Dunlop Paxton, was a man of intelligence and enterprise, of fine presence and large influence in the community, engaged in the manufacture of iron, first at Maria Furnace, and later near Gettysburg and Chambersburg. It was at Maria Furnace that William Miller Paxton was born, on the seventh day of June, 1824. His youth was passed mostly at Gettysburg…his collegiate training at Pennsylvania College. He began the study of law, [but] united on profession of faith with the Falling Spring Presbyterian Church at Chambersburg, in March, 1845, …[and] Not more than a month after uniting with the church, on April 9th, 1845, he was received under the care of the Presbytery of Carlisle as a candidate for the ministry, and in the ensuing autumn he repaired to Princeton for his theological training.

…”I well remember,” he has told us himself, “that when I was a student, no young man could pass through his first year without being constrained to reexamine his personal hope and motives for seeking the sacred office.” No doubt this is primarily an encomium upon the pungency of the religious training of those four great men under whose instruction he sat—Drs. Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller, Drs. Charles Hodge and Addison Alexander….One of the things Dr. Paxton always congratulated himself upon was that he had had a double training in theology. “The class to which I belonged,” he tells us, “heard” Dr. Archibald Alexander’s “lectures upon Didactic Theology as well as those of Dr. Hodge. Dr. Hodge gave us a subject with massive learning, in its logical development, in its beautiful balance and connection with the whole system. Dr. Alexander would take the same subject and smite it with a javelin, and let the light through it. His aim was to make one point and nail it fast. I always came from a lecture with these words ringing through my mind, “A nail driven in a sure place.”

…The greatest ecclesiastical event which occurred during Dr. Paxton’s New York ministry was, of course, the reunion of the Old and New School branches of the Church. He was of the number of those who did not look with satisfaction on the movement for union. Oddly enough, however, as a member of the Assembly of 1862, when corresponding delegates to the New School body were for the first time appointed, and of that of 1870, when the consummated union was set upon its feet, he was an active factor in both the beginning and end of the movement…When once the union was accomplished, he became one of the chief agents in adjusting the relations of the two long separated bodies.

…In 1883 he came to Princeton to take up the work of the chair of Ecclesiastical, Homiletical and Pastoral Theology, made vacant by the resignation of Dr. McGill. His church, which had grown steadily under his hands from 257 members to 409 in 1883, and whose affection for its pastor had grown with the years, was loath to give him up.

Words to Live By:
Dr. Warfield continued in his eulogy for Paxton, with a message that was close to Warfield’s own heart:—

…what he took his real stand upon was the perfectly sound position that our theological seminaries are primarily training-schools for ministers, and must be kept fundamentally true to this their proper work.
From this point of view he was never weary of warning those who were charged with the administration of these institutions against permitting them to degenerate into mere schools of dry-as-dust and, from the spiritual standpoint, useless learning. A very fair example of his habitual modes of thought and speech on this subject may be read in the charge which he delivered to his life-long friend, Dr. A.A. Hodge—whom he loved as a brother and admired as a saint of God—when Dr. Hodge was inaugurated as professor in this seminary. Permitting himself greater freedom, doubtless, because he knew he was addressing one sympathetic to his contentions, he becomes in this address almost fierce in his denunciations of a scholastic conception of theological training, and insistent to the point of menace in his assertion of the higher duty of the theological instructor. Pointing to the seminary buildings—he was speaking in the First Church—he exclaimed: “There stands that venerable institution. What does it mean? What is the idea it expresses? . . . Is it a place where young men get a profession by which they are to make their living? Is it a school in which a company of educated young men are gathered to grind out theology, to dig Hebrew roots, to read patristic literature, to become proficients in ecclesiastical dialects, to master the mystic techniques of the schoolmen, and to debate about fate, free-will, and the divine decrees? If this is its purpose, or its chief purpose, then bring the torch and burn it! . . . We do not in any way deprecate a learned ministry. We must have learning . . . .But whenever in a theological seminary learning takes the precedence, it covers as with an icicle the very truths which God designed to warm and melt the hearts of men. . . .No, no, this is not the meaning of a theological seminary . . .It is a school of learning, but it is also a cradle of piety!”

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“A nail driven in a sure place.”

William Miller Paxton is another of those names that seems now forgotten to the modern ear. He was notably a pastor in Pittsburgh, then a professor of homiletics (preaching), first at Western Theological Seminary, also in Pittsburgh, and later at the Princeton Theological Seminary, with a pastorate in New York City falling between those two appointments. His grandfather, the Rev. Dr. William Paxton, was also a noted pastor, who was born on April 1, 1760 and who died on April 16, 1845. But in researching the extended family, I was intrigued by this account and so am posting here today an account of the grandson, rather than the grandfather. The full account, and more, can be read here, but in abbreviated form and touching on just a few of the significant events in Dr. Paxton’s life, here is a portion of the eulogy given by Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield for his friend and colleague:—

paxtonWmMWilliam Miller Paxton was descended from a godly ancestry of thoroughly Presbyterian traditions…The earliest of his paternal ancestors who has been certainly traced—the fourth in ascent from him—is found a little before the middle of the eighteenth century living in Bart township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in a Scotch-Irish community which worshiped at Middle Octorara Church. The only son of this founder of the family served as an elder in that church; and out of it came his son, Dr. Paxton’s grandfather, the Rev. Dr. William Paxton, who, after having like his father before him fought in the Revolutionary War for the liberties of his country, enlisted as a soldier of Christ in the never-ceasing conflict for righteousness. Crossing the Susquehanna, he was settled in 1792 as pastor of Lower Marsh Creek church, in what is now Adams county, Pennsylvania, and there fulfilled a notable ministry of half a century’s duration.

Dr. Paxton’s father, Colonel James Dunlop Paxton, was a man of intelligence and enterprise, of fine presence and large influence in the community, engaged in the manufacture of iron, first at Maria Furnace, and later near Gettysburg and Chambersburg. It was at Maria Furnace that William Miller Paxton was born, on the seventh day of June, 1824. His youth was passed mostly at Gettysburg…his collegiate training at Pennsylvania College. He began the study of law, [but] united on profession of faith with the Falling Spring Presbyterian Church at Chambersburg, in March, 1845, …[and] Not more than a month after uniting with the church, on April 9th, 1845, he was received under the care of the Presbytery of Carlisle as a candidate for the ministry, and in the ensuing autumn he repaired to Princeton for his theological training.

…”I well remember,” he has told us himself, “that when I was a student, no young man could pass through his first year without being constrained to reexamine his personal hope and motives for seeking the sacred office.” No doubt this is primarily an encomium upon the pungency of the religious training of those four great men under whose instruction he sat—Drs. Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller, Drs. Charles Hodge and Addison Alexander….One of the things Dr. Paxton always congratulated himself upon was that he had had a double training in theology. “The class to which I belonged,” he tells us, “heard” Dr. Archibald Alexander’s “lectures upon Didactic Theology as well as those of Dr. Hodge. Dr. Hodge gave us a subject with massive learning, in its logical development, in its beautiful balance and connection with the whole system. Dr. Alexander would take the same subject and smite it with a javelin, and let the light through it. His aim was to make one point and nail it fast. I always came from a lecture with these words ringing through my mind, “A nail driven in a sure place.”

…The greatest ecclesiastical event which occurred during Dr. Paxton’s New York ministry was, of course, the reunion of the Old and New School branches of the Church. He was of the number of those who did not look with satisfaction on the movement for union. Oddly enough, however, as a member of the Assembly of 1862, when corresponding delegates to the New School body were for the first time appointed, and of that of 1870, when the consummated union was set upon its feet, he was an active factor in both the beginning and end of the movement…When once the union was accomplished, he became one of the chief agents in adjusting the relations of the two long separated bodies.

…In 1883 he came to Princeton to take up the work of the chair of Ecclesiastical, Homiletical and Pastoral Theology, made vacant by the resignation of Dr. McGill. His church, which had grown steadily under his hands from 257 members to 409 in 1883, and whose affection for its pastor had grown with the years, was loath to give him up.

Words to Live By:
Dr. Warfield continued in his eulogy for Paxton, with a message that was close to Warfield’s own heart:—

…what he took his real stand upon was the perfectly sound position that our theological seminaries are primarily training-schools for ministers, and must be kept fundamentally true to this their proper work.
From this point of view he was never weary of warning those who were charged with the administration of these institutions against permitting them to degenerate into mere schools of dry-as-dust and, from the spiritual standpoint, useless learning. A very fair example of his habitual modes of thought and speech on this subject may be read in the charge which he delivered to his life-long friend, Dr. A.A. Hodge—whom he loved as a brother and admired as a saint of God—when Dr. Hodge was inaugurated as professor in this seminary. Permitting himself greater freedom, doubtless, because he knew he was addressing one sympathetic to his contentions, he becomes in this address almost fierce in his denunciations of a scholastic conception of theological training, and insistent to the point of menace in his assertion of the higher duty of the theological instructor. Pointing to the seminary buildings—he was speaking in the First Church—he exclaimed: “There stands that venerable institution. What does it mean? What is the idea it expresses? . . . Is it a place where young men get a profession by which they are to make their living? Is it a school in which a company of educated young men are gathered to grind out theology, to dig Hebrew roots, to read patristic literature, to become proficients in ecclesiastical dialects, to master the mystic techniques of the schoolmen, and to debate about fate, free-will, and the divine decrees? If this is its purpose, or its chief purpose, then bring the torch and burn it! . . . We do not in any way deprecate a learned ministry. We must have learning . . . .But whenever in a theological seminary learning takes the precedence, it covers as with an icicle the very truths which God designed to warm and melt the hearts of men. . . .No, no, this is not the meaning of a theological seminary . . .It is a school of learning, but it is also a cradle of piety!”

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Owen, Thomas McAdory, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography (Chicago: The S

DICTIONARY OF ALABAMA BIOGRAPHY, v. 4, p. 1737—

WEBB, FRANK BELL, Presbyterian minister, was born November 5, 1848, at Eutaw, Green County; son of William Peter and Martha Burwell (Bell) Webb, the former a native of Lincoln County, N. C, a lawyer, who came to Alabama and settled in Greensboro, moved to Eutaw in 1839, and practiced his profession there until his death in 1890; grandson of Judge Henry Young and Elizabeth (Forney) Webb, who lived at Mount Welcome, Lincoln County, N. C, the former who was a native of that state, was appointed by President Monroe to be judge of the U. S. district court from the territory of Alabama, went to Alabama in 1818, and held the first court at Neighbors Cross Roads, was elected one of the circuit judges by the first legislature of Alabama, and held that office at the time of his death in 1823, and of John and Elizabeth Randolph (Bacon) Bell, natives of Virginia, who lived at Greensboro.

The Webb family was originally from Dorsetshire, Wales, and it held an honorable position at the time Katherine Parr was regent of England, as far back as 1544. The earliest history that is known of the family runs back to Henry Webb, who was born in Warwickshire, England, 1357.

Mr. Webb received his early education at Eutaw, at Hatfield academy, and at Pleasant Ridge academy. He entered the University of Mississippi in January, 1866, and two years later entered Washington and Lee university, from where he was graduated in March, 1869. He attended the Union theological seminary at Hampden Sidney, Va., and after a three years’ course, was graduated, B.D., 1872. He was ordained as a minister of the gospel of the Presbyterian church, December 1, 1872, and was installed by the Presbytery of Alabama as pastor of the Union Springs church. He remained in that charge for fifteen years; held the pastorate of the Third Presbyterian church of Birmingham for a year; and of the First Presbyterian church of Columbia, Tenn., for twelve years and a half; moved to Talladega in July, 1902, to become president of the Isbell female college; took charge of the First Presbyterian church of Talladega in January, 1902, in connection with the college work; and at the end of two years resigned from the college work and continued in charge of the church.

He was a director on the board of the Columbia Theological Seminary, South Carolina, for four years as a representative from the Synod of Alabama; was for five years at one time and four years at another the chairman of the executive committee of the Synod’s Orphans’ Home; was a member of the executive committee of foreign missions of general assembly for seven years; was moderator of the Synod of Alabama in 1881, 1905 and 1911; was moderator of the Synod of Nashville, Tenn., in 1890; has served as a member of the board of trustees of the Synodical college for Women; was made president of the first State temperance convention, held at Athens, April, 1881; and was appointed delegate to the second World’s Christian Citizenship Conference, 1913. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon Dr. Webb by one of the institutions of learning in North Carolina.

He was a Knight of Pythias and for two years held office as district deputy grand chancellor; served for two years as grand chief templar of the Order of Good Templars in Alabama. While surprising to us today, it was not uncommon for Southern Presbyterians to hold membership in the Freemasons and similar organizations. That practice seems now to have died out among Presbyterians. Rev. Webb was also a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon college fraternity. He was editor of the Orphan’s Home Monthly, published by the Synod of Alabama in connection with its orphanage work.

Married: October 30, 1872, at Lexington, Va., to Mary White Paxton, daughter of Maj. James Gardner and Annie Maria (White) Paxton, of that place, granddaughter of Matthew and Mary White, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of Augusta County, Va., and of Elisha and Margaret (McNutt) Paxton, who lived on a landed estate along the James River Valley of Virginia. The Paxtons are descended from a soldier of Cromwell who emigrated with his comrades to the north of Ireland, and later came to America. Children: 1. James Gardner Paxton, d. July 8, 1902, m. Mary B. Abernathy of Leighton, who lives with her son, Frank Bell, in Tuscaloosa; 2. Martha Bell, m. Mr. Morris, McComb, Miss.; 3. Frank Bell, d. January 22, 1887, at Union Springs; 4. Mattie Frazer, McComb, Miss.; 5. Annette Paxton, Talladega; 6. Virginia Foster, m. Jewell W. Dickinson, Talladega. Residence: Talladega.

Frank Bell Webb died on 30 November 1925.

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For all the discussion of “safe places,” in recent years, it was an amusing surprise to find Wm. Childs Robinson making reference to “Luther’s Safe Place” at the end of this article.

Has “Unreserved Dedication” Taken The Place of Creedal Subscription?
by Rev. Wm. C. Robinson, D.D., Decatur, Ga.
[The Southern Presbyterian Journal, 8.17 (2 January 1950): 5-6.]

This question is raised by a paragraph in a recent book review carried in The Presbyterian Outlook of November 7. Reviewing Professor Cooper’s Southwestern At Memphis, Dr. Warner L. Hall writes the following paragraph:

“One of the sidelights of the book is the struggle which Dr. Diehl had with heresy hunters. His victory was, by no means a personal one, for it, in some sense, assured to many others the right of an intellectual freedom within the limits of an unreserved dedication to the Christian cause.”

We have no desire to reopen any struggle with reference to Dr. Diehl, but the inference which Dr. Hall draws gives us grave concern. The reviewer’s words imply that many Presbyterian educators and Presbyterian ministers—Dr. Diehl is both—have either (or both) been relieved of all creedal obligations or else have agreed among themselves that those creedal obligations to which they have subscribed are only indicative of their dedication to the Christian cause.

Now it is not difficult to show that “an unreserved dedication to the Christian cause,” indispensable as that is, is not a sufficient safeguard for the Church or her teachers. Certainly, there have been Jesuit missionaries unreservedly dedicated to the Christian cause, and Armenian ministers, and perhaps Unitarian scholars. The other day I was told about a very devout Mormon. Apparently, this Latter Day Saint could offer “an unreserved dedication to the Christ cause” as he saw it … and yet I cannot believe that Dr. Hall would favor him for a Chair of Religion in Southwestern or for his associate pastor in Charlotte, N. C.

We feel obligated, therefore, to ask the questions which Dr. Hall’s review has raised. First, have the professors in our Presbyterian educational institutions been relieved of all creedal obligations, vows or doctrinal conditions as requirements for the presidential or professional positions they hold? We invite the several educational institutions connected with our Church to let the Church know just what, if any, obligations are now required. If the institution in particular has abrogated such requirements in the last two decades, the reasons for such change would also interest the Church. We can conceive of an occasion in which a college might have a man of known evangelical piety and Bible belief from another denomination that they wished installed as professor in some chair in which he would not teach church doctrine and might properly make an exception in his case to a rule requiring subscription to Calvinism. But we could only question the propriety of a Board using such an occasion as an excuse for abrogating all requirements.

Three centuries ago Harvard was training men for the Calyinistic ministry in Puritan New England — teaching the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New in Greek and the Shorter Catechism in Latin . . . but somebody slept at the switch . . . and Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. When I studied at Harvard they were inculcating almost everything, except the doctrine for which that institution was established.

A few years ago a prominent U.S.A. Presbyterian College was teaching a volume on evolution edited by Professor H. H. Newman for “the superior students” of Chicago University, entitled The Nature Of The World And Of Man. Now if a Presbyterian College is only going to teach the naturalism which allows of no direct intervention of God in special creations, in miracles, in the Incarnation, in answers to petitionary prayers for physical things — why endow and support such colleges? Why not send the men on to Chicago in the first place? Incidentally, Lecomte de Nouy, Human Destiny, has at least pointed out how tenuous is the thread of evolution which Newman said was “proved or established as firmly as the law of gravitation.” (Op. cit. 193 of 194, 381).

Last summer I met a graduate of another U.S.A. College — Wooster to be exact—who told me how the Bible course in that Northern Presbyterian institution had upset his faith in the Bible as the Word of God and as the guide for life. In the last issue The Journal had a review of the Bible Syllabus used at Wooster in 1947.

Without requiring at least the acceptance of the Divine-human Christ, of the miracles of His Person and His works by each professor, an institution might find its whole Christian position undermined by an academically competent but unbelieving teacher. And the institution might be afraid to remove such a man because of the support he would receive from his professional union and from the academic accrediting agency.

Secondly, do those who take definite professional or ordination vows- regard them as merely an unreserved dedication to the Christian cause? Our ministerial vows still obligate us to accept the Holy Scriptures as being the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practise and of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms as being the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures. If there are those in our Church who feel that the full and fair meaning of these vows is “an unreserved dedication to the Christian cause” we invite such brethren to reconsider their positions in the light of history.

In his able discussion of the meaning of our Presbyterian ordination vows Dr. Charles Hodge, Church Polity, Pages 317-4S2, shows that the meaning of the vow is not determined by the man taking it but by the natural, historical force of the words and by the body imposing the vow. There was a wave of rationalism in eighteenth century England and Ireland which substituted sincerity for creedal subscription. Even James Moffatt says that “this mistaken aversion to creedal subscription” killed English Presbyterianism; and only the entrance of the Erskinites or Seceders saved Presbyterianism in eighteenth century Ireland. Against the loose views of Presbyterianism then coming over from Ireland the American Presbyterian Church passed the adopting act of 1729 in which every minister subscribed to the Westminster Standards as being in all essential and necessary articles good forms of sound words and accepted said Confession and Catechisms as the confession of his faith. This act has governed our American Presbyterian thinking these 220 years. Under its aegis our Southern Assembly in the last decade has declared certain things such as the infallible truth of Scripture, Christ as true and eternal God, His becoming our brother man by His virgin birth, to be involved in the vows to which we subscribe.

Again, if there are ministers or professors who regard these creedal vows as merely an unreserved dedication to the Christian cause we invite them to reconsider their positions before the judgment bar of truth. Speaking on this theme from the standpoint of the Scottish Churches, Principal John Macleod says:

“We should not fail to observe the moral issues that are raised in regard to the loyal maintenance of pledges given to be faithful to Creeds and Confessions. They call for very deliberate study and consideration before they are adopted. They call equally for honorable treatment on the part of men who have avowed them as their own.”

“Yet if men change their views on what they had confessed as the truth of God they should have the manliness to acknowledge that such a change has taken place and to refuse to stay in what is to them a false position.”

“We should not forget that the fundamental obligation lies upon every teacher in the Church of God to be true to the full circle of truth as the Apostolic and Prophetic Revelation has brought it before us. This truth has been entrusted to the Church to be held fast in its integrity, and it is no bondage to be laid under the obligation to honour such a trust; and this is what is meant by the exaction of a strict pledge of loyalty to the Confession of Faith. Nor can it well be spoken of as an advance in Christian freedom for the Church to loosen the bond that binds her rulers to hold fast the whole truth of God as His Word sets it forth.” Scottish Theology, Pages 254-241-254.

Finally, we invite any brother if any there be who thinks that unreserved dedication is an adequate fulfillment of his ordination vows to reconsider the same before the judgment bar of God. For in the end we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give account of the deeds done in the flesh. And even before that final day, God does execute judgment among the children of men and often His judgment begins at the house of God. Two hundred years ago the moderate machine tolerated lax doctrine on the Deity of Christ by Professor John Simson, of Glasgow, Scotland, while it cracked down on the marrow men because their evangelical fervour smelled of dispensationalism — their paradoxes sniffed of anti-nomianism. But read the two histories of Scottish Theology, by Walker and by Macleod, and history has vindicated the Evangelicals — Boston, Erskine, T. Gillespie, John Love, and John Witherspoon; while it has judged Hadow, Patrick Cumming, William Robertson and Principal Hill with their whole “moderate” program. Pick up second volume of The Life Of Alexander Duff, by George Smith, and get a real account of the miserable end to which this so-called moderatism—what God has called lukewarmness—actually led. God will judge . . . God does judge . . . God is judge.

As He does judge may He also speak in the mercy which every one of us needs. All of our obligations get their meaning from our loving Lord Jesus Christ who stands above and by His Spirit gives life to our system of doctrine. It was well said of Charles Hodge, the ablest expounder of our Presbyterian vows, that there was no point in his whole system of theology that did not derive its chief meaning from its relation to Christ. For him, “man is nothing, Christ is everything. We have no worthiness. Christ is altogether worthy … our acceptance with God from beginning to end is in the Beloved. He is the ground of our election, the foundation of our Justification, the fontal head of our Regeneration, the means and medium of our Sanctification, and the efficient cause and model of our glorification. He is all in all, and we are complete in Him.” “Jesus Christ is the God whom I worship.” —Dr. William Paxton on Hodge as a Teacher of Theology in The Life Of Charles Hodge, Pages 596-597.

Luther’s Safe Place

When Martin Luther was in the throes of the Reformation, and the Pope was trying to bring him back to the Catholic Church, he sent a cardinal to deal with Luther and buy him with gold. The cardinal wrote to the Pope: “The fool does not love gold.” The cardinal, when he could not convince Luther, said to him: “What do you think the Pope cares for the opinions of a German boor? The Pope’s little finger is stronger than all Germany. Do you expect your princes to take up arms to defend you — you, a wretched worm like you, I tell you no. And where will you be then?” Luther’s reply was simple: “Where I am now, in the hands of Almighty God.” — Pentecostal Herald.

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