Isaac Van Arsdale Brown was born in Pluckamin, Somerset county, New York, on November 14, 1784. Little seems to be known of his parents or his early years. He graduated at Nassau Hall, as Princeton University was known in those days, and then studied theology privately under the tutelage of Dr. John Woodhull, of Freehold, New Jersey. He was licensed and then later ordained by the Presbytery of New Brunswick in 1807, being installed as the pastor of the church at Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

Three years later, in 1810, Rev. Brown established the Lawrenceville Classical and Commercial Boarding School, located near Princeton, and up until 1833 Rev. Brown remained the head of this school. The school has continued to this day and is one of the oldest private boarding schools in the nation. Then in 1833, both his wife and his son died, and it seems likely that their deaths led to his decision to leave Lawrenceville. In 1834, he sold the school and relocated to Mount Holly, New Jersey to plant a church there, while also preaching at Plattsburg, NJ and working to establish another church there. The last two decades of his life were spent preaching in the areas around Trenton and New Brunswick.

Dr. Brown was one of the founders of the American Colonization Society and also an original member of the American Bible Society. He died on April 19, 1861. (for historical reference, Fort Sumter had been fired upon, and the Civil War thus began, a week prior, on April 12, 1861)

Dr. Isaac V. Brown is noted as the author of several works, but most importantly, that of A Historical Vindication of the Abrogation of the Plan of Union by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. (1855). This is a careful treatment in defense of the Old School position on the 1837-1869 Old School/New School split in the PCUSA. It can be read online, here.

To read about the efforts of the Lawrenceville School in relocating Rev. Brown’s grave to a more appropriate location, click here.

Words to Live By:
In all likelihood, Rev. Brown started the school in Lawrenceville simply as a way to make ends meet. Pastors were not well paid in those days, and it was quite common for a pastor to turn to teaching in order to augment his salary. Nonetheless, the works that you do may live well beyond your own life-time. God will use what He will use. It is our part to be faithful in doing what He calls us to, and to do all things as unto the Lord.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10, ASV)

A list of Rev. Brown’s published works which are available on the Web:

• A Historical Vindication of the Abrogation of the Plan of Union by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (1855)
• Memoirs of the Rev. Robert Finley, D. D., late pastor of the Presbyterian congregation at Basking Ridge, New-Jersey, and President of Franklin College, located at Athens, in the state of Georgia . . . (1819)
• Biography of the Rev. Robert Finley, D. D., of Basking Ridge N. J. : with an account of his agency as the author of the American Colonization Society; also a sketch of the slave trade; a view of our national policy and that of Great Britain towards Liberia and Africa. (1857)
• Slavery Irreconcilable with Christianity and Sound Reason; or, An Anti-Slavery Argument. (1858)

Ordained on this day in 1833.

Though reared in a Christian Presbyterian home in Albion, Maine, where the family emphasis was that of a religious obligation to help rid the world of sin in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ, young Elijah  Lovejoy did not receive the Savior during those years. Instead, he grew up on the family farm of the Rev. Daniel and Elizabeth Lovejoy, assisting in the tent-making ministry.  In 1823, he attended Waterville College, where he was a serious student who made strides in journalism, so much that he became a tutor for many in his class.  Graduating at the top of his class in 1826, he moved west to St. Louis, Missouri to raise up a high school and teach many children of the wealthy and important families of that city.  Still however, he did not know the Master.

His relationship with God was to change in 1832 when the Rev. David Nelson held a series of revival meetings at the First Presbyterian Church of that city.  From the sound preaching of the Word of God, God’s Spirit regenerated his soul.  That same year, he began to study at Princeton Theological Seminary back in New Jersey.  The following letter from the Illinois State Historical Library, in Springfield, Illinois, tells of his spiritual state to his parents:

“So I am here preparing to become a minister of the everlasting gospel!  When I review my past life, I am astonished and confounded, and hardly know which most to wonder at, my own stupidity and blundering and guilt or the long suffering and compassion  of God. That He should have blessed me with such opportunities of becoming acquainted with his holy word — should have given me parents who in the arms of their faith dedicated me to them according to his gracious covenant, and who early constantly and faithfully and with many tears warned and entreated me to embrace the salvation through Jesus Christ, and not-withstanding all this, when he saw me hardening my heart, resisting the prayers of my parents and friends, grieving his Holy Spirit, counting the blood of the covenant into which I had been baptized an unholy thing, that He should have still borne with me, should have suffered me to here, and last given me season to hope that I have by his grace been enabled to return to my Father’s house, all this seems a miracle of goodness such as God alone could perform and far too wonderful for me to comprehend.  I can only bow down my head and adore.”

Graduating early from Princeton, it was on this day, April 18, 1833, that Elijah Lovejoy was licensed to preach the gospel by the Second Presbytery of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Leaving this city, he traveled back to St. Louis, where he began his ministry in Presbyterian churches of that western city.  Using journalism gifts, he became a powerhouse for the abolition of slavery, which eventually was to take his life by violent means in 1837.  (We will cover that part of his history on November 7 devotional)

Words to Live By:  When the good news of eternal life transforms a life by grace alone through faith alone, in Christ alone, then a new creation has come into existence.  It manifests itself not only by godly words but also in godly actions.  Have you reader. have that religious experience in your spiritual life?

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

Our guest author for our current Saturday series on Election Day Sermons, Dr. David W. Hall, is taking a well-deserved break today while he attends to some pressing pastoral matters. With great trepidation then I’m taking his place today, and have the following to offer, and only mostly tongue-in-cheek, have found this sermon by the Rev. Lyman Beecher, titled A Remedy for Duelling. A most fitting election day sermon, don’t you think?  Well, maybe not. Maybe not on several levels, in fact. Anyway, . . . .

Duelling was serious problem in the early days of this nation. What began as a practice among the nobility in Europe had no class boundaries when brought to America’s shores. So today we will look briefly at one earnest sermon against the practice, delivered first before his own congregation and then before the Presbytery of Long-Island, by the Rev. Lyman Beecher. The year was 1809 and Beecher’s sermon was considered by his peers as worthy of a large edition at a low price, for wide publication of the arguments presented. Perhaps the so-called drive-by shooting is our nearest modern counterpart. The former was called “one of the foulest blots on our national character,” and the latter certainly deserves that title as well.

The published edition of the sermon begins with a Preface, rehearsing the decision made by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. in 1805, declaring “their utter abhorrence of the practice of duelling,” . . . “utterly inconsistent with every just principle of moral conduct;” “a direct violation of the sixth commandment, and destructive of the peace and happiness of families.” In calling its ministers to action, the Asssembly urged pastors to “refuse to attend the funeral of any person who shall have fought a duel, and that they admit no person, who shall have fought a duel, given or accepted a challenge, or been accessory thereto, unto the distinguishing privileges of the church, until he manifest a just sense of guilt, and give satisfactory evidence of repentance.”

“And Judgment is turned away backward, and Justice standeth afar off; for Truth is fallen in the streets, and Equity cannot enter.”—Isaiah 59: 14-15.

So having picked up his text, Rev. Beecher began:

“The people of Israel, when this passage was written, had become exceedingly corrupt, and were sinking under the pressure of awful judgments. But although hardened in sin, they are not insensible to misery; and though regardless of God as their benefactor, they murmur and tremble before him as the author of their calamities.

Beecher’s sermon is simply too long to rehearse here. Forty pages long, in good early 19th-century fashion! But to focus on just one portion of his sermon, and here is where I think Beecher speaks in principles that cross over readily for contemporary application, he continues with a major point we will look at closer:

4. The system of duelling is a system of absolute despotism, tending directly and powerfully to the destruction of civil liberty. A free government is a government of laws, made by the people for the protection of life, property, and reputation. A despotic government is where life and all its blessings are subject to the caprice of an individual.

So dueling is a threat to civil liberty. How so? Beecher explains:

(1.) Equal laws are essential to civil liberty, but equal laws are far from satisfying the elevated claims of duellists. That protection which the law affords to them in common with others, they despise. They must have more–a right to decide upon and to redress their own grievances.

Thus duelling is a form of vigilantism, a taking of the law into your own hands.

(2.) The administration of justice ought, above all things, to be impartial; the rich and the honourable to be equally liable to punishment for their crimes with the poor, and, according to their desert, punished with equal severity. But while duellists bear sway, this can never be. It is a fact in this state, at the present moment, that the man who steals a shilling is more liable to detection, and more sure to be punished, and to experience a heavy penalty, than the man who, in a duel, murders his neighbor.

Duelling survives because the crime is not punished; a system has developed that protects the practice.

(3.) A sacred regard to law is indispensable to the existence of a mild government. In proportion as obedience ceases to be voluntary, and the contempt of law becomes common, must the nerves of government be strengthened, until it approach in essence, if not in name, to a monarchy. We must have protection; and the more numerous and daring the enemy, the more power must be delegated to subdue and control them. That contempt of law, therefore, which is manifested by the duellist, is a blow at the vitals of liberty.

Duelling tramples our rights and freedoms:

(4.) The tendency of duelling to restrain liberty of speech and of the press, is certainly direct and powerful. The people have a right to investigate the conduct of rulers, and to scrutinize the character of candidates for office; and as the private moral character of a man is the truest index, it becomes them to be particular on this point. But who will speak on this subject? Who will publish, when the duellist stands before him with pistol at the breast?

Duelling endangers our children’s futures:

(5.) Duelling, in its operation, exposes, to additional risk and danger, those who would rise to usefulness and fame in civil life. With what views can a Christian parent look to the law as a profession for his son, where, if he rise to fame, he must join the phalanx of murder–or if he refuse, experience their united influence against him?

Words to Live By:
As Rev. Beecher continued, his solution seemed to boil down to denying public office to those who supported the practice of dueling. This evil had infected what amounted to the ruling class of the young nation. But apart from urging his listeners to action and specifically to the polls, Beecher closes with the admission that “It is the gospel which must heal the nations; and the more the spirit of the gospel can be diffused, and made to express itself in the arrangement of society, the more will the world recover from its deadly wound. Salvation belongs to the Lord. So too any true change for the better in any society. To read the full sermon, click here:  A Remedy for Duelling (1809).

A Helpful Book For All Home Libraries

It was said that in most colonial homes in America, Presbyterians owned at least several books for use by and for their families.  The first one was, of course, the Bible.  And contrary to many expectations, that Bible version was not the King James Version, but rather the Genevan Bible.  Remember, the King James version was introduced because of the Reformed foot notes of the Genevan Bible.  That introduction was marked by mistakes, such as the inclusion of the Apocrypha into the first edition of the King James Version.  It was left out in the second edition, and indeed, to cause people to buy it, the printer of the version placed on the flyleaf “Authorized Version.”   All these caused the many Presbyterian and Reformed Christians to bring the Genevan edition to the shores of America.

A second book essential for early American immigrants was the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.  These were studied in many a home, with catechetical instruction and memorization being part and parcel of family devotions.

Another important book was Thomas Boston’s “Four-fold Nature of Man.”  This was clear theology as it explained the state of innocency, the state of sin, the state of salvation, and the state of glorification.

A fourth book would be a commentary, such as Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible.  This would enable the husband and father of the home to explain the Word of God in daily devotions to the family members gathered morning and night.

Last, a history book of the church to explain God’s providential ways in the church in the past was helpful to remind the church members of what had been done by the Lord of history, and what could be expected by the Lord to extend His church in the present age. There could be any number of choices at this point, depending on what you want to cover. One great advantage of living with today’s technological marvels, is the ability to find any number of substantial history books, all at no charge. Web sites like www.archive.org, for instance, provide generally excellent scans of old classics, and in a variety of formats to suit your need. Just use the search box on that site and browse to your heart’s content. Then download to your computer what you find useful. And for a most recent publication, we cannot recommend highly enough Dr. Sean M. Lucas’s new work, For a Continuing Church: The Roots of the Presbyterian Church in America. [P&R, 2015].

Words to Live By:
Remember Joshua in obedience to the Lord placed stones on the banks of the Jordan to not forget the Lord’s power in enabling Israel to pass by faith that seeming obstacle into the promised land, so we need to be reminded of those who have gone before so that we can by faith successfully confront anyone or anything who and which might confront us today.