May 2015

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May 11: Appeal to English Presbyterians for Aid

11 May, 2015 in May 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

A Plea for Ministers and Money

Most of us can remember Paul’s vision which he experienced on his second missionary journey of a man who called out to the apostle, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” (NIV – Acts 16:9)   Well, we don’t have any record of any visionary request for help, but early Presbyterians in this blessed land did correspond with Presbyterians in the mother country just two years after the organization of the Presbytery of Philadelphia in 1707.  There is a letter written on May 11, 1709 to Presbyterians in London, England from the Presbyterian ministers in the Philadelphia Presbytery appealing for more men and money to help the infant Presbyterian Church get off the ground.  Listen to the pathos in their words:

“Unto whom can we apply ourselves more fitly than unto our fathers, who have been extolled in the reformed churches for their large bounty and benevolence in their necessities!  We doubt not, but if the sum of about two hundred pounds per annum, were raised for the encouragement of ministers in these parts, it would enable ministers and people to erect eight congregations, and ourselves put in better circumstances than hitherto we have been.  We are at present seven ministers, most of whose outward affairs are so straightened as to crave relief, unto which, if two or three more were added, it would greatly strengthen our interest, which does miserably suffer, as things are at present are among us.

“Sir, if we shall be supplied with ministers from you, which we earnestly desire; with your benevolence to the value above, you may be assured of our fidelity and Christian care in distributing it to the best ends and purposes we can, so as we hope we shall be able to give a just and fair account for every part of it to yourself and others, by our letters to you.

“That our evangelical affairs may be the better managed, we have formed ourselves into a Presbytery, annually convened.  It is a sore distress and trouble unto us, that we are not able to comply with the desires of sundry places, crying unto us for ministers.  Therefore we earnestly beseech you to intercede with the ministers of London, to extend their charity to us, otherwise many people will remain in a perishing condition as to spiritual things.”

It is obvious that the seven ministers of the Presbytery of Philadelphia certainly saw that the fields of America were ripe unto harvest.  They also sadly realized that the laborers were few so as to reap that spiritual harvest.  And so they, in a spirit of prayer, asked for both ministers and money to take advantage of the opportunities for a wide and effective service in the American colonies.

It would be at a later date in the history of the American church, indeed several decades from this date,  that the question of where you were trained educationally became an issue in the visible church.  But at this early date in American Presbyterian history, they were at a critical crossroads, as the letter above proves.  They needed more pastors and more money to support those who were present in ministering to the masses.

Words to Live By: Such a prayer and plea as this is never outdated, even in current America.  We might add the adjective “faithful” before the men who are needed in our conservative Presbyterian and Reformed church bodies, but the need is the same.  Will you be a prayer warrior before our Sovereign God and heavenly Father for Him to thrust out faithful  laborers into the harvest fields?

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May 10: Van Horn on WSC Q. 18

10 May, 2015 in May 2015 by archivist | No comments

STUDIES IN THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM
by Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn

Q. 18. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?

A. The sinfulness of that estate wherein man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.

Scripture References: Rom. 5:12,19; I Cor. 15:22; Rom. 5:6; Eph. 2:1-3; James 1: 14-15.

Questions:

1. What is original sin?

A better way of expressing this would be “inherited sin.” This sin is the guilt and pollution connected with our origin, in and through the first Adam.

2. Is there not another type of sin besides original sin?

Yes, there is actual sin. This is any breach of God’s law, whether it be by omission or commission, whether it be by thought, word or deed.

3. How are all men guilty because of Adam’s first sin?

All men are guilty of Adam’s first sin by imputation, (Ram. 5:19). This is so because Adam represented his posterity, as we learned in Question 16. As the righteousness of Christ, the second Adam, is imputed to all believers, so the sin of the first Adam is imputed to all the natural seed.

4. What is meant by the “guilt of Adam’s first sin”?

It means the debt, the punishment to which we are exposed because of that first sin, committed by our head and representative, Adam.

5. What is the teaching involved in “the want of original righteousness”?

The teaching here is that two things are involved:
(a) The lack of true spiritual understanding in the mind (I Cor. 2:14).
(b) The lack of the power and inclination toward good (Rom. 7: 18).

6. What is included in the statement “the corruption of his whole nature”?

Included in this statement is the universal depravity present in every part of man since the fall. Calvin states, “Therefore all of us, who have descended from impure seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God’s sight.” (Calvin’s Institutes, II, 1,5).

ORIGINAL SIN

The lack of belief in this doctrine is probably one of the greatest motivators of mankind toward their popular and many times stated position of: “Well, I do my best and we are all trying to get to the same place. I’ll simply take my chances on my best for a loving God would not condemn me.” This position is heard time and time again and it is hard to take offensive action against it when the person stating it does not believe in the Bible as the inspired, infallible Word of God.

The Presbyterian Standards are very clear about this matter of Original Sin and its effects on mankind. Of the “corrupted nature” the Standards tell us that “we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil” and from this corrupted nature “proceed all actual transgressions”. The Standards further teach that this condition is innate from birth and by nature. It is at this very place that so many modern thinkers disagree with the Standards and insist that there is an “inner goodness in man” and insist that man is rapidly making progress. It is from this position that they move to the natural result that if man does his best he will be taken care of by the loving God.

And yet if a person of the world is forced to be honest with himself, forced because of sickness, or impending death, or trouble of any great variety, he recognizes inward evidences of the corruption of his nature. He recognizes that naturally speaking he does not want to listen to the words that will keep him from erring. He recognizes that he puts all his hope in himself. He recognizes that his body is more important to him than his soul. It is significant that when the person of the world is saved by grace he does not have to be “forced” to be honest with himself in this way, he knows it!

What can all of us learn from this doctrine? The person not saved by grace will learn little from it until he comes to the realization of his sinful state. The person saved by grace can learn once again “Wonder of wonders, He saved even me!” He can thank and praise God once again for the teaching of Ephesians 2:1-10. He can witness to others of the pardon that comes through the merits of Jesus Christ.

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May 9: Associate Reformed Synod of the Carolinas

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

Pastors according to God’s heart

What a worthy aim for the under shepherds of the  visible church of God!  The phrase is biblical, being taken from Jeremiah 3:15. It says “Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.” (NASB)  And the text was the basis for the sermon preached by the Rev James Rogers, on this day, May 9, 1803, in constituting the organization of the Associated Reformed Synod of the Carolinas, meeting at the Old Brick Church, Fairfield County, South Carolina. 

Beginnings are historic. This author was one of five Presbyterian ministers who organized the Siouxlands Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America back in 1981. Those first meetings of this lower court were exciting to attend, as we planned the outreach of the witness into the broad Midwest part of our country. And this earlier beginning was, judging from the descriptions of the Rev. Robert Latham in the  “History of the Associate Reformed Synod of the South,” pp.  295 – 297. Listen to some of his words from that volume:

“Of these fathers of the Associate Reformed Synod of the Carolinas (now Associate Reformed Synod of the South), it may be safely said that they were men mighty in the Scriptures.  They all were men of more than ordinary natural abilities, and of rare intellectual and theological attainments in their day. … They were all instructive preachers.  They were pastors who fed the people of God ‘with knowledge and understanding.'” (p. 296)

Further,

“they (these pastors, seven in number) were bound together by the strongest possible ties.  In each other’s temporal, spiritual, and eternal welfare they were deeply interested.  They had the same great and good cause—the salvation of immortal souls—at heart.  They had no private ends to accomplish; no individual purposes to effect.  Of them it may be truthfully said, ‘They took up their cross and followed Jesus.’  In all sincerely they endeavored to live at peace with each other and with all men. By the blessing of God, they lived in perfect harmony with each other. . . . They were devoted friends.” (p. 297)

Their names would be completely unknown by our readers today, but to simply list their names might be noteworthy.  They were James Rogers, William Blackstock, John Hemphill, James McKnight, Alexander Porter, James McGill and Robert Irwin.  Oh yes, they had ruling  elders join them in this regional church, who were named Charles Montgomery, Alexander Steward, Andrew McQuiston, Henry Hunter, Arthur Morrow, and Duke Bell.

All these are now dead, long dead. But by their self-sacrificing labors and godly example, they started the ministry in the South on this day, May 9, 1803.

Words to Live By:
To dwell together in unity for the purpose of the gospel proclamation is a heartfelt prayer in many a church and denomination today.  But is it an accomplished fact in the days  in which we live? Sadly, we must confess that this is not the case. We need to return to the words of the prophet, in praying for shepherds  after God’s own heart, who will be more concerned in feeding the sheep of the pasture on knowledge and  understanding.  What a worthy prayer before the teaching elders of our readership would pray before stepping behind the sacred desk.  What a worthy prayer of the people in the pew to pray for their pastors as they stand behind the pulpit on the Lord’s Day. Lord, give us such pastors and people today in our churches of our land.

 

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May 8: Princeton & Warfield

8 May, 2015 in May 2015 by archivist | No comments

The folllowing brief account of the seventy-sixth annual commencement exercises of Princeton Theological Seminary, in 1888, turns more to a most interesting set of comments about the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, and is useful in that light alone for the picture it provides of the great Professor.

A Princeton Letter

The seventy-sixth commencement exercises of Princeton Theological Seminary were held on Tuesday, May the eighth. Princeton has prospered this year. Her catalogue records an attendance of 153 students. Some thirty-seven were in the graduating class. Of these, seven are going to the foreign field. Thirty-four are supplied with work, and the rest are not idle from lack of opportunity. The junior class was exceptionally large, containing 58 members.

The venerable Dr. Moffatt has retired after twenty-seven year’s connection with the seminary, and has been elected professor emeritus of history. Rev. Geo. T. Purves, of Pittsburgh, has been elected as his successor.

The college has taken Dr. Francis L. Patton from us to succeed Dr. McCosh. The seminary has lost a David in Dr. Patton, but gained a Solomon in Dr. Warfield, a man of war exchanged for a man of wisdom.

We are proud of Dr. Warfield. He entered upon a most difficult task when he undertook to fill the chair of Polemic and Didactic Theology after Dr. Archibald A. Hodge. He has succeeded. Not in Dr. Hodge’s way, but in his own way. The two men cannot be compared. They were cast in different molds. Their methods are not the same. Our ears are no longer tickled with so many apt illustrations and striking epigrams, but we now receive such clear, clean-cut definition, and patient repetition, that “though fools” we cannot err therein. He is quick in apprehending a question, and never non-plussed, “ready always to give an answer to every man.”

WarfieldBB_1903Dr. Warfield is a thorough scholar, but he is more than a scholar, he is a gentleman. This year the seminary faculty has taken great pains to impress upon the students that a Presbyterian minister should be a gentleman. Our new professor is an ever present example. However great may be the provocation, he ever exhibits the utmost gentleness.

“His heart is as soft as a woman’s. To a worm he would give the path.” Yet with all his delicacy of feeling are coupled the sterling qualities of a true manhood, which command the highest respect and reverence.

When the balmy days of Spring came, Dr. Warfield could often be seen walking with his wife about their little garden.

Now this is a small matter; we often see people walking in their garden and think nothing of it. But such a display of domestic feeling is so unusual in Princeton that the eye of the seminary student cannot but see, and his heart cannot but be affected at the sight.

One cannot but feel that the man who walketh in gardens is near to Him “that dwelleth in gardens.”

It was my intention to say something about the undercurrents of thought and of feeling among the students themselves, but my space being limited I shall reserve that for a future letter.

Wm. E. Bryce
May 18, 1888.
The Church at Work, 2.33 (24 May 1888): 4.

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May 7: Rev. John Rodgers [1727-1811]

7 May, 2015 in May 2015 by archivist | No comments

A Long and Faithful Ministry

rodgersJohnJohn Rodgers was born in Boston on the 5th of August, 1727. He was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Rodgers, who had emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland just six years prior. When John was little more than a year old, he and his parents relocated to Philadelphia.

While still a child, he gave evidence of a deep love of knowledge and even a care and thoughtfulness about his eternal soul. It was under the preaching of Whitefield that he was first solidly impressed with the truths and duties of the Christian faith. On one occasion, when Whitefield was preaching in the evening, near the Court House on Market Street, young John was standing near him, holding a lantern to assist Whitefield. But Rodgers became so impressed with the truth to which he was listening that, for a moment, he forgot himself and dropped the lantern, breaking it in pieces. Years later, when Rodgers was settled in his first pastorate, Dr. Whitefield came to visit his house, and Rev. Rodgers related the incident to him, asking if he remembered it. “Oh yes,” replied Whitefield, “I remember it well; and have often thought I would give almost any thing in my power to know who that little boy was, and what had become of him.” Rev. Rodgers replied with a smile,—”I am that little boy.” Whitefield burst into tears, and remarked that he was the fourteenth person then in the ministry, whom he had discovered in the course of that visit to America, of whose hopeful conversion he had been the instrument.

When William Buell Sprague asked the Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller for his recollections of Rev. Rodgers, this was Miller’s reply:

Rev. dear Brother: When you request me to prepare for your forthcoming biographical work some brief memorials of the late venerable Dr. Rodgers of New York, I feel as if I were called not to the performance of a task, but to the enjoyment of a privilege. If there be a man living who is entitled to speak of that eminent servant of Christ, I am that man. Having been long and intimately acquainted with him; having served with him twenty years as a son in the Gospel ministry; and having enjoyed peculiar opportunities of contemplating every phase of his character, personal and official; so my ardent attachment and deep veneration of his memory make it delightful to record what I knew with so much distinctness, and remember with so much interest.

“My acquaintance with Dr. Rodgers began in 1792, when he was more than sixty years of age, and when I was a youthful and inexperienced candidate for the ministry. He recognized in me the son of an old clerical friend, and from that hour till the day of his death treated me with a fidelity and kindness truly paternal. And when, next year, I became his colleague, he uniformly continued to exercise toward me that parental indulgence and guardianship which became his inherited friendship, as well as his Christian and ecclesiastical character.

rodgersJohn_memoirs“Without attempting in this connection to enter into the details of his history, which I have already done at large in my “Memoir” of this beloved man, I shall content myself with recounting in a brief manner those features of his character which I regard as worthy of special commemoration, and which rendered him so conspicuous among the pastors of his day.

“One of the great charms of Dr. Rodgers’ character was the fervour and uniformity of his piety. It not only appears conspicuous in the pulpit, dictating his choice of subjects, his mode of treating them, and his affectionate earnestness of manner; but it attended him wherever he went, and manifested itself in whatever he did. In the house of mourning it shone with distinguished lustre. Nor was this all. He probably never was known to enter a human dwelling for the purpose of paying an ordinary visit, without saying something before he left it to recommend the Saviour and his service. Seldom did he sit down at the convivial table, without dropping at least a few sentences adapted to promote the spiritual benefit of those around him…

“Another quality in Dr. Rodgers which, next to his piety, contributed to his high reputation, was prudence, or practical wisdom. Few men were more wary than he in foreseeing circumstances likely to produce embarrassment or difficulty, and in avoiding them…

“He was remarkable also for the uniform, persevering and indefatigable character of his ministerial labours. In preaching, in catechising, in attending on the sick and dying, in all the arduous labours of discipline and government, and in visiting from house to house, he went on with unceasing constancy, year after year, from the beginning to the end of his ministry…

“The character of Dr. Rodgers’ preaching was another of the leading elements of his popularity and usefulness. The two qualities most remarkable in his preaching were piety and animation. His sermons were always rich in evangelical truth; and they were generally delivered with solemnity and earnestness which indicated a deep impression on his own heart of the importance of what he uttered…

“Dr. Rodgers was eminently a disinterested man. Few men have ever been more free from private and selfish aims in acting their part in the affairs of the Church, than he…

Dr. Rodgers was further distinguished by a punctual attendance on the judicatories of the Church. He made it a point never to be absent from the meetings of his brethren, unless sickness or some other equally imperious dispensation of Providence rendered his attendance impossible. And when present in the several ecclesiastical courts, he gave his serious and undivided attention to the business which came before them, and was always ready to take his full share, and more than his share, of the labour connected with that business…”

Dr. Samuel Miller continued a bit further with his recollections, but we will leave him there. If you would like to read Miller’s Memoir of Dr. Rodgers, it can be conveniently found on the Web, here. Dr. Rodgers lived a long life, and was blessed to minister to the Lord’s people for some sixty three years. He died on May 7th, 1811.

Words to Live By:
Piety, the depth and consistency of holiness in a Christian’s life, is something particularly requisite in the life of a pastor. Dr. Rodgers was noted, not simply for his piety, but for how that character worked itself out in so many facets of his life. Now more than ever, before a watching world, Christians must be careful to live out to the full the Christian life, and pastors must be leaders in this witness.

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”—James 1:22-25, KVJ.

 

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