Obviously the important thing here is not the date of the article, but the message of how a godly home bears a great blessing for generations to come. May we all seek to live to glorify our Lord with our lives, in all that we do and say.

[excerpted from THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER, Vol. XXXI, No. 23 (5 June 1852):  89, column 5.]

THE FAMILY OF PRESIDENT EDWARDS.

It was an unspeakable privilege in the view of the late President [Jonathan] Edwards, that when surrounded by a young and growing family, and when his duty to his people, especially in seasons of revival, necessarily occupied his whole attention, he could safely commit his children to the wisdom and piety, the love and faithfulness of their mother [Sarah Pierpont Edwards]. Her views of the responsibility of parents were large and comprehensive.

“She thought that, as a parent, she had great and important duties to do toward her children before they were capable of government and instruction. For them she constantly and earnestly prayed, and bore them on her heart before God, in all her secret and most solemn addresses to him; and that, even before they were born. The prospect of her becoming a mother of a rational, immortal creature, which came into existence in an undone and infinitely dreadful state, was sufficient to lead her to bow before God daily for His blessing on it; even redemption and eternal life by Jesus Christ. So that, through all the pain, labor, and sorrow which attended her being the mother of children, she was in travail for them that they should be born of God.

She regularly prayed with her children, from a very early period, and, as there is the best reason to believe, with great earnestness and importunity. Being thoroughly sensible that, in many respects, the chief care of forming children by government and instruction, naturally lies on mothers, as they are most with their children at an age when they commonly receive impressions that are permanent, and have great influence in forming the character for life, she was very careful to do her part in this important business. When she foresaw or met with any special difficulty in this matter, she was wont to apply to her husband for advice and assistance; and on such occasions they would both attend to it, as a matter of the utmost importance. She had an excellent way of governing her children; she knew how to make them regard and obey her cheerfully, without loud, angry words, much less heavy blows.

She seldom punished them; and in speaking to them, used gentle and pleasant words. If any correction was necessary, she did not administer it in a passion; and when she had occasion to reprove and rebuke, she would do it in a few words, without warmth and noise, and with all calmness  and gentleness of mind. In her directions and reproofs in matters of importance, she would address herself to the reason of her children, that they might not only know her inclination and will, but at the same time be convinced of the reasonableness of it.

She had need to speak but once; she was cheerfully obeyed; murmuring and answering again were not known among them. In their manners they were uncommonly respectful to their parents. When their parents came into the room, they all rose instinctively from their seats, and never resumed them until their parents were seated; and when either parent was speaking, no matter with whom they had been conversing, they were all immediately silent and attentive. The kind and gentle treatment they received from their mother, while she strictly and punctiliously maintained her parental authority, seemed naturally to beget and promote a filial respect and affection, and to lead them to a mild, tender treatment of each other. Quarreling and contention, which too frequently take place among children, were in her family wholly unknown.

She carefully observed the first appearance of resentment and ill-will in her young children, toward any person whatever, and did not connive at it, as many who have the care of children do, but was careful to show her displeasure, and suppress it to the utmost; yet not by angry, wrathful words, which often provoke children to wrath, and stir up their irascible passions, rather than abate them.

Her system of discipline was begun at a very early age, and it was her rule to resist the first, as well as every subsequent exhibition of temper or disobedience in the child, however young, until its will was brought into submission to the will of its parents; wisely reflecting, that until a child will obey its parents, he can never be brought to obey God.

[emphasis added.]

With this post, we’re “a day late, and the dollar doesn’t buy what it used to.”

According to this account by Dr. J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., there was apparently some confusion during the Second General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church [nee Presbyterian Church of America], over the matter of how exactly to dispose of the 1903 PCUSA amendments to the Westminster Confession. Buswell writes here in THE CHRISTIAN BEACON, 17.17 (5  June 1952): 2, 4.

THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION AND THE AMENDMENTS OF 1903.

We who are Calvinists are such not because we admire the work of a man, but because we admire the work of a man who clearly expounded the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures. When we speak of great historical Calvinistic documents the word “Calvinistic” signifies the preservation in sharp and clear outline of what the Bible teaches. The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, is a basic document for all English-speaking Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational, and Baptist churches. The Savoy Confession of the historical Congregational Churches (Congregationalism before the apostasy of that denomination) is The Westminster Confession with a change in one chapter only. The Philadelphia Confession, which is a basic document for large groups of Baptist churches in the Southern states and in England, is The Westminster Confession with changes in two chapters only. The New Hampshire Confession, which is accepted by many Baptist churches in the Northern states is largely adapted from The Westminster Confession. It is therefore an interdenominational document in the truest sense. It is a rich deposit of treasure in the common heritage of Bible-believing Christians. We Calvinists accept The Westminster Confession not as being an infallible document, not as being verbally inerrant, but as being thoroughly based upon the Scriptures, and as setting forth in clear and positive language the integrated system of doctrine which the Scriptures teach.

In 1903 the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. adopted certain amendments in order to please groups which were doctrinally weak and poorly instructed. Dr. Benjamin Warfield, one of the greatest Calvinistic teachers of the past generation, strongly protested against the adoption of these amendments, but when they were adopted, Dr. Warfield declared (as Dr. J. Gresham Machen related the matter to me) that these amendments, weak and misleading as they were, did not actually change “the system of doctrine.”

In the months preceding May, 1936, Dr. Machen explained to me that he did not wish to take his stand as contending for any change in the constitution of the Church (Presbyterian, U.S.A.) as it then existed, though he hoped that the amendments of 1903 might sometime be eliminated. His great fight at that time was that the Foreign Mission Board (and other agencies of the Church) might at least be true to the simple elementary principles of the Gospel. He could be loyal to the constitution as it was then, since, as Dr. Warfield had said, the constitution, in spite of the weak and misleading character of the 1903 amendments, still set forth the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures.

I understood Dr. Machen to advocate that if we should be compelled to form a new church, it would be wise to start with the doctrinal constitution just as it had been in the U.S.A. Church at the time the controversy arose. It was on this basis that Dr. Machen organized the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.

In May, 1936, Dr. Machen and the rest of us were unfrocked and put out of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. An incident took place in the fall of 1936 at the Second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America which, I have recently learned, has caused confusion in the minds of some of our friends. I am glad to take this occasion to make a correction. The incident was as follows : When the proposal to adopt the Westminster Standards came before the Assembly, as moderator, I suggested that it would expedite matters if we adopted the Standards as they then existed in the U.S.A. Church, and then proceeded with deliberation to remove the 1903 amendments and make such a declaratory statement as might seem appropriate. At this point Dr. Machen gained the impression that I had somehow changed my convictions, and that I wished the amendments of 1903 to be retained, which certainly was not the case. He made a forceful address urging the adoption the Confession without the 1903 amendments. I could readily see that either I had misunderstood his former opinions, or he had changed his mind. I did not consider the matter worth a reply, since we were all agreed that the 1903 amendments should ultimately be eliminated.

I should never had referred to the matter again had I not been informed rather recently that some sound Calvinistic bodies overseas have been told that “the Bible Presbyterian Church is un-Calvinistic, since one of the leaders of the Bible Presbyterian Church, moderator of the Second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America, actually spoke in defense of the weak and misleading 1903 amendments of the Westminster Confession.”! I did not at any time speak in defense of the 1903 amendments. When the Bible Presbyterian Church was formed, it adopted The Westminster Confession, without the objectionable 1903 amendments.

[excerpted from The Christian Beacon, vol. 17, no. 17 (5 June 1952), pages 2, 4.]

At the forefront of today’s article, for balance, we would also point readers to The Presbyterian Creed, by Dr. Donald Fortson, which offers a contrasting analysis of the 1837 schism, concluding that it was not about the fundamentals of the faith, and was in fact a great mistake that should have been avoided. Much of the debate centers around the question of subscription to the Standards, a question dating back to the Adopting Act of 1729.

The Mother of All Schisms in Presbyterianism
by Rev. David T. Myers.

Old School Presbyterians . . . New School Presbyterians.  You were either one or the other in the early to mid-nineteenth century in the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  And the issue was not at all a light one.  The fundamentals of the faith were at stake.

First, the Old School Presbyterians held to strict subscription to the church standards, such as the Westminster Standards, with church discipline for any dissenters.  The New School Presbyterians were willing to tolerate lack of subscription if evangelism was being accomplished.

Second, the Old School Presbyterians were opposed to the 1801 Plan of Union with the Congregational church, while New School Presbyterians were committed to it.

Next, the Old School Presbyterians were opposed to the false gospel methodology of a Charles Finney, for example, while the New School Presbyterians did not wish to hinder revival, regardless of a less than theological basis for revivals.

Last, there was the matter of theology.  Influencing the New School Presbyterians were two “isms” like Hopkinism and Taylorism from New England, which denied original sin and gospel redemption.  Old School Presbyterianism held to the Westminster Standards on both of these essentials of the faith.

For several General Assemblies, there were more New School Presbyterian delegates than Old School Presbyterian delegates.  But on June 5, 1837, that majority was reversed, with the Old School Presbyterians in strength.   In the assembly that week, the Assembly was able to abrogate the 1801 Plan of Union with the Congregationalists.  They then proceeded to expel four largely New School synods from the church, composed of 28 Presbyteries, 509 ministers, and 60,000 members!  In one swift vote, they were no longer members of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

But Presbyterian polity demanded that two General meetings approve of an action like this.  And here the operation took on more of a shady spirit to it than would otherwise be proper for any Christian group.  At the 1838 assembly in Philadelphia, Old School Presbyterian delegates arrived early and took every seat in the convention hall of Seventh Presbyterian Church.  When the New School Presbyterian elders arrived, the Moderator, who was an Old School elder, simply wouldn’t recognize them as legitimate delegates.  The “we don’t know you” phrase was used a lot.  When attempts were made to appeal his ruling, the appeal was put out-of-order by the moderator.

Soon the New School Assembly of Presbyterians were meeting at the back of the church, setting up their own assembly.  Eventually they went down to the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia for a separate assembly. An appeal by the New School Presbyterian Church was eventually made to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which declared the abrogation by the Old School Presbyterians as “certainly constitutional and strictly just.”

Presbyterian churches all over the land were in schisms.  One Presbyterian church in Carlisle Pennsylvania  epitomized the false principle of “the ends justifies the means.”  The session of First Presbyterian Church (Old School)  voted out of love to give $10,000 to the departing New School Presbyterians of the new Second Presbyterian Church in the same town.  When the check had cleared the bank, the Session of Elders of First Presbyterian who had voted to give the money, promptly went over to the New School Presbyterian session!  Another church literally cut in two the building between the Old and New School sides.  All over the land, churches were being divided or left over these important issues.

Words to Live By: Scripture commands us to use biblical means to accomplish His will.  Certainly, in hindsight, there was a real apostasy in the Presbyterian church in the early nineteenth century.  But Bible believers should have dealt with it according to Scriptural principles, not man’s principles.

The Most Advanced of All the Covenanting Manifestos
by Rev. David T. Myers.

It was known simply as the Queensferry Paper, primarily because it was found on the body of a Covenanter in South Queensferry, Scotland on June 4, 1680.  Henry Hall was his name.  He had been traveling with another Covenanter by name of Donald Cargill.  Government officials had attempted to arrest both of them, but Cargill had been able to escape.  Hall was wounded and later died from his wounds.  Searching him, they found the six thousand word document known ever afterwards as the Queensferry Declaration.  It, as Alexander Smellie stated in  his book “Men of the Covenant,” was “the most advanced of all the covenanting manifestos.”

Summing it up by eight principles, number one covenanted with and acknowledgement was made of the Trinity and for the Bible as the rule of faith.  Consider the words!  “We acknowledge and vouch the only true and living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be our God and that we close with his way of redemption by his Son Jesus Christ, and rely upon his righteousness, as that righteousness only  whereby a man can be justified before God.”  Any of our readers would easily say “Amen,” to these words.  It went on to speak of their conviction that the Bible was by divine revelation and the only object of our faith and the rule of our life in all things.

The second section spoke of advancing God’s kingdom and freeing the church from both prelacy and Erastianism.  The latter was removing the belief that the state was the ruler of the church in ecclesiastical matters.  They desired that the members of the church would be able to serve God in holy ways without fear and possess their civil rights peaceably without disturbance.

Number three covenanted to uphold the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, with her standards, government, worship — all independent of the state.  They boldly confessed with their mouths and believed with their hearts the teaching of the reformed churches, contained in Scripture and summed up in the confession of faith.  They pledged to persevere in them to the end.

The kingdom of darkness was to be overthrown, by their fourth declaration.  The aforementioned kingdom was Romanism, the Anglican church, and that system of Erastianism.   They spoke of being bound by the Solemn League and Covenant.

Next, and this was the primary part of the Queensferry document, they indicated their desire to discard the royal family and set up a republic in their stead.  Of the 6000 words in the paper, this point occupied about 2100 words.  This was revolutionary in the British Isles.  And it was sadly used to paint all Covenanters as being disloyal to the throne of England.  The writers of this covenant wrote that in the light of Exodus 18:21, they could rule themselves.

Sixth, the paper spoke to those who in their minds had compromised the Scottish covenant by receiving the various deals of the government of England.  They pledged not to listen to such any more in the pulpits of the kingdom.

Seventh, the covenant promised to refuse the ministerial function unless they were duly called and ordained.  Thus, there were not promises of a new church, but rather a return to the true church of the past.

And the last resolution was that its adherents will defend their God-given worship and liberty.  They who would assault them could be assaulted in return.  In short, this was the basis for the battles some of  the Covenanters fought in Scotland.

This declaration was never published by the Covenanters themselves.  It was stolen off Henry Hall’s body and passed off as the real purpose of all Presbyterians in the kingdom, who never signed it as they had signed previous Covenants.

Words to Live By: There is certainly nothing wrong with advocating positions for prayer and action.  But we must be careful to do so in the light of God’s Word always.  From Ephesians chapter 6, our weapons are to be spiritual, never carnal.  We will never know how many of Scottish Presbyterians would have signed this covenant, as in God’s permissive will, it was hindered from being presented to them nation wide.  But it is still part of the overall testimony of Scotland’s spiritual history, and so we include it in Today in Presbyterian History.