“To God’s Glory” : A Practical Study of a Doctrine of the Westminster Standards
by Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn

THE SUBJECT : Idols

THE BIBLE VERSES TO READ : Exodus 20:3; I Chron. 28:9; Deut. 26:7; Matt. 4:10; Ps. 96:6; Ps. 29:2; II Cor. 5:9.

REFERENCES TO THE STANDARDS : Confession : II.1 & 2; VII.5; XXI.2 & 6; XXII.1 & 2; Larger Catechism : Q. 7; 34; 97-99; 103-110; Shorter Catechism : Q. 4; 41; 45; 49-52.

The Shorter Catechism, in Question 45, reminds us we must “know and acknowledge God to be the only true God, and our God, and to worship and glorify Him accordingly.” This is important for us to accomplish if we are to glorify God as we should.

When the first commandment is read, and especially when we take time to meditate on it as we should, we recognize the danger of having idols in our lives. This is a danger to which every professing believer is tempted. There is always the delight of the world to which a professing believer is drawn. With some it is one weight, with others it is another.

The writer of the hymn, “O For a Closer Walk With God” put it so well when he said,

“The dearest idol I have known,
What’er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from Thy throne,
And worship only Thee.”

In order for the believer to know, acknowledge, worship, and glorify God it is certainly of the utmost importance that he know Christ as Savior and Lord of his life. This is the foundation stone, this knowing of the Christ of the Scriptures. But upon that Rock-like foundation there must be added the gold, silver, and precious stones of good works if we would truly give Him the glory due Him. Our salvation is not based on those works, but if we are truly saved, we will bear such fruit—we will give evidence of our spiritual life. This means a life of self-discipline on the part of the believer and much of his success has to do with not putting other “gods” before the Almighty, Sovereign God.

It is so easy for us to put other things before the living solely to the glory of God. We can be guilty of it even in those things that are right and proper in themselves, especially in the eyes of the evangelical world of today. For example, there is the prevalent disease of “running-to-meeting-itis” that so many fall prey to in this day. I am not talking about the local church. I am referring to the many evangelical meetings outside the church that take believers away from their church. God has given us specific instructions regarding the visible church but too many times we have other “gods” that come before His visible church.

Or, as another example, hobbies may be used. It is important to take time off and relax. But sometimes it is hard to understand the justification of the hours spent on hobbies. And even more difficult to understand is when it is on the Lord’s Day! Many of these hobbies have become idols.

The church today is not falling because of the idolatry of old but is falling because of the two popular idols of today : Unbelief and Conformity to the World. It is a different type of idolatry in some of its aspects, but idolatry none the less.

Sometimes the thought never occurs to us of our idolatrous ways. A short list of possible idols might be to God’s glory :

—A particular doctrine that is practically the sum and substance of what we believe;

—A recreation for which we long, one that we suddenly find ourselves spending more time than necessary for relaxation;

—A person, or persons, whom we put on a pedestal where only God belongs;

—A “thing”, whether it be money, a car, a boat, a recreation, etc., that becomes more important to us than the things of the Lord as presented in God’s Word.

The list could be much longer. It is impossible for me to list all the ways you can make idols out of things even as it would be impossible for you to list all for me. The point is : We must be careful, sensitive, in this area so that we do not disobey and sin against a holy God!

Paul approaches the question in this way : “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway (disapproved).” Not that he was in danger of losing his salvation, but that he was in danger of losing his salvation, but that he was in danger of losing approval by God.

We must discipline our lives so that idols do not creep in. When they do, we must put them to death. Otherwise we will find ourselves dedicating our lives to other things, rather than living to His glory.

Tragedy Turned to Triumph

It was on this day, December 10th, in 1815, that the Rev. J. J. Janeway wrote in his journal,

“It has pleased the Lord to send to this city the Rev. Drury Lacy [of Virginia] to die, and to edify us by his exemplary behaviour in his last illness. He submitted to a painful operation, which proved fatal. He was raised entirely above the fear of death, and repeated, on one occasion, with emphasis, two verses of the 116th hymn:

‘How can I sink with such a prop 
As my eternal God, 
Who bears the earth’s huge pillars up, 
And spreads the heavens abroad?’ &c.

“I stood at his bedside about an half hour before his decease; and as I stood looking on him, then in a state of insensibility, I reflected. There is the servant of God just going to receive his reward; there is that mouth which was employed so often in proclaiming salvation to sinners, just about to be closed in death. But it will be opened again in celebrating the praises of our Redeemer in a new and nobler strain. There is that minister just about to receive his crown of life. Oh, may I profit by such occurrences! While meditating on something to say at his interment, I was refreshed; my soul melted within me; my eyes were filled with tears.”

Drury Lacy was born on 5 October 1758, in Chesterfield Co., Va., and died on 5 November 1815, at the home of a friend, Robert Ralston, in Philadelphia, PA. Death was caused by the effects of an operation for kidney calculi. Rev. Lacey had gone to Philadelphia in order to obtain the best medical service available. The operation was on a Monday and by Tuesday he was very low and said that he trusted in the Lord. He requested Robert to write a letter to Mrs. Lacy in case of his death to comfort her. By nightfall, he was in great pain and expired the next day. He was interred in the cemetery of the Third Street Presbyterian Church, later the Pine Street Presbyterian Church.

Drury was reared on his father’s farm in Chesterfield County in meager circumstances, with the full intention of following in the footsteps of his father as a farmer. But an accident in his youth, which at the time appeared catastrophic, abruptly changed the course of his life, to his great benefit , and to all of his descendants as well. The story of the accident is as follows:—

At a muster of the militia, a soldier had overloaded his musket and feared to discharge it himself. Without informing them of the over-loading and the consequent danger of firing it, he asked some boys if they would like to discharge it. Young Lacy volunteered; the weapon exploded, terribly mangling and tearing off Lacy’s left hand. The wound healed but, without the use of two hands, Lacy felt that he would be unable to earn a living as a farmer, and so turned his thoughts to the profession of teaching or clerking. This would require an education and he had not the funds to pay for tuition at a private school—there were no public ones—or to hire a tutor. His mother had died when he was about 12 years of age, and his father never remarried. His sisters, Keziah and Dorcas, assumed the duties of running the household as his elder sister, Agnes, had married in 1764.

At the age of 18, he secured a position as tutor in the family of Daniel Allen in Cumberland County, who was an elder in the Presbyterian Church of which Rev. John Blair Smith, President of Hampden-Sydeny College, was pastor. Here Drury became acquainted with Rev. Smith and his ministry. Shortly thereafter, he joined the church of which Rev. Smith had charge. This was an important move in Drury’s life, for Rev. Smith, noting his ability, took him “under his wing”. At this time, he was self-taught for the most part and had acquired a fair working knowledge of geography, grammar, algebra, geometry and surveying. He later became a tutor in the family of Col. John Nash of Prince Edward County, and while there, enjoyed the instruction of Rev. Smith one or two hours a week. With this assistance, he acquired a sufficient knowledge in Greek and Latiin so that at the age of twenty-three, he was offered the position of “tutor” at Hampden-Sydney College. He continued his studies there privately, leading eventually to his entrance upon the ministry.

In The Collections of the Virginia Historical Society“, Volume 5, it states that “he possessed marked powers of oratory. He could lift up his voice like a trumpet, and its silvery notes fell sweetly upon the ears of the most distant auditors in large congregations, wherever assembled, in houses or in the open air.

His son, Rev. William Sterling Lacy said of his father:

“He left but few sermons, and those not entirely finished, and far inferior to his ordinary pulpit performances, having been written in the earlier years of his ministry. During the last fifteen years of his life, the period of his greatest ministerial success, he rarely, if ever, wrote his sermons, and but seldom prepared even short notes for the pulpit. His preparation was almost exclusively mental and spiritual. He thought intensely upon his subject, and arranged the matter carefully in his mind, and then trusted to the occasion to suggest the appropriate language.

There is as well this account of him from the pen of his intimate friend, Dr. (Archibald) Alexander:

‘About the time that Mr. Lacy entered the ministry, commenced that remarkable revival of religion, which extended more or less through every part of Virginia where Presbyterian congregations existed. And although Dr. J. B. Smith was the principal instrument of that work, yet the labours of Mr. Lacy were, in no small degree, successful. His preaching was calculated to produce deep and solemn impressions. His voice was one of extraordinary power. Its sound has been heard at more than a mile’s distance. His voice was not only loud, but clear and distinct; in the largest assemblies convened in the woods, he could always be heard with ease at the extremity of the congregation.

Words to Live By:
God can take great tragedies and turn them to His purposes, redeeming the wasted years (Joel 2:25). The Lord is not limited; His ways are not our ways. Our place is but to look to Him in all things, regardless of what may come. A reward awaits, an eternity in His presence, enjoying Him forever.

The full hymn by Isaac Watts:

How can I sink with such a prop
As my eternal God,
Who bears the earth’s huge pillars up,
And spreads the heav’ns abroad?

How can I die while Jesus lives,
Who rose and left the dead?
Pardon and grace my soul receives
From mine exalted Head.

All that I am, and all I have,
Shall be for ever thine;
Whate’er my duty bids me give
My cheerful hands resign.

Yet if I might make some reserve,
And duty did not call,
I love my God with zeal so great
That I should give him all.

The Rev. Dr. Donald Bray Patterson was a son of the manse, his father having served for many years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in the United States. He was graduated from Wheaton College and Columbia Theological Seminary. He served as pastor of the Commerce, Georgia Presbyterian Church, Perry, Georgia Presbyterian Church, West End Church of Hopewell, Virginia and the McIlwain Memorial Church of Pensacola, Florida and lastly as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi.

Dr. Patterson was Chairman of the Steering Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian Church and Chairman of the provisional Committee of the Mission to the World, while also serving as a member of the Mississippi Valley Presbytery of the Continuing Presbyterian Church. Unable to attend the 26th General Assembly (1998) due to declining health, he was named Honorary Moderator of that Assembly. He died on December 25th of that same year.

It was Rev. Patterson who brought the central sermon in the week of the first General Assembly for the Presbyterian Church in America. His sermon was titled, At the Crossroads. As with the Message to All Churches, this sermon serves to set the standard for the young denomination, a standard which we would do well to regularly review. As Dr. Patterson states, “the primary purpose of Jesus Christ in the world must never become a secondary cause in His church.”

At the Crossroads
by the Rev. Donald B. Patterson, B.A., B.D., D.D.

No other figure of speech describes more adequately our situation tonight than does the one that states that we are “at the crossroads.” Having come to this place because of a deep conviction we have been laughed at, criticized, maligned, made fun of and even harassed, yet we have come. Some of us face uncertain days, while others breathe more easily for their “lives have fallen in pleasant places.”

None of us would deny that we are living in a new day with all kinds of exciting opportunities for Christian witness at home and overseas. The future is as bright as the promises of God. I am impressed by the fact that those giving thought to the formation of a new denomination are facing up to the principle that the primary purpose of Jesus Christ in the world must never become a secondary cause in His church.

As the apostle Paul set out on his third missionary journey he carried with him the half-Jewish, half-Asian-Greek Timothy and the Gentile Titus. He was joined by others as they visited churches established earlier. In the spring of 54 A.D. they came to the strategic city of Ephesus. The story of the evangelization of that city is one of the outstanding missionary accomplishments of history. We do not have all the records, but two years later it was said ” … all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.” (Acts 19:10)

Since the beginning of the Christian Church, it has been at its best when it is militantly evangelistic. Refined by violent opposition, a fierce dedication to take the Gospel to every man at any cost characterized our predecessors.

Unfortunately, the Church has not been able to maintain its most dedicated missionary enthusiasm for very long, and having failed to polarize public opinion about Jesus Christ it has retreated from the arena of open evangelism. The Church has hidden behind symbols of strength and power — protected by its theological positions — while whole generations of unimpressed, uncommitted and unevangelized people go by outside.

I may have misunderstood the Scripture, but my impression of the Church was that it was never meant to be some kind of a fortress out of reach of the people. The Church was to be an outgoing, proclaiming, evangelistic body of believers dedicated to the passion for the the world-wide evangelization of people.

As I understand the command of Jesus, we are to preach the Gospel to every person, but no generation of Christians has ever come close to fulfilling the Great Commission in its own times. The likelihood of our evangelizing the world seems so remote that few of us even think about it — much less pray about it.

In 1966 I attended the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin where a population clock clicked off the increase in the world’s population while we sat in that meeting. Nothing made a more profound impression on me that week.

When Christ was on earth there were approximately 300 million people on earth. 1500 years later it is estimated that there were 500 million. 300 years later there were one billion. Then man doubled his number in the next one hundred years. In 1930 there were 2 billion people! Between 1930 and 1960 man added another billion. They are now estimating that by the year 2000 there will be 6.5 billion people.

There was a day when preachers were called the “prophets of doom,” but the title now goes to the scientists. The scientist with his charts and carefully researched prognostications is in the limelight. It has become obvious that if the Church is ever to evangelize the world it must greatly increase its level of missionary activity, or it will be too late to fulfill the Great Commission.

Facing the command of our Saviour and with some knowledge of the work of various mission organizations down through the years, it is my opinion that our fledgling denomination must search for a workable plan for world-wide evangelization. We must go back to the New Testament and base our global ministry on apostolic patterns and standards. Listen to what Paul wrote to Timothy: “I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” (I Timothy 1:16)

In that first century Paul provided a working model that we would do well to follow — “all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.” (Acts 19:10). He reached the whole province — all the people! He effectively fulfilled the Great Commission for that time and place by carrying the Gospel to all the inhabitants of what is now Turkey.

You know the history of the church in that area. Luke wrote: “So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.” (Acts 19:20) Whatever Paul did at Ephesus needs to be repeated again throughout the whole 20th century world.

God’s command to Adam was “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion.” (Gen. 1:28). Man has done that. He is now walking on the moon, living at the bottom of the ocean, doubling his store of knowledge every few years and now he says that he is close to reproducing living matter in the laboratory. He has so thoroughly carried out his original assignment that he has now produced a terrifying ecological imbalance that threatens to destroy him.

With the coming of Jesus Christ a new commandment was given. He discussed it often with His disciples. Listen to it again:

Matthew 28:18-20 “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

Mark 26:15 “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.”

Luke 24:46-48 “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.”

John 20:21 “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”

Acts 1:7,8 “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

Matthew 24:24 “And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”

Obviously, the task of world evangelization is to continue until the end of the world. The obligation is still binding. The Great Commission has not expired and is applicable today.

We have taken a strong stand on some of the complicated facets of Christian theology, but in the Great Commission there is a wonderful simplicity. Jesus is calling for uniformity of action and singleness of purpose: Christians are to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every living person. It is a call to action — a command to total evangelization — a commitment to proclaim the Gospel to every person.

The message of that first century Church was uncomplicated. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was crucified and buried, but on the third day He rose from the dead. Forty days later He ascended to the Father and He promised to return. The early declaration of faith did not reply to all the questions that men were asking, but it did give an understandable series of concepts for the evangelization of the people.

We must believe that we are justified in changing the religious beliefs and the moral behavior of the people. We must believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to God and that all other religions, beautiful and presently helpful as they may appear, are inadequate. Man is separated from God by his sins and he will invent substitutes. Without a living knowledge of God man has degenerated and developed his heathen religions and cultures. Underneath the surface there is still a hunger that is not satisfied apart from Christ.

The primary motivation for world evangelization is a love for our fellow men and a firm belief that all who do not accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ are hopelessly lost and condemned to eternal separation from God. If Jesus Christ is right, then all the world must be evangelized and we must make converts among all other religions.

The magnitude of the Great Commission is a frightening challenge to our embryonic denomination, especially in view of the lack of missionary vision in our time. We cannot answer for the ages that are past, but we are responsible for every man, woman and child in every community in every cultural group in our generation. It is for today that we must answer to God.

What we need today is a fresh look at what the Scriptures have to say about the sovereignty of God. He knows the end from the beginning and is working all things after the counsel of His own will. He is able to make the wrath of man praise Him. No man can stay His hand or say to Him: “What doest thou?”

Anybody can believe in the sovereignty of God when the situation is under control, but when things get out of hand, when right is on the scaffold and wrong is on the throne, it is then that the purposes of God are being worked out according to His plan.

This is no time for retrenchment — no time for retreat. The doors ARE open. The fields ARE white. The laborers ARE few. The closed doors are God’s responsibility while the open doors are ours! We are to pray the Lord of the harvest to send the laborers.

The success of world missions is not to be measured against past accomplishments or present gains, but by the realistic progress toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the response of the Church to pursue its task with faith and vision.

What will you do about it? As you stand at the crossroads, what will your decision be? I promise you difficulties and dangers. Messengers of the cross have been hunted and hounded, whipped and flogged. Some have given their lives. But the mandate has not been rescinded.

Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church and the Lord of history. Leaders come and go — nations rise and fall — civilizations wax and wane, but the worldwide mission of the Church will continue to the end of the age.

“I look back on that whole part of my early history with entire disapprobation and deep regret. On two points I totally disapprove my own conduct. In the first place, I was wrong in suffering myself to be so warmly and actively en­gaged in Politics as I was during that period. For though ministers have the rights and duties of citizens, and, probably, in most cases, ought to exercise the right of voting at elections; yet when party politics run high, and when their appearing at the polls cannot take place without exciting strong feelings on the part of many against them; and when their ministry among all such persons will be therefore much less likely to be useful, I cannot think that their giving their votes can have an importance equivalent to the injury it is likely to do. I think I was wrong in talking, and acting, and rendering my­self so conspicuous as a politician, as I did. I fear I did an amount of injury to my ministry, which could by no means have been counterbalanced by my usefulness as a politician.”—Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller.

It was on this day, December 7th, in 1800 that the Rev. Samuel Miller penned the following letter which explains some of his concerns about mixing politics and the Christian religion. Rev. Miller was still about a dozen years away from accepting his post as professor at the newly formed Princeton Theological Seminary. The portrait of him on the right dates to about the time he began at Princeton. The following account is drawn from volume one of the biography of Dr. Samuel Miller. The explanatory comments are those of his his son, Samuel Miller, Jr., who served as his biographer:—

The letter from which the following extract is taken was addressed to the Rev. Mr. Gemmil, of New Haven.

New York, December 7, 1800.

My dear Sir,

Your kind letter by Mr. Broome came duly to hand. I will endeavor to answer it as explicitly as I can. Few things have given me greater mortification and shame, than the use which has been and continues to be made of religion, in the present electioneering struggle for President of the United States. That mere politicians, who despise religion, should thus convert it into an engine of party, is not strange; but that men professing to love it, and especially its ministers, who ought to be its wise, prudent and wary defenders, should con­sent to do the same, is to me strange.. If I do not totally mistake, they are acting a part, calculated to degrade religion, to bring its ministers into contempt, and to excite in the minds of thoughtful and observing men a suspicion that, even in America, the idea of ecclesiastical encroachment and usurpation is not wholly destitute of foundation. I am mortified—I am humbled at the scenes which have passed and are passing be­fore me.

I profess to be a Christian. I wish all men were Christians. We should have more private, social and political happiness. But what then? Because Mr. Jefferson is suspected of Deism, are we to raise a hue and cry against him, as if he ought to be instantly deprived of his rights of citizenship? If he be an in­fidel, I lament it for two reasons: from a concern for his own personal salvation, and that a religion, which is so much spoken against, does not receive his countenance and aid. But not­withstanding this, I think myself perfectly consistent in saying that I had much rather have Mr. Jefferson President of the United States, than an aristocratic Christian.

But what are we to think of the consistency of the federal party? I hear men, whom I know to despise religion, bellow­ing against the republican candidate for his supposed want of it. And I hear on the other hand, Christian ministers inveigh­ing against one for infidelity, and ready to embrace another, and straining every nerve to exalt him, when his religion is equally questionable; nay, making no objection to men openly and infamously immoral. Can charity itself believe that re­ligion is the sole motive in this ease?

In explanation of the last foregoing paragraph, and as some palliation, too, of Mr. Miller’s adherence to the cause of Jefferson, it may be added, that the candidate of the Federalists for the Vice-presidency—Charles Cotesworth Pinckney—was currently charged by his opponents with infidelity and immorality.

Long afterwards Dr. Miller wrote,

There was a time, (from the year 1800, to 1809, or 1810,) when I was a warm partisan in favor of Mr. Jefferson’s polities and administration as President. Before his death, I lost all confidence in him as a genuine patriot, or even as an honest man. And after the publication of his posthumous writings, in 1829, my respect for him was exchanged for contempt and abhorrence. I now believe Mr. Jefferson to have been one of the meanest and basest of men. His own writings evince a hypocrisy, a selfishness, an artful, intriguing, underhand spirit, a contemptible envy of better men than himself, a blasphemous impiety, and a moral profligacy, which no fair, mind, to say nothing of piety, can contemplate without abhorence. 

I am so far from having any grounds of personal animosity against Mr. Jefferson, that the contrary is the case. While I sided with him in politics, he was remarkably polite and atten­tive to me; wrote me a number of respectful letters; (one of which is published in his posthumous writings;) and said and did many things adapted to conciliate my personal feelings. Nor did anything personal ever occur to change those feel­ings.

I renounce, and wish unsaid and unwritten, everything that I ever said or wrote in his favor.                                                      
Sam’l Miller
Princeton, June, 1830.

Still later, Dr. Miller, as if very intent upon leaving his matured opinions upon this whole subject on record, wrote again,

I look back on that whole part of my early history with entire disapprobation and deep regret. On two points I totally disapprove my own conduct. In the first place, I was wrong in suffering myself to be so warmly and actively en­gaged in Politics as I was during that period. For though ministers have the rights and duties of citizens, and, probably, in most cases, ought to exercise the right of voting at elections; yet when party politics run high, and when their appearing at the polls cannot take place without exciting strong feelings on the part of many against them; and when their ministry among all such persons will be therefore much less likely to be useful, I cannot think that their giving their votes can have an importance equivalent to the injury it is likely to do. I think I was wrong in talking, and acting, and rendering my­self so conspicuous as a politician, as I did. I fear I did an amount of injury to my ministry, which could by no means have been counterbalanced by my usefulness as a politician.

But I was, if possible, still more wrong in pleading with so much zeal the cause of Mr. Jefferson. I thought, even then, that he was an infidel; but I supposed that he was an honest, truly republican, patriotic infidel. But I now think that he was a selfish, insidious, and hollow-hearted infidel; that he had little judgment and no moral principle; that he was a hypocritical demagogue; and that his partisans rated his patriotism far higher than was just. I have long thought that his four volumes of posthumous works disclose a degree of meanness, malignity and hypocrisy, of which the friends of his memory have reason to be ashamed. The tradition is, that Mr. Jefferson himself, with minute care and absolute authority, selected all the parts of that publication, and left nothing to the discretion of his grandson, the editor. If it was so, his worst enemies could hardly have made a selection more un­friendly to his memory.

True, I am now, as I was then, a sincere and honest Repub­lican. But I totally mistook the real character of the leader of the nominal Republicans, who triumphed in the country at that time. I was gulled by hollow, hypocritical pretences, and did all I could to honor and elevate men, whom I now believe to have been unworthy of public confidence.

This language in regard to Mr, Jefferson may, to some persons, seem, if not wholly unjust, at least too strong and objurgatory. It would not have been here inserted, however, without the deepest conviction, after careful ex­amination, that every charge might be fully sustained. Mr. Jefferson had resided in Paris more than five years, the last four of them as our minister plenipotentiary; and returned to the United States in the Autumn of 1789, blindly enamored of Jacobinism, his head full of the worst French revolu­tionary ideas. (1.) He was not only an infidel, but a bitter, blaspheming in­fidel. (2.) He was a gross flatterer of the people—an unscrupulous dema­gogue past redemption. (3.) he was an apologist for insurrection and rebel­lion, and not in their more dignified form of secession, but in the vulgar shape of sedition and riot. (4.) As President, he was the originator of the incal­culably mischievous doctrine, that, public offices are the rightful “spoils” of a victorious party; and (5.) of the “policy” of vituperating a co-ordinate branch of the government, (the judiciary in this ease,) which was not subservient to his will. (0.) He was father of the doctrine of the repudiation of public debts. (7.) He was an insidious enemy and accuser of General Washington, at the very time when professing for him the sincerest regard. (8.) He was a high priest of that political creed, which justifies the means by the end, counting truth as secondary to the safe and plausible disparagement of personal and party opponents. (9.) In fine, his undoubted talents and acquirements only aggravated the littleness, meanness, insincerity, dishonesty, and malignity, which ought to consign his memory to everlasting shame and contempt. The evidence of all this is found, chiefly, in his own memoirs, letters, and memo­randa, carefully preserved by himself, and published posthumously, but doubt­less by his direction. He had fallen to that pitch of moral depravation, in which men lose their delicate sense of the difference between right and wrong; boast of their obliquities as praiseworthy; of their low cunning, as deserving the repute of sagacity and statesmanship; and treasure up against themselves, as honorable distinctions, the clear proofs of their debasement.

Words to Live By:
“A sobering article about President Thomas Jefferson. It should remind us, in this year 2016, when people were said to be holding their noses voting for either candidate, that “there’s nothing new under the sun.” We must seek God’s mercy, and pray for those who rule over us–political and ecclesiastical–and for ourselves and our Republic.”—David E Crocker, Ch, LtCol, USAF Ret.

A Preacher’s “Kid” Serves Congress as Chaplain
by Rev. David T. Myers

Ralph Randolph Gurley did not  have a prayer, as the expression goes, in  not being a minister of the gospel. His father was a Congregationalist minister. His mother was the daughter of a minister. So he had two examples at home about the call to minister spiritual truth to others.

Born in Lebanon, Connecticut in 1797, he attended Yale College and graduated from it in 1818. Moving to our nation’s capitol, he was licensed to preach by the Baltimore Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church. He was never called to a congregation however. And he never went the next step to become an ordained minister in the Presbyterian church. But this lack of recognition didn’t hinder him from ministering to the poor in Washington D.C., nor serving his fellow-man in the political areas.

On two occasions, he was elected on December 6 in 1830 and on December 6 in 1847 to the Chaplain’s office of the House of Representatives in the mid-1800’s. He was preceded and followed by Presbyterian chaplains.  But his main ministry was as an agent of the American Colonization Society, which sought to provide free passage of free slaves to what is now Liberia, Africa. In fact, he was the one who named this West African nation, Liberia.

Recognize that this ministry with this organization which was founded in 1816 was far before the Civil War. Ralph Gurley traveled all through the states, including the Southern states, and three times to West Africa, seeking to reverse the slave trade and send free blacks back to Africa  It has limited success, even after the Civil War.  We will look at its organization on December 21. (See there)

Words to live by:  We would say today that Ralph Randolph Gurley had both a called position and a para-church ministry.  The called position was to the state representatives elected to the House of Representatives. It certainly had the potential to lead these politicians into the ways of the Lord. But he also had a calling in a social field to reverse the terrible scourge of slavery on our country. He diligently labored most of his life in that field as well. Any one, much less ministers of the gospel, who feel called to a particular ministry needs to not “let the grass grow under their feet” in engaging in it with all their  heart, as none of us know much time we will have on this earth.  So let us buy up every opportunity to do good for others, to say nothing of God, knowing that one day we will give a report to our Chief Shepherd, the Lord Jesus, of all our activities on the earth and in the church.