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May 1: Rev. William Linn

1 May, 2015 in May 2015 by davidtmyers | 1 comment

The First Chaplain to the House of Representatives

In a day when everyone is decrying our young people’s lack of knowledge of our American republic, try this question on yourself.  Who was the nation’s first chaplain elected to the United States House of Representatives? If you answered the Rev. William Linn, of Pennsylvania, a member minister of the Presbyterian Church, give yourself ten brownie points.

His years were February 27, 1752 to January 8, 1809. We don’t know much about his background, but early on, this ardent and most impassioned minister, as he was called by his contemporaries, graduated from the College of New Jersey (later on Princeton Theological Seminary) in 1772. Ordained by the Donegal Presbytery three years later, he found himself in the perilous days leading up to the American Revolution. He became the chaplain of the Continental Army, and as far as we know, proclaimed the Scriptures faithfully to men of that military unit.

After his military chaplaincy years, he served for seven years the Scotch-Irish members of the Big Spring Presbyterian Church in present day Newville, Pennsylvania. His ministerial call took him next to the Maryland as the principal of an academy for four years. It was on May 1, 1789, that he was elected as the first chaplain of the United States House of Representatives, which met in New York that year, then moving to Philadelphia in 1790, and finally relocating to Washington, D.C. in 1807.

The members of Congress, having begun meetings of the Continental Congress every day in prayer, obviously wanted to have that spiritual ministry continued in both the Senate and the House. William Linn prayed each day for the members of the U.S. House of Representatives, or arranged guest chaplains for the post, counseled with the members of the House, officiated at funerals and even performed marriages on occasion.  In what would today be called a violation of the separation of church and state, Rev. Linn  held worship services in the chamber for Congressional members and their families, alternating with the Senate chaplain every other week.

After this ministry, and two other Presbyterian ministers consecutively  replaced him as House chaplain, William Linn became a trustee and later on President pro temp of the Queens College, later on renamed Rutgers University. He is listed down as the first president of Rutgers University.

He went on to meet His Maker and Redeemer at the age of 55 in 1809, after a successful ministry in the military, in the church,  in government, and education.

Words to Live By:   We may not know all of God’s servants who have been faithful in His kingdom down through the years, but we need to realize that we must be ready to serve Him in any capacity as He opens the door of service.  Are  you ready?

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April 22: Jonathan Dickinson

22 April, 2015 in April 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, First President of Princeton CollegeBack in 2012, this author on this day of April 22, posted an article on Jonathan Dickinson, the first president of Princeton. More than any other man, this Presbyterian pastor was responsible for arranging the plan and formation of this college which came to be so near and dear to the hearts of American Presbyterians. When I wrote that post, I had however little information on his family background and early years. I remember that I wrote the sentence, “Born on April 22, 1688 in Hatfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Yale in 1706.” Talk about a jump in years.  From birth to Yale, eighteen years just passed by in a sentence!  But that much was missing in sources available to me.  And evidently, that much was missing in many a record of his early life. Part of it was due to a terrible fire which devastated his congregation and church  building in New Jersey, including his valuable diary and many personal records. But with this post, and the kind help of Wayne Sparkman, my co-author and archivist of the PCA History Center, more information has come to light. So this post is “the rest of the story” of Jonathan Dickinson, to be read prior to the post of April 22, 2012.

The first four generations of the Dickinson family came from Billingborough, Lincolnshire, England. Other than the listing of the names of the family, with their spouses and children, we are introduced to the fourth generation of Nathaniel Dickinson, who came with his wife and family to Connecticut in 1637. He was wealthy and a mainstay in that town. Out of twelve children, the eleventh child was Hezekiah Dickinson, who was the father of our subject today.

Hezekiah was a merchant by trade. With his spouse Abigail, they would have six children. The second child and oldest son was Jonathan, who was born on this day in Hatfield, Massachusetts. According to a law on the books of this town, he started school at age 6. It was believed that the next year he moved to Springfield, Massachusetts to finish his primary education and grammar school. Later in his teens, he spent time with his maternal grandparents in Stratford, Connecticut, where he would have had contact with the Rev. Israel Chauncy, the founder of what later on became Yale. It wasn’t surprising that then he entered that school for his college education. And the rest, as they say, is history, and specifically Presbyterian history.

Words to Live By:
It has always been interesting to this author, who has served his Lord and Savior for 40 years as a Presbyterian pastor, that nothing in life can be considered as chance, or luck, or fortune. This doesn’t mean that he hasn’t heard many people, and even a few misguided Christians, exclaim “how lucky,” or “by chance,” or “fortunately,” this or that has occurred. Solomon reminds us all in Proverbs 16:9 that “the mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” All these former familiar expression such as “chance, luck, or fortune” mean “without absence or cause.” Yet the inspired writer in Proverbs 16:9 tells us that while we may plan this or that, God is the direct cause of everything.  He decrees what will either happen or what that what He will permit to happen to you today. In fact, be ever ready to pray for your life today, “Direct my steps, O God.” And then at the end of the day, review that life and give thanks for what God has either given or allowed to occur, for His glory and your ultimate good.

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April 13: J. Wilbur Chapman

13 April, 2015 in April 2015 by davidtmyers | 1 comment

An Effective Pastor of the Flock

Try to think of the most effective evangelists  in  the nineteenth century—men like Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, John Wilbur Chapman. Wait! J. Wilbur Chapman? Who was he, you might ask? And yet this nineteenth century evangelist had the experience of leading thousands to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even if we don’t know him in particular, all Christians have sung, and many loved what has been called the greatest gospel content song of all time, namely, “One Day.”  He also wrote “Jesus! What a Friend for Sinners!”  So you know him as a hymn writer. Let’s get better acquainted.

John Wilbur Chapman was a Presbyterian pastor and evangelist.  Born in 1859 in a Christian home, he was educated at Lake Forest University and Lane Theological Seminary.  He was ordained on April 13, 1881 by the Presbytery of Whitewater, Ohio.  A few days later, he married Irene Sleddon.

Entering the pastorate, his first charge was a yoked pastorate over two Presbyterian churches in Indiana and Ohio in 1882.  John was able to serve both churches by alternating his preaching first one week at one church and then the next Sunday at the other.

In 1883, he was given a call to the Old Saratoga Dutch Reformed Church in Albany, New York.  This was not a Presbyterian congregation but one which was still very much within the Reformed tradition. In 1885, in the same town, he was called and accepted as pastor to the First Reformed Church.

Under his evangelistic ministry, the church grew from 150 members to 1500 members.  At least 500 conversions took place in those years.

Sorrow struck his family one year later when his wife Irene passed away.  He was left as a single parent with a young daughter. That year, still grieving, he heard a message by the celebrated preacher F.B. Meyer. In speaking of whole-hearted surrender to the Lord’s will, Meyer said “If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?”  That one question, Chapman said, “changed my whole ministry; it seemed like a new star in the sky of my life.”

Five years later, J. Wilbur Chapman began the greatest of his four pastorates, at the Bethany Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the home church of merchant John Wanamaker.

Soon after he arrived, however, an individual went up to Rev. Chapman and said, “You are not a very strong preacher, but a few of us have decided to gather and pray every Sunday for you.”   That Sunday prayer meeting for the pastor and his ministry at Bethany, grew to over a thousand individuals praying for the effectiveness of the Word of God through J. Wilbur Chapman.  Soon a revival started in the church in which 400 were added to the church rolls.  Two years later, J. Wilbur Chapman left the pastorate to become a full-time evangelist, where he had his greatest ministry to the Lord.

Words to Live By:  Do you, as a member of a Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching church, pray for your pastor?  Do you pray for his preparation of the Word, his evangelism opportunities, his counseling sessions, his home and hospital visitations, his administrative duties, and his  family?  Pray, pray, pray for the pastors of our churches!

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March 28: The First American Presbytery (1706)

28 March, 2015 in March 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

Today’s post was written for the PCA Historical Center in 2006 by Dr. Barry Waughand is reproduced here, substantially edited for length.

MakemieStatueThree hundred years ago this year the first meeting of the General Presbytery was convened in Philadelphia.  A specific date in 1706 cannot be pinpointed due to the loss of the first leaf of the minutes, but a letter of Rev. Francis Makemie provides the basis for assigning the year.  The letter was written by Rev. Makemie from Philadelphia, to Benjamin Colman on March 28, 1707.  After relating the story of his imprisonment with some other ministers for their preaching the Gospel as dissenting, non-Church of England ministers, he mentioned that he and six other ministers had met in Philadelphia earlier that month to consult regarding the best way to advance the Gospel.

Pictured at right, a statue erected in memory of the Rev. Francis Makemie, located at Holden’s Creek, Accomack County, Virginia.

This meeting is the first convening of the General Presbytery with a complete set of minutes in the manuscript record book, and these minutes are preceded by a partial and brief section of minutes recorded in 1706.  From this small and unfortunately imprecisely dated beginning, the Presbyterian Church grew to organize its first meeting of the General Synod in 1717, then its first General Assembly in 1789.  During these years the Presbyterian Church formally adopted the Westminster Standards in 1729, and then saw a division between the Old and New Sides in 1744 that was reconciled with a reunion in 1758.  The Presbyterian Church’s ministry increased through the years so that by the end of the eighteenth century it enjoyed a substantial flock distributed throughout the young nation for the purpose of glorifying and enjoying God.

The six oldest congregations in the Presbyterian Church in America can trace their ministries to the early years leading up to and following the first presbytery meeting.  Each of these congregations was organized before the first General Assembly in 1789 and its associated publication of the first edition of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church, which contained the Westminster Standards and associated church government documents.  Through the colonial period and into the early years of America, the Presbyterian Church ministered through local congregations as America grew and prospered, and these six PCA churches can trace their ancestry directly to the foundational work of the Presbyterian Church in the eighteenth century.

1. The oldest organized church in the PCA is the Fairfield Presbyterian Church of New Jersey, which traces its beginning in New Jersey to 1680.

2. Manor Presbyterian Church, Cochranville, PA (org. 1730). The Rev. Samuel Blair was pastor here, briefly.

3. First Presbyterian Church, Waynesboro, GA (org. 1760). The earliest body associated with what became the Waynesboro Church was the Briar Creek Church, which petitioned the Synod of New York and Philadelphia for supply ministers.  In 1770 the synod, through the Presbytery of New Castle, sent Josiah Lewis, Princeton class of 1766, to serve as a supply pastor for sixth months in Long Cane, South Carolina, and then for three additional months at Briar Creek.  His few months at Briar Creek must have endeared him to the congregation because he continued serving both Briar Creek and an additional charge at Queensboro for a few years.  At some point, the Briar Creek Church became known as Old Church and continued to use that name until it merged with the Walnut Branch Church and eventually became what is presently the First Presbyterian Church of Waynesboro.

4. First Presbyterian Church, Schenectady, NY (org. 1760). The Schenectady church initially worshipped in the building used by the Episcopalians until in 1769 eight Presbyterians purposed to build a wooden place of worship for themselves, which was not completed until after the arrival of the first minister, Rev. Alexander Miller, in 1771.

5. Goshen Presbyterian Church, Belmont, NC (org. 1764). Early oral history traces the Goshen Church’s beginnings to a stranger who died and was buried on the knoll that became the cemetery for the congregation.  Near this cemetery, the congregation began to meet and eventually constructed a log worship building.  Through the missionary work of Elihu Spencer, a Yale graduate, and Alexander McWhorter, a College of New Jersey man, Goshen and other churches were able to worship and receive pastoral care.  In 1796, the Goshen congregation called its first minister, Humphrey Hunter, for a shared ministry with another local church.

6. Bethel Presbyterian Church, Clover, SC (org. 1764). As Goshen struggled in its early years, across the Carolina frontier in South Carolina, Bethel Presbyterian Church also struggled with the challenges and vicissitudes of frontier living.  The Bethel Church heard the first sermon in its frontier home from William Richardson, a missionary of the Charleston Presbytery, and just as Rev. Humphrey Hunter had provided ministerial stability for the Goshen Church, so he ministered for a few years at Bethel in the beginning of the nineteenth century.

For Further Study:
Only eight letters written by Francis Makemie are known to have survived to the modern era. Five of these letters, including the one mentioned above, were reproduced in the appendix to American Presbyterianism, by Charles A. Briggs, available in digital format, here.

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March 27: 1842 Birth of George Matheson (Trinity Hymnal)

27 March, 2015 in March 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

The Hymn was a Fruit of Sufferings
We all experience it. Suffering, I mean. It can last a short time. It can last a long time. It might be a disappointment in life. We thought  that we had it all figured out, but then one of those “hard Providences” cames along, and we are in suffering on account of it. Perhaps it happened to ourselves, to a spouse, to a child, to a grown loved one, to a friend, and we are in extreme anguish as a result.
George Mattheson, the Scottish hymn writer, experienced it one day. It his case, it came to him on the day of his sister’s marriage in 1882. Everyone one of his family, including his beloved sister, was staying overnight in Glasgow, apart from  him. Something happened to him which he described as “a most severe mental suffering.” No one knows exactly what it was. He said that it was known only to himself, but whatever it was, it overwhelmed his soul.
Sitting down in a room of his manse, this single pastor, who was born this day on March 27, 1842, said that the words of this poem was “the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life.” Further, he acknowledged that “I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some inward voice than of working it out myself.” He added that the whole four verse poem was completed in five minutes! Never once did he retouch or correct the words.
And if that part of the story is remarkable, three years later, Albert Peace, a renowned organist, read it. He then sat down before his organ and wrote all the notes into a hymn. The ink of the first note was hardly dry when he finished it.
When we consider that Rev. Mattheson was a famous preacher in two cities of Scotland, one of them being a 2000 member congregation in the capital  city of the kingdom, we imagine that he had all things going for him. And he did, but he was also blind, beginning in his 18th year. His three sisters rose to the occasion, by tutoring him in his studies at the University of Glasgow. One even learned Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to help him, enabling him to complete his studies. It was on the occasion of this sister’s marriage that he wrote this hymn, celebrating the constancy of God’s love.
Found in the Trinity Hymnal (no. 708), read over its four stanza’s especially if you find yourself in a time of trouble. In fact, either turn to the number in the red hymnal or sing it with the familiar tune, as part of our Words to Live By section:
“O Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee; I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.
“O Light that follow’st all my way, I yield my flick-“ing torch to thee; my heart restores its borrowed ray, that in thy sunshine’s blaze its day may be brighter, fairer be.
“O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not  vain that morn shall tearless be
“O Cross, that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground that blossoms red life that shall endless be.”

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