IF America forgets the lessons of history, especially church history, she will cease to be the America that we love. The Presbyterian family of denominations have made great contributions to the kingdom of God for centuries. But if they forget the lessons of the past, they will cease to be Presbyterians, and will be like reprobate silver.

Who Were the Old School Presbyterians?

By Rev. Charles E. Edwards, D.D.

[The Presbyterian 99.44 (31 October 1929): 6-8.]

IF America forgets the lessons of history, especially church history, she will cease to be the America that we love. The Presbyterian family of denominations have made great contributions to the kingdom of God for centuries. But if they forget the lessons of the past, they will cease to be Presbyterians, and will be like reprobate silver. Even religious controversies have their lessons. Sweet are the uses of adversity. For various reasons it is advisable that the noble services of the Old School Presbyterians should be better known.

First of all, it is well to recall that the separation of Presbyterians in America into the two denominations, Old and New School, was not a sudden event, with no previous warnings. When the enemies of the Eighteenth Amendment raise the question whether it was adopted too hastily, those loyal to the Constitution have overwhelming proofs of the long period of which it was the culmination. And the Presbyterian Assembly of 1837 did not originate the discord which had grown in intensity from 1801 to 1837.

“The exigencies of church extension in the new settlements led to the ‘Plan of Union’ contracted between the General Assembly and the Congregational Association of Connecticut in 1801. Congregational ministers were to be pastors of Presbyterian churches, and Presbyterian ministers pastors of Congregational churches, and Presbyterian and Congregational communicants were to combine in one church, appointing a standing committee instead of a session to govern them and represent them in the Presbyterian ecclesiastical courts. The effect of this was at the same time to stop almost absolutely the multiplication of Congregational churches, and rapidly to extend the area of the Presbyterian Church, by the multiplication of presbyteries and synods, composed largely of imperfectly organized churches. In the meantime, the American Education Society, in Boston, and the American Home Missionary Society, in New York, sprang into the most active exercise of their functions, equally within the spheres of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches. They were both purely voluntary societies, subject to no ecclesiastical control.” These statements are taken from the biography of Dr. Charles Hodge by his son, Dr. A. A. Hodge. A saying of the time describes that “Plan” as one for “Yankee sheep to fatten on Presbyterian pastures.” They introduced several varieties of New England theology, or if we count the vagaries of individuals, we might almost say “57” varieties. Some of these were tolerated in Presbyterian churches, but a New Haven phase of it, known as “Taylorism,” as Dr. A. A. Hodge remarked, imperiled, if it did not destroy, the church doctrines of original sin and vicarious atonement; and it was resisted by the larger and sounder masses of Congregationalists as well as by Presbyterians. And he adds that an immense and effective machinery was in operation for the rapid destruction of the Presbyterian Church, alike in its organic form and in the system of doctrines professed and taught. The Old School party among the Presbyterians fought for all Presbyterians of all time, New as well as Old, and for pure Congregationalism as well. And he affirms that the event has vindicated them beyond question as to their original purpose.

Dr. Hodge quotes from his father, Dr. Charles Hodge, a discussion of events in the Assembly of 1837. There it was found that the “Old School had a decided and determined majority. The opportunity had occurred to rectify some of the abuses which had so long and so justly been matters of complaint. The admission of Congregationalists as constituent members of our church courts was as obviously unreasonable and unconstitutional as the admission of British subjects to sit as members of our State or National Legislature.” But Dr. Hodge and his associates objected to the abscinding acts of that Assembly, declaring that the Synods of Utica, Geneva and Genesee were out of connection with the Presbyterian Church, and objected to some other proposals of ardent Old School men. They did approve of the abrogation of the Plan of Union by that Assembly. In the Assembly of 1838, when the clerk omitted the names of all delegates from presbyteries in the exscinded synods, some leaders protested, and withdrew to form the New School Assembly.

We omit here a discussion of different opinions of Old School men, concerning the wisdom of some acts of the Assembly of 1837, for fear of obscuring the outstanding fact that the Old School people regarded this separation as expedient and inevitable, however much they had wished or hoped for a different conclusion. The most gentle, amiable, courteous spirits among them were as firm in their opinion as their leaders in polemic discussions. If any writers still think the conflict could have been averted, they might compare notes with the theorists who declare that the Civil War could have been avoided. An Englishman remarked that war cannot be prevented by objecting to it.

Two things confirmed this conviction of the Old School pecple. One was the profound, refreshing quiet enjoyed in all the Old School church courts, from the highest to the lowest. Nowhere were Presbyterian fundamentals called in question, so that they could give their undivided attention to church work, which they proceeded vigorously to do. Dr. James Wood says that for seven years or more previous to the division, the floor of the General Assembly had become an arena of strife and controversy. A saying that could be applied to the situation was that “a ten-rail fence is a great peace measure.”

Another thing that confirmed their views as to the separation was their observation that the New School brethren were following a Presbyterian course, making their separations from Congregationalism and correcting irregularities of a so-called “Presbygationalism.” Only fifteen years after the disruption, Dr. Wood published in his book, on “Old and New Theology,” that as to the difference concerning voluntary societies and ecclesiastical boards, the New School brethren had so nearly approximated to the Old School views, that if that were all, a union could very easily be effected. But he considered the doctrinal differences still too serious. Dr. Shedd’s History of Christian Doctrine was the first, or among the first, to be composed in the English language. And wherever the Old School differed from the New School, Dr. Shedd, a New School theologian, took the side of the Old School, and with distinguished literary ability.

It was said that the New School taught the Westminster Catechism in their theological seminaries. The pervasive influence of such a custom had its effect year by year. The opinion may have been general, that the eastern New School were more conservative than those of the west; and the delightful social contacts of eastern brethren helped to prepare for the reunion.

The literature of the disruption shows clearly that a problem of the Old School was the perennial one which is always with us, of finding, not men of theological subtleties, but men of ecclesiastical integrity; so that when a man in ordination vows, affirms that he sincerely receives and adopts the Westminster Confession as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures, he would mean what he said. This problem is not essential}’ different, in the history of political parties. While not abating a jot of zeal for Democratic doctrines, the question that often absorbs the Democratic mind, as to Smith or Jones (and it may be, especially Smith) concerns his regularity, his loyalty and reliability as of a true Democratic type. Old School men had to ponder some deep mysteries of a variable human nature, reminding us of the inspired proverb (Prov. 20: 6), “Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?” Let us make suppositions. Suppose two denominations, one small, the other large; the smaller, more homogeneous, compactly organized, the larger containing a mixture of elements. Further, suppose that the smaller denomination is the more successful one in finding or training men of ecclesiastical honesty and sincerity. Is it any wonder that the smaller denomination might shrink from a proposal to be merged with the larger one, though both profess the same creed ?

The doctrines of that period were often presented in polemic form, and as they had often been, for centuries. The congregations seemed to expect this; and laymen would contribute to the publication of such discourses or books. In our day, and it is a far-reaching distinction, the same doctrines are to be published experimentally, as foundations or inspirations of Christian experience. Yet it would be a gross injustice to the Old School people to say that doctrines to them were only partisan emblems or shibboleths; rather, they felt the eloquent appeal of Moses, “Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, for it is not a vain thing for you: because it is your life.”

And were the Old School right in contending for the faith as taught in the Westminster Standards? Or, was it much ado about nothing? This depends on the estimate of Calvinism, or even of the Bible itself, whether or not it is for an age, or whether it speaks eternal truth. Every true Calvinist will agree that they were eternally right. Take a closer look at the Westminster Standards. By a printer’s measurement, the space allotted to distinctively Calvinistic doctrines is relatively small, and much the greater part is also good Methodist, Baptist or Lutheran doctrine, including such topics as the Sabbath, marriage, the magistrate, the communion of saints, and so on. The text itself is accompanied with a series of Bible readings, connected with the most important topics of the Bible. Where would we find in the same compass a more masterly exposition of the moral law than that of the Westminster Larger Catechism? And with Scriptures that seem to contain all the important precepts of the Bible, arranged on the basis of the Ten Commandments? In the period of conflict, it was not an unheard-of thing, in Old School homes of poverty and obscurity, to find a copy of the Westminster Standards; and even women who knew by heart the Larger Catechism. It was a pardonable optimism in some of their leaders, to believe that the Old School Church became the best drilled body of Presbyterians in the world. When Presbyterians abandon the circulation and study of these Westminster Standards, and the reading of the Bible, they may become as unintelligent as a denomination that professes to have no .creed at all; or, like “children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” Missionaries may tremble, when an itinerant evangelist, trained in Mormon tenets, fluent in quoting Scriptures, engages in discussion with an untrained Presbyterian. Abandon our doctrinal standards, and our Presbyterian fleet scatters in many directions, with no desired haven in sight.

It will not seem strange to a consistent Presbyterian that the same men who were strenuous in debate, and with strong doctrinal convictions, were active in revivals, in education and in missions. Calvinism is at the very heart of the solemn and tender scenes of a revival. Observe the hymns of evangelical Christendom, in English and many other foreign languages, in countless editions, denominational and undenominational, and so saturated with the five points of Calvinism that it becomes a physical impossibility to eliminate that doctrine. Even preterition, the passing by of the non-elect, is fervently sung: for “Pass me not, O God, my Father,” may be classed as a hymn of preterition. If evangelical Christians sing Calvinistic hymns and object to Calvinism, it seems to argue against their mentality or their sincerity.

As to education, we mention only Princeton and Washington and Jefferson Colleges among Old School institutions, and they had famous academies. They did much pioneering work for Presbyterian missions in China and India. A group of Old School missionaries gave up their lives at Cawnpore, shot to death, with two of their children, by order of that polished, educated gentleman, Nana Sahib. Theyfounded the mission of Siam and Laos, whose importance was enhanced by the long journey of Dr. Dodd, who traced the language of the Laos or Lao up into China, and found that they belong to the millions of the Tai race. He announced to the Christian world that a Tai territory as great as from New York to St. Louis one way, and from Chicago to New Orleans the other way, is still practically unoccupied.

A Southern Presbyterian writer has said that the Old School party won the victory over the New School only by virtue of an almost solid South. Let us accept the statement, and compare some figures. The Southern adherents of the New School party separated from them before the Civil War, in 1857-58, and formed a synod that was ere long received into the Southern Presbyterian Church, adding to them over 11,000 communicants. It is rarely that we find in the South a community with New School traditions, for the Presbyterian Church, U. S., is one of substantially Old School antecedents. The early statistics are somewhat uncertain, but it was estimated that in 1839 the New School had 97,000 communicants, and in 1840, the Old School, 126,000, showing an Old School majority of over 25,000. The formation of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., in the Civil War occasioned a loss of over 75,000 to the Old School. The last statistics, the period of the Reunion, in 1869, report, of the Old School, 258,000 communicants; and New School, 172,000. And after all losses, we have again an Old School majority of 86,000. Considering such accessions, surely the Old School fathers must have had some glorious revivals; and would to God we might have a revival of their Scriptural piety! At the date of the Reunion, estimating both Northern Old School and those in the South of like antecedents, their aggregate may have been nearly or fully twice that of the New School. Future generations may trace names or dates on Old School Presbyterian sepulchres; but they will never know what they owe to the struggles and sacrifices, the wisdom and grace, the perseverance and prayers of those dear departed saints. The Saviour’s counsel to his disciples puts us under obligation: “Other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors.” “Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might; Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight; Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light. Alleluia!”

Ben Avon, Pa.

Laboring with Great Earnestness and Success
by Rev David T Myers

Our focus today is on an early Presbyterian minister who was busy in the proclamation of the Gospel, laboring, as our title puts it, “with great earnestness and success.”

William Henry Foote was born at Colchester, Connecticut on December 20, 1794. He was part of the seventh generation of Foote’s, with his ancestors having come to Connecticut from England in 1633. He received his A.B. from Yale in 1816 and immediately began to teach in Virginia for two years. This field occupied his life even as he progressed into the full time pastoral ministry. His theological training was earned at Princeton Theological Seminary for one year in 1818 but didn’t extend beyond that due to health problems. Despite that little theological training, he was able to pass a sufficient examination for licensure on this day of October 20, 1819. Two months later, he was ordained by the Westminster Presbytery in Virginia. He began his pastoral ministry, accompanied by his new wife Eliza Glass, herself a daughter of the Presbyterian manse, in Woodstock and Strasburg, Virginia until 1824. He then went to what is now West Virginia, pasturing the Mt Bethel Church, eventually biblically splitting the church into five separate congregations. (What a example for mega-churches today!) One of the five congregations was Romney, (West) Virginia, which was his pulpit and pastorate until 1838.

For the next seven years, he served as the regional representative for the cause of foreign missions of the Old School Presbyterian church, visiting countless fields in North Carolina and Virginia. Little did this faithful pastor know that beyond the challenge for the support of foreign missions, he was also learning about the historical basis of Presbyterianism in those two states, which would translate into two books which would make their mark in American Presbyterianism. But all that would come after another fifteen years in various Presbyterian pulpits.

It was during this time that he penned, first in 1846, then in 1850 and 1855, the Sketches of North Carolina, and Sketches of Virginia. These church histories of the beginnings of Presbyterianism in North Carolina and Virginia of both men and movements which resulted in Presbyterian congregations are still valuable today. For example, he included the diary of Hugh McAden’s missionary tour through North Carolina during 1755 – 56, which diary was originally lost by the passage of time. Both church histories are on line today, here . . .

This Connecticut born Christian and pastor was on the Confederate side of the nation when it divided in 1860. In fact, he was called “a refugee” by various accounts during those four years. Yes, he continued to proclaim the gospel. Yes, he in essence became a Confederate chaplain in hospitals where countless wounded soldiers were found. This author is sure that despite the national calamities, the gospel did not change from his lips as he ministered during the four years of the War Between the States.

Rev. Foote continued his ministry for the gospel in what is now West Virginia, dying there at Romney on November 22, 1869. He is buried at the Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney, West Virginia.

Words to Live By:
William Foote was said to abound in gospel labors, never being disbarred by difficulties or danger in the discharge of his spiritual duties. What a great characteristic for all of us, as we move in our discharge of our Christian witness in a world of increasing opposition to the gospel.

“To the law and to the Testimony!”

The Christian’s Need of the Old Testament

By Rev. John T. Reeve, D.D.

[The Presbyterian 99.44 (31 October 1929): 8-10.]

“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”—John 5: 39.

“SEARCH the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye O have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5: 39). There is another verse that should be associated with this, recorded in Luke 24: 27—”And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” These words occur in the conversation between our Lord Jesus and the two disciples on the way to Emmaus on the first Easter afternoon. They were troubled about his death, for they had thought “It had been He which should have redeemed Israel.” But now he was dead and their hopes were all dashed to the ground. You remember how he chided them: “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken,” asking them, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?” Then it says, “And beginning at Moses and the Prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

It is strange that it seems necessary, in view of such words as these, to speak on the subject, “The Christian’s Need of the Old Testament.” But to-day there is a tremendous and increasingly greater tendency on the part of Christians to neglect and even to belittle the Old Testament. I presume this comes about partly from the terribly destructive work done on the Old Testament for the last fifty or seventy-five years. Many who call themselves Christians do not believe that it is the very Word of God, and consequently have lost their reverence and respect for it. But evidently our Lord and his Apostles believed in it and looked upon it as the very Word of God. He said to them, “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself.” In another place, it says, “Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures,” and before that, it says, “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me.” How could it be that these words had to be “fulfilled,” unless they had been predictions of events yet to be? How could these things be predicted by ordinary men unless they were inspired by Almighty God himself? Yet you read in the New Testament, again and again, that things ‘‘had to be,” in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

There are few things that the Christian church needs more than a revival of interest in the Old Testament. It would bring a new vigor into the life of the people, and it would do away with some forms of worship offered to God in Christian churches, which must be an affront to his Holy Being. It would do away with many things that are done in the name of religion because there would be such a new conception of the dignity of the House of God and the place where His honor dwelleth.

Someone has said that the foundation of the Christian religion is in the Old Testament; its republication and explication are found in the New. The only Scriptures that Jesus and the Apostles had were the Old Testament.

The only Scriptures that any of those who wrote the New Testament had were the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Can it be that we are so much better than they, that we may ignore this great body of divine truth, the record of God’s redeeming plan for mankind? Can it be that we may neglect these great writings which tell about Christ’s coming and his redeeming work? Can we neglect all this, and yet properly understand his coming and the meaning of his mission? The modern conception of Jesus Christ, so common to-day, in some quarters, could not be if there were the proper regard for the Old Testament.

The Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament, or alluded to, over 850 times, and if all the indirect allusions in the New Testament to the Old Testament, were recorded, I suppose the number would be much greater. There are 600 actual quotations from the Old Testament in the New. It would be impossible to intelligently understand the New Testament with all these 600 quotations and 850 allusions, without a knowledge of the Old—just as we cannot understand Shakespeare intelligently if we do not know the Bible, or Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” unless we know the Bible and classical history. Let me mention three reasons why I believe that Christians do need the Old Testament.

I. We need it that we may have a proper conception of man’s need and God’s plan for his redemption.
The great word throughout the Old Testament is the word “sin,” and we can never have an adequate conception of the heinousness of sin and how God hates it unless we know what he has said about it and what methods he used to deal with it. All those minute laws relating to sacrifices, so minute that we can hardly take the time to read them, were for the purpose of impressing on the minds and hearts of the people how hateful sin was to God and how it brought guilt and pollution and uncleanness. All these laws about sacrifice were for the purpose of impressing on the minds of the people the truth that, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.” As Paul says, “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” Well, this modern world needs to have this great fact impressed upon it just as much as did the ancient one. Think of the looseness in the luxurious life of to-day. How shall men know the need of a Saviour and his redeeming blood, unless they first know how heinous sin is, and how utterly impossible it is for man himself to provide a remedy that can remove sin’s guilt and wash away its stain.

The late Principal Forsythe, in one of his books, speaks of the famous Dr. Dale talking with him about the loss of the word “grace” from the preaching of their day. And they concluded that the reason for the loss of this great and wonderful word from our language was the lost sense of sin. In other words, if man does not know what sin is (and he cannot fully know what it is unless he knows the Old Testament), he will not flee to God for salvation, but will try to save himself. And unless he does flee to God for salvation, he will never feel that it is “by grace” that he has been saved. He will never be able to sing with all the saints:

“Grace, ‘tis a charming sound,
Harmonious to the ear;
Heav’n with the echo shall resound,
And all the earth shall hear.”

Dr. Forsythe says, “For we have lost the sense of sin, which is the central issue of all ethics, because it turns on the relation of the conscience to the conscience of God. And apart from sin, grace has little meaning. The decay of the sense of sin measures our loss of that central Christian idea; and it is a loss which has only to go on to extinguish Christianity.”

The Old Testament not only reveals to man his sinful and lost condition, but also reveals to him the Saviour whom God has provided. The story of the redemptive purpose of God in Christ runs through the Scriptures from end to end. Moses writes about him in the proto-evangelism and predicts his coming when he foretells, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” David sings about him when he writes in the 110th Psalm, “The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” And our Lord took those words and applied them to himself when he was reasoning with the Jews. So Isaiah foretells his coming and his virgin birth when he says, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”; or again, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty Lord, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Later on in the great 53rd chapter, which the Christian church has always cherished as a clear prediction and delineation, of the Saviour’s sufferings on the Cross, we read, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Still more clearly through these great prophets we trace the development of the kingdom, Christ’s coming again in power and his glorious reign.

Thus we see how necessary it is that the Christian of to-day be familiar with the Old Testament as well as with the New if he is to have an adequate conception of our Lord and his redeeming work. That was the reason that he himself, in explaining to the two disciples on the Emmaus road the meaning of his death, went back to the Old Testament, “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

II. A better knowledge of the Old Testament would renew the moral vigor of the church and of the nation.

As we have said, there is a great deal of looseness in the luxurious life of to-day. Much of this has crept into the church. The great Alexander Maclaren wrote before he died, “Especially does that crash of Jerusalem’s fall thunder the lesson to all the churches that their life and prosperity are inseparably connected with faithful obedience and turning away from all worldliness, which is idolatry. Our very privileges call us to beware. The warning is needed to-day:for worldliness is rampant in the church.” In recent months the word came from our President that the dominant issue before the American people was the enforcement of and obedience to the laws of the United States, both Federal and State. He warned us that we are threatened with a breakdown in the moral sentiment of the country by reason of wide-spread disobedience to law. Think what it must have cost him to admit such a situation before the world! Think what it means—the “breakdown of the moral sentiment of the country!” How have we come to such a pass? How is it that there are 12,000 murders a year in our land—fifty times more than in Great Britain? How is it that there are 30,000 criminals at large in New York, and 10,000 in Chicago, as told us by the crime commissioner of the American Bar Association? Because we have disregarded the law of God. It is only a short step to disregard of the laws of the home, the church and the nation. A return to the faithful reading of the Old Testament, with such ringing words as those of David: “O how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day,” would bring us back again to a new recognition of the sanctity of all law.

Wrong begins in a small way, but it goes from person to person like an epidemic. You would think it would take a thousand years for a community to become contaminated, but you are mistaken. It is like a disease. When one falls in error, another immediately falls, and so on, and it spreads through the people. If you read the Old Testament, you will see that that is the way it is. Take the awful sin of the Children of Israel at Baal-Peor, when Moses went up to the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. When he came down, the whole nation was contaminated with the awful sin of licentiousness. It was necessary to train the people to see the difference between clean and unclean. And one of the greatest needs of our day is the revival of the power of discrimination between the clean and the unclean, between right and wrong, between that which is moral and that which is immoral.

So the Christian needs the Old Testament, in order to have an adequate conception of right and wrong, of moral and immoral, of clean and unclean. A return to its mighty Scriptures would restore some of that moral and spiritual vigor which made our fathers great. The plow-share of the law of God needs to tear through the hardened crust of many of these ruthless and wicked hearts, of whom our President speaks, and awaken them to the evil of their ways that they may turn from them and repent.

III. The Christian needs the Old Testament because Christ and the Apostles felt their need of it.
Christ never recognized any other authority on earth but the Scriptures of the Old Testament. He proved everything by them, he referred everything to them, and if things did not measure up to the Old Testament standard of truth, then they were cast aside.

Of course, in some instances, he went on and added to the Revelation given through Moses since he was God’s latest revelation to man. But in all the critical and important issues of his life, he went back to the Scriptures that he had learned at his mother’s knee and in the synagogue, for his guiding principles. It is interesting to note that in answer to all the queries put to him by the devil during the temptation in the wilderness, our Saviour used the very words of the Old Testament. He in whom were all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge refused to rely on his own mind, but met the tempter with the very Word of God. It is significant to note that in all three instances, the answer came from Deuteronomy, once from the eighth chapter, and twice from the sixth.

Or take the instance when the young lawyer asked our Lord what he should do to inherit eternal life. Christ could have given him some very sound and helpful advice surely from his own fund of knowledge. But, instead, he referred him to the Scriptures and repeated to him those two great verses from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, which in another place he referred to as the first and greatest commandment.

If, as some would have us believe, we do not need to lean so heavily on the Old Testament, but can very well ignore it in these days, why did our Lord feel the necessity of quoting it verbatim on all these occasions ?

Take the occasion to which we referred in the beginning when the two disciples on the road to Emmaus were so puzzled about the events that had just taken place in Jerusalem in connection with the crucifixion. One would think that Christ could have just talked to them in a brotherly way and have shown them the reasonableness of it all—how it was necessary that he should die. But, instead, it says: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Why was it that Jesus did not stop on the road and say: “My brethren, it is this way,” and tell them why it happened that he was crucified and how he rose again? Why did he not tell them in his own words? Why did he not draw out from his own wealth of knowledge, for he knew all philosophy and all wisdom? The only answer we can give is that for him there was no higher authority than the Scriptures of the Old Testament, for they were the Word of God.

Even as he hung upon the Cross and uttered that great word that no human mind can fully understand, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” he was quoting from the twenty-second Psalm. And the very last word of all, according to Luke, when he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” was a quotation, the words of Psalm 31: 5.

Surety, in view of all this, it is clear that we poor, faltering, ignorant creatures, with our finite knowledge, cannot afford to ignore this great wealth of inspired truth. “Just as necessary as a question is to the answer and an answer is to the question, so necessary is the Old Testament to the New and the New to the Old.” Let us search the Scriptures, for in them we think that we have Eternal Life and they are they that testify of Christ. The Christian to-day needs the Old Testament as well as the New. Let us go to the law and to the testimony, for the entrance of God’s Word giveth light.

We missed the calendar date on this post, but will not let that miss the opportunity to present this. Catechesis is a practice that has fallen on hard times, but its importance to the life of the Church and in the life of the individual Christian must be emphasized. For one, our worship depends upon the truths of the Scriptures, not upon whatever emotion we happen to bring to the service. Emotion follows thought, and to be Biblical, our thoughts must follow God’s Word, and the Catechism is simply a shortened form of teaching what it is that the Bible says. Hence the need to catechize, not just the children, but the entire congregation, that our understanding would be in accord with what the Bible teaches.

The Importance of Biblical and Catechetical Instruction in the Family
By Prof. J.A. Sanderson.
[Paper read before the Presbytery of Central Mississippi, and published at its request, excerpted from The Southwestern Presbyterian 27.39 (17 October 1895): 2, cols. 4-6.]

That it should be necessary to advance arguments in support of so important a duty, or even to use exhortation to encourage its performance, is a most remarkable thing.  It seems almost a travesty on our religion–an insult to our Christian intelligence.  It is certainly not from want of knowledge.  The Bible is clear and full on this point.  We have the testimony of thousands of good men in every generation, expressing the debt of gratitude they owe to their parents for faithful instruction given in childhood.  Every time parents present a child for baptism, they take a solemn obligation to instruct it in the Bible and Catechism.  Yet, as a matter of fact, there is an alarming and increasing dereliction on the part of parents in this matter.  Taking things, therefore, as they are, we will proceed to some thoughts on the line indicated.

Parents should instruct their children in the Bible—first, because God has plainly enjoined it upon them.  Do we really accept the Bible as God’s word?  Do we look upon it as an inspired and hence an infallible guide for our conduct?  Then we cannot evade the force of its plain teachings.

Deut. xi. 18, 19, says:  “Therefore, shall ye lay up these my words in your heart; * * and ye shall  teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”  Psalm lxxviii. 5:  “For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children.”   Prov. xxii. 6:  “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”  Strong as this language is, yet, like many other great moral truths, this duty is even more strongly taught inferentially.

Secondly, there are considerations founded in reason and common sense, and abundantly attested by observation and experience, to prove advisability and utility.  The child’s faith in its parents is implicit.  In his sight, the parent is a god—omnipotent, omniscient, infallible.  His word is taken implicitly.

Again, the child’s mind is thoroughly receptive and open to conviction.  Like the highly sensitive place of the photographer, responding to the least ray of light.  Impressions made at this period are most lasting.  I once heard a wise and experienced parent say, that if a child did not learn the principles of obedience before it was two years old, it never would properly imbibe them.

Again, the parent alone has access to the child at the tender age when these instructions should begin.  Nature, as well as Revelation, designates him as the proper one for this task.  He alone is clothed with the authority necessary to enforce attention and application necessary to acquire knowledge.  Ask the Sabbath-school teachers why, after their most earnest efforts, there is so little real study and positive acquisition.  They will tell us that it is because they have no coercive authority.  It would doubtless be the testimony of most of those in this audience who have committed the Catechism or considerable portions of Scripture or hymns, that the work was done almost entirely under the gentle but firm compulsion of a Christian mother.

Again, instructive parental love is a powerful auxiliary in the proper training of children.  The teacher who instructs children not her own, either for remuneration or from duty, may tire and flag over a dull pupil; but parental love inspires to perseverance, or even family pride will impel to untiring efforts to train the child for stations of honor and usefulness.
Again, the parent has a larger period of contact with the child than any one else, during which so many kinds of opportunities occur for naturally and pleasantly instilling religious instruction, and making deep and practical impressions.

Do not these considerations throw a great responsibility upon parents?  It is so recognized in the matter of secular education.  Why not in that of religious instruction?  Is it that the one is prized more highly  than the other—our children’s temporal welfare more than their eternal?  Or, is it than, recognizing the importance, we shrink from the duty, and endeavor to shift the task, indulging the vain and illusive idea that the pastor, or the Sabbath-school teacher, can perform it better than we can.  I think I will be borne out by universal experience and observation, that if the Catechism is not learned in early life, it will not be learned at all; and the same may be said of committing Scripture and learning hymns.  The responsibility cannot be shifted.

But, along with these responsibilities, there are some rewards to faithfulness.  Is there not a great reward involved in Solomon’s injunction, already quoted:  “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  It is certainly a joy to any right-minded parent to see his children growing up into intelligent Christian men and women, known and honored of all men for truth and piety, adorning the church with the graces of the Spirit—each new home a centre of Christian influence—the salt to save, a light to lighten the world.  Should not the prospect of such a fruition stimulate every parent to more faithfulness?

In conclusion, I will draw a contrast.  There are two homes.  We will examine them.  As we approach the first, the exterior is inviting, if not elegant.  Within we find many devices to beguile time.  Perhaps a deck of cards lies convenient.  The daily paper is conspicuous, though the father thinks he cannot afford the church paper.  There are few, if any, religious books.  The Bible is a family relic kept on the parlor centre-table, where the children must not go for fear of injuring the furniture.  The voice of prayer is never heard, nor hymns of Zion, but, in their place, voluptuous music, and the dance trips merrily.  But Sunday comes.  These are church people.  It is respectable to be.  It is good form to attend service—that is, morning service.  After a late breakfast the children are hustled off to Sabbath-school, without even a thought for their lessons, to get them out of the way while the mother gives the house an extra cleaning, to atone for the neglects of the past six days, and prepares an elaborate toilet [i.e, grooming or dressing] for appearance at service.  Children may stay to service or not; sit where they want to, whether inside or out, on ground floor or in gallery.  Afternoon finds mother fagged out with household duties or society demands, and she must rest; no time to drum at children and Catechisms and Sabbath-school lessons.  Father is engrossed with his forty-page Sunday paper and cannot be annoyed.  Children want out in search of amusement.  So the days and months go by, and no seeds have been sown  but those of worldliness and sin.

It is scarcely necessary to draw the other picture; even a dull imagination may supply it.  Night and morning prayer ascends from the family altar.  The little tot at his mother’s knee is taught to lisp his little prayer.  Almost his first budding thoughts are directed to God and heaven.  The mother’s heart is full of solicitude for her children’s spiritual welfare.  Pleading with God to help her train them, she will spare no pains to help God.  Sunday finds her house in order.  She has found time to assist the children with the Sabbath-school lessons.  All attend worship, and all occupy the family pew together.  After a frugal meal, prepared mostly on the day before, all assemble in the sitting-room.  Mother and father vie with each other in making home pleasant and profitable for the children.  With stories from the Sabbath-school library or the religious newspaper, or from the Bible itself, with Scripture texts and Catechism committed, interspersed with hymns, the whole seasoned with love and anon with gentle but firm parental authority, the time is only too short.  These are the parents that bind their children to them with bands of steel.  These are the occasions which, embalmed in memory, stand out as a perpetual barrier against the machinations of Satan.

From which of these homes, think you, are more likely to come gamblers, pilferers of money-drawers, forgers, defaulters, train-robbers, profaners, Sabbath-breakers, murderers, etc.?  Or from which will come those men and women who are the salt of the earth, the pillars of the Church, who stand prominent among men for veracity, honor and all noble virtues, who are the pride and stay of their parents in their declining days, and finally go down to their graves followed by the benedictions of mankind, and are received into mansions prepared?  To ask the question is to answer it.

“If the ordination vow is to be interpreted in the light of the doctrine of Scripture taught in the Confession of Faith, as of course it should be, it is clear that those who subscribe to it with any adequate understanding of its meaning profess that they believe in the infallibility of the Bible in all its length and breadth.”

Another post today by the founder of Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, the Rev. Samuel G. Craig.

[excerpted from Christianity Today 6.7 (December 1935): 147-148]

In its issue of October 17th, The Presbyterian Tribune has the hardihood to assert that Presbyterians do not believe in an infallible Bible. We are not concerned to deny that many connected with the Presbyterian Church regard the Bible as a fallible book. The editor of the Tribune and his fellow Auburn Affirmationists, not to mention others, make it impossible to think otherwise. Our contemporary, however, not merely asserts that certain Presbyterians do not believe in an infallible Bible, it boldly asserts that even their ordained officers do not profess such a faith. We quote:

“It is widely supposed and vigorously asserted, that Presbyterians believe that the Bible is infallible: that at least their ordained officers profess such a faith. Is this a fact? . . . Is that what Presbyterians believe? Look squarely at the terms of subscription used in setting apart ministers, elders and deacons. Do they say, ‘I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.’ The difference is clear, unmistakable to all honest minds. It is one thing to profess that a certain book is inerrant in every particular. It is quite another thing to profess that a certain book, or collection of books, is absolutely as a guide in matters of faith and conduct, and the latter, not the former, is what Presbyterians profess. The only infallible rule of faith and practice.’ Infallible in that one realm; that is all we profess to believe. We need not care, if we are wise we shall not care, whether or no the history, the science, the literary allusions, the statements of fact of the Bible are absolutely accurate . . . What our fathers meant when they framed this admirable statement in our terms of subscription, what we mean by it today, is that, when we would find the best light, the truest guidance, the one always trustworthy source of wisdom as to right belief and right conduct, we go not to a pope, or to a presbytery, or to a theologian, or to a Church Father, or to a psychoanalyst, or to anyone else, but to this Word of God, which we know will never fail us if we use it rightly.”

If inability to see any real difference between affirming that the Bible is infallible and affirming that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (of which the Bible is composed) are the Word of God is an indication of a dishonest mind, we will have to admit that our mind is of that sort. If the books that constitute the Bible are the Word of God (not merely contain the Word of God) as our standards assert, how is it possible to suppose they contain “inaccuracies, contradictions, and outworn views,” as our contemporary implies? Is God a man that He should be mistaken?

Quite apart from the question whether it is possible to regard the Bible as infallible in the realm of faith and practice if it be inaccurate in its statements of fact—we do not think it is—it ought to be clear to all that the ordination vow taken by ministers, elders and deacons is not amenable to the minimizing interpretation that our contemporary seeks to place upon it. Such an interpretation is to be rejected on both exegetical and historical grounds. The candidate for ordination does not merely afifrm that he believes the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the only infallible rule of faith and practice, he affirms that he believes it to be the Word of God. He is required to affirm, first of all, that he believes said Scripture to be the Word of God. Having done that he is required to go on and affirm faith in them as the only infallible rule of faith and practice. It would be absurd to affirm that the Bible is the Word of God and then weakly add that it is infallible only in as far as it constitutes a rule of faith and practice. And yet that is what our contemporary, in effect, says that the candidate for ordination does. If the Bible is the Word of God, we may be sure that it is altogether, not merely partly, trustworthy. However it is not absurd but eminently fitting to affirm that the Bible is the Word of God and therefore the only infallible rule of faith and practice–and that is what the sincere and intelligent candidate for ordination actually does. Moreover our contemporary is quite mistaken when he affirms that his interpretation of the ordination vow is that of its framers. To cite Dr. B.B. Warfield: “This view was not the view of the Westminster Divines. It had its origin among the Socinians and was introduced among Protestants by the Arminians. And it was only on the publication, in 1690, of the ‘Five Letters concerning the Inspiration of Holy Scriptures, translated out of the French’, which are taken from Le Clerc, that it began to make its way among English theologians” (The Westminster Assembly and its Work, p. 203).

The fullest statement of what Presbyterians believe, or at least profess to believe, concerning the Bible is to be found in the opening chapter of the Confession of Faith. There the Scriptures identified with “all the books of the Old and New Testaments” are spoken of as “the Word of God Written”, as “given by inspiration of God”, as of “authority in the Church of God”, as having “God (who is truth itself)” for their “author”, as of “infallible truth and divine authority”, as being “immediately inspired of God” and so “authentical” so that “in all controversies of religion the Church is finally to appeal unto them.” If the ordination vow is to be interpreted in the light of the doctrine of Scripture taught in the Confession of Faith, as of course it should be, it is clear that those who subscribe to it with any adequate understanding of its meaning profess that they believe in the infallibility of the Bible in all its length and breadth.

[Craig, Samuel G., “What Presbyterians Believe About the Bible,” Christianity Today 6.7 (December 1935): 147-148.]

Words to Live By:
As surely as we can depend upon the Lord our God, so too we can depend entirely upon the Bible, for the Holy Scriptures are indeed His Word.
Psa 12:6-7 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
Isa 40:8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.