This Day in Presbyterian History

The Holy Spirit of God has often used various circumstances to call His own into ministry. In the case of John Knox, it was a public challenge delivered by a small congregation in a castle in Scotland by the voice of their Protestant pastor, John Rough.

John Knox was approximately 42 years of age. We don’t know when this future Reformer saw the light of the Reformed faith, but George Wishart likely had something to do with it. Knox had been his body-guard as Wishart powerfully preached the gospel throughout Scotland. When the latter was martyred, Knox in time became a religious tutor to three children—two sons of Hugh Douglas of Longniddry, as well as the son of John Cockburn of Ormiston. The two fathers, Douglas and Cockburn, had embraced the truths of the Reformation, and desired their children to be taught of Knox. So, not only in elementary truths like grammar, but also in Scriptural readings and catechising, Knox led his young pupils as he stayed in their homes.  When it became evident that Knox became more and more a marked man by the Roman Catholic authorities, the parents urged Knox to take their children into St. Andrews Castle, where a number of people had fled for their lives.

It was on April 10, 1547 that John Knox arrived at St. Andrews Castle with his three pupils. It is recorded that he began at the same place in their instruction that he had left off in the home of their parents. Their names, for the record, were Francis Douglas, George Douglas, and Alexander Cockburn. Soon that private tutoring became known to the Protestant pastor of the congregation now gathered in the castle, the Rev. John Rough. He came to Knox and urged him to take on what we would call today an associate pastor’s position, as Rough was weary in the work. Knox turned him down flat, saying that he would not do anything without a lawful calling from God.

At this, Rough, with the support of two or three others, decided to challenge Knox publicly. John Rough, on the following Sunday,  preached a message on the election of ministers as his theme. At its close, he, in the name of the small castle congregation, addressed John Knox with the following words, which we find recorded in Knox’s book, The History of the Reformation in Scotland, (p. 72):—

 “Brother, ye shall not be offended, albeit that I speak unto you that which I have in charge, even from all those here present: — In    the name of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of these that presently call you by my mouth, I charge you, that ye refuse not  this holy vocation, but, as ye tender the Glory of God, the increase of Christ His kingdom, the edification of your brethren, and the comfort of me, oppressed by the multitudes of labours, that ye take upon you the public office of preaching, even as ye look to avoid God’s heavy displeasure, and desire that He shall multiply his graces upon you.”

The future Reformer left the worship time in tears and spent many days and night in grief and trouble of heart. Eventually, he came to believe that the call came from God.

His first sermon was in the parish church of St. Andrews, where he took as his text that of Daniel 7:24, 25. Laying open the false doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, he compared their justification by works with the justification by faith alone as expressed in the Word of God. The hearers said that while others lop off the branches of Romanism, Knox had struck at the root to destroy the whole.

The author of The History of the Church of Scotland, W. M. Hetherington, writes on page 34 that such preaching by Knox was the real beginning of the Reformation in Scotland. From that time forth, no appeal was made by the Reformers to any other standard except the Word of God.

Yet before John Knox could move on in his fledgling ministry to declare the unsearchable riches of the gospel, the castle was attacked and captured by French naval forces, and forced to surrender on July 31 of the same year. Knox would spend the next 19 months as a galley-slave on a French ship, which we will consider in a future post.

Words to Live By: The inspired New Testament writer James leaves the church a sober warning in chapter 3, verse 1 of his letter, when he wrote “Not many of you should become teachers,  my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” (ESV)  Whether it was this which prompted John Knox to respond with great tears, we know not. But he obviously believed that any call for him to minister the Word of God had to come from God’s Spirit, and not merely by a group of men. Readers, remember the words of the unknown author to the Hebrews, who wrote in Hebrews 13:7, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” (ESV)

Image sources: Three different conceptions of what John Knox looked like. The first is a bit “unorthodox”—an image from a cigarette trading card, specifically, Ogden’s “Leaders of Men” series, no. 27, issued in 1924. The second is from a postcard bearing only the attribution “A. H., édit.” to designate the publisher. Both cards are among a small collection preserved at the PCA Historical Center. The last portrait of John Knox, shown at right, is the more traditionally known image. Quite the beard there, eh?

MEDICAL MISSIONARY JOHN C. TAYLOR, SR.

On December 13, 1973 the Lord called Home one of His faithful servants, Dr. John C. Taylor, Sr., who for more than fifty years had given of himself, his time and his talents to his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and to the people of India. He was a man greatly beloved of the Lord and by the people of India whom he served so faithfully and so lovingly. Many are the people who will remember Dr. Taylor for his great love and sacrificial service to them as he sought to bring to them physical healing for their bodies through means of his medical knowledge, and spiritual healing for their souls through his know¬ledge of the Word of God and his personal testimony to the power of Christ to save lost sinners. John Taylor was not only a medical doctor but also an ordained minister of the Gospel and a real evangelist.

Born in Richmond, Kansas on April 9, 1886, of godly parents, John Taylor early came to know Christ as his personal Saviour. On August 14, 1913 he married Elizabeth Siehl, and together they went to India in November, 1914 and were stationed at Roorkee, U.P. where they labored for half a century, returning to the U.S.A. for retirement in October, 1967. They served under the Reformed Presbyterian Mission which, in 1965, became World Presbyterian Missions, the foreign board of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. Mrs. Taylor passed to her Heavenly Home in March, 1970. Some years later, God provided another helpmeet for Dr. Taylor in the person of Mrs. Elizabeth H. Daniels, and the remaining years of Dr. Taylor’s life were enriched through her fellowship.

Dr. Taylor was survived by his widow, Elizabeth D. Taylor, three sons—John, Jr., Carl and Gordon, and two daughters, Margaret Courtwright and Gladys McGarey.

A friend of both the high and lowly, Dr. Taylor became almost a legend in India. He was a man of faith and action, a good example of the kind of Christian of whom James writes, “I will show thee my faith by my works.” Nothing was too hard or sacrificial for him if, by doing it, he could help ease the physical or spiritual suffering of his fellowman. He especially ministered to the poor and downtrodden people in the villages of Northern U.P., India. His work varied from village evangelism, medical clinic work, relief work during the awful days of partition between India and Pakistan, to the founding in 1945 of the Children’s Home and Baby fold for the children of leprous parents in Bhogpur, which is now under the direction of his son, Gordon, and which now houses some 200 children. Dr. Taylor had the joy of seeing a number of these children come to know Christ as their personal Saviour and then go out to serve Him full time. Several of the children studied in the Theological Seminary at Roorkee and are now preaching the Gospel in India, and several more are now students at that Seminary. Others have gone into other fields of service where they are also witnessing for the Lord whom they came to know while at the Children’s Home.

During his semi-retirement, Dr. Taylor wrote of his experiences in India, which have been published in book form, India—Dr. John Taylor Remembers. This book reflects his touch with people, an essential ingredient in the life of any servant of Christ.

Dr. Taylor was a valued member of the Saharanpour Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, and served his last years on the field under World Presbyterian Missions. To those who had the privilege of serving with him in India, he was a tower of strength and wisdom in so many matters concerning the work; but he was more than this—he was a kind and loving friend and counselor and a true “brother in Christ.” To many of the Indian Christians he was like a father. To the struggling National churches he was a guide and stay and inspiration. We rejoice that God gave him the great joy of seeing the beautiful church building at Bhogpur finished and used for the worship of Christ, before he retired from active missionary work in India. This building was erected largely through the efforts of Dr. and Mrs. Taylor and will be a continuing memorial of their sacrificial service for Christ and the people of India.

No doubt Dr. Taylor has entered with great joy into the presence of Jesus Christ, his Lord and Saviour, and has heard him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

The General Synod and World Presbyterian Missions are happy to pay tribute to such a saint of the Lord. We thank God upon every remembrance of him. “He being dead, yet speaketh.”

[excerpted from The Minutes of the 152nd General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, 1974, pp. 157-158.]

Words to Live By:
Please take the above testimony as a good reminder to pray for our many missionaries, wherever they may be serving.

A bit of explanation on that last photo, above:

The little boy, Paul, pictured in the arms of Dr. Taylor was their adopted child. In the little booklet, Memories of Paul, Dr. Taylor tells the story of how Paul came to be a member of the Taylor family. He begins:

“It was on February 2, 1948 when a Hindu leper came to us in Roorkee, asking us to take his child. For five months we had been working in Refugee Camps. We were now ready to go back into our own District work. How could we take a small, sick baby at a time like this? It seemed absolutely impossible. Yet, our hearts went out in pity for this poor leper and his child. The father knew, and we knew, that the child could not live if he kept him. Here was a little child brought to our very door. Christ said: “Forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God.” So we took him and called him Paul. He was born September 19, 1947 in Rishikesh (nine miles from our Children’s Home in Bhogpur) where a group of lepers had built themselves little huts on the banks of the Ganges River. They made their living by begging from pilgrims on the street. A devastating flood had washed away most of their homes. In this dire condition most of them became sick and died, among them Paul’s mother. He was two months old at the time. For the next two months the father did the best he could to raise his baby. When he gave Paul to us he turned over an old, rusty cigarette tin, in which there was some dirty, clabbered milk, which he was feeding to Paul. Paul was so undernourished and weak that it seemed to us as though every breath might be his last. We tried to get one of our Christian women to take him while we went to camp, but no one would touch him, even though we offered to pay a salary and provide the milk. So, we took him to camp with us…”

Home Religion in Colonial America
by Rev. David T. Myers

In the years prior to the American Revolution, Presbyterians were already emigrating into Western Pennsylvania with their families. This was no easy move on their part. Native Indian tribes were resistant to this westward expansion. The further these Presbyterians moved away from civilization, the fewer helps and conveniences moved with them. More than that, these pioneers often left behind the anchor of an ordained ministry of the gospel.

In 1772, the Presbytery of Donegal appointed the Rev. David McClure to take a spiritual tour of Presbyterians west of the Allegheny mountains.  We know very little about him as a person.  He was from Ulster, or northern Ireland as we know it today.  Some said he was from Londonderry, Ulster.  He had traveled to Rhode Island, and then come down to the middle colonies.  First sent to the Delaware Indians, they had rejected his message of salvation.  So he became an itinerant minister and thus was open to the trip west for the Presbytery.

Writing a remarkable diary, he observed once that “truly the people here in this new country are as sheep scattered upon the mountains without a shepherd.  May the good Lord raise up and send forth faithful laborers into this past of His vineyard.”   He didn’t have long to wait for the fulfillment of that prayer.

Notice his words on April 8, 1773.  He comments in his diary, “The inhabitants west of the Appalachian mountains are chiefly Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.  They are either natives of the north of Ireland, or the descendants of such and removed here from the middle colonies. There are some Germans, English, and Scotch. The Presbyterians are generally well indoctrinated in the principles of the Christian religion.  The young people are taught by their parents and school masters, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and almost every family has the Westminster Confession of Faith, which they carefully study.”

Along with the Bible and the Westminster Standards, usually the Scotch-Irish families of the wilderness possessed Thomas Boston’s Fourfold State, and one of the commentaries, such as Matthew Henry.  With these within their grasp, time in the morning and evening of each day would be set aside for reading and prayers and memory work.  When a traveling pastor would come through, like David McClure, he would spend time asking the family members questions from the Bible and the Standards. Those who answered faithfully would be given communion tokens, upon which they would turn in and receive communion on the Lord’s Day.  Those who failed in their spiritual understanding would not receive the token and would be sufficiently warned to do better in their Christian experience the next time a minister would visit.

It was serious business being a Christian in colonial times.

Words to Live By:  What place does the Word of God and the Westminster Standards have in your home?  Are they strangers to the members of your family?  Do they have just a nodding acquaintance with you?  Or do they form the backbone of your faith and life?  It is not without purpose that our historical devotionals in this year’s reading include both Scripture and Standards on a day-by-day basis.  Apply them to your family members and their age groups, so as to bring back the early Presbyterian practice of being trained up in the fear of the Lord.

THE SCHOOL & FAMILY CATECHIST.
Westminster Shorter Catechism, Questions 13-14.

Q.13.  Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?

A. Our first parents being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.

EXPLICATION.

Freedom of their own will.—At full liberty to do as they pleased.

Estate wherein they were created.—The state or condition in which God first placed them.

ANALYSIS.

Here we have three points of information:

1. That our first parents were left to the freedom of their own will.—Genesis 3:6. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes—she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

2.That they fell from the estate wherein they were created.—Genesis 3:8. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, among the trees of the garden.

3. That our first parents fell by sinning against God.—Ecclesiastes 7:29. God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

Q. 14. What is sin?

A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God.

EXPLICATION.

Want of conformity unto the law.—Not being or doing what the law of God requires.

Transgression of the law.—Doing what is forbidden by the law, or what God commands us not to do.

ANALYSIS.

In this answer we are taught two things:

1. That even the want of conformity to the law of God is sin.—Romans 8:7. The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

2. That actual transgression of the law is also sin.—I John 3:4. Sin is the transgression of the law.

1. 

   LeRoy Christoffels on 6 April, 2012 at 9:18 am

   I am confused by today’s entry, especially the paragraph here:
   Each church had been weathered by internal divisions in their past history. In the case of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, they had the experience of coming out of the apostasy of the mainline Presbyterian church in the mid 1930’s, where a stand for the fundamentals of the faith translated out to being deposed by the modernists who had gained control of the church. Then in 1938 and 1956, further issues over eschatology and Christian liberty as well as independent agencies verses synod control agencies, truth in Christian living, and questions about separation from brethren, brought into existence the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in 1961.
   If the EPC began in 1961 and they had been having merger talks with the Reformed Presbyterians from 1957 until that merger in 1965, what entities were actually talking with each other? Which body actually came out of the PCUSA in the 1930’s other than Orthodox Presbyterians and eventually from them the Bible Presbyterian church? Or is the later the origin of the 1961 EPC? If someone can clarify this for me, it would be appreciated. Thanks!

2. 

   Vaughn Edward Hathaway Jr on 6 April, 2012 at 6:50 pm

   Are you all disregarding the existence of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church under the name of the Bible Presbyterian Church, Columbus Synod, that was either formed in 1956 or was identified as a separate Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church in that year? Are you dating the founding of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church simply upon the change of its name?

   Please note that I am not entering into the issue of which Synod of the BPC should be considered the continuing Synod. There are arguments about those identities on both sides. Essentially, therefore, there was a separation that took place in 1956 in what had been known as the Bible Presbyterian Church since 1938 into two Synods, each claiming the name of Bible Presbyterian. There was the Bible Presbyterian Church, Columbus Synod, taking its name from the city where the 1956 General Synod had been held; and there was the Bible Presbyterian Church, Collingswood Synod, taking its name from the location of perhaps the lead church of the group that took that identity on the basis that the Columbus Synod had been called unconstitutionally.

   N.B., I am asserting only the fact that this was the claim of the Collingswood Synod.

   I do think it was a wise and gracious action that the Columbus Synod gave up the use of the name Bible Presbyterian Church by renaming itself the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, providing for the identity of the body that merged with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod.

   As conservative Presbyterians we can look back on those days and those actions with a little self-criticism and not a little humor for our antecedents simply added to the soup that Francis Schaeffer had called Split-P.
   .

3. 

   archivist on 6 April, 2012 at 10:29 pm

   The author is speaking here from a bit of an insider’s familiarity. The OPC began in 1936 as a small group of conservatives left the PCUSA. But internal differences brought a further division in 1938 when the Bible Presbyterian Church was formed out of the OPC. In 1955/56, the BPC split into the Bible Presbyterian Church, Collingswood Synod (the smaller third of the BPC) and the Bible Presbyterian Church, Columbus Synod (roughly 2/3’s of the undivided BPC). So you had two BPC’s, and the Columbus Synod people finally got tired of the confusion and took the EPC name in 1961. Meanwhile, they had also been engaged in merger talks with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod (aka, New Light) since 1957. That merger finally occurred in 1965. And just to keep history confusing, an entirely unrelated group of conservatives leaving the UPCUSA in 1982 took the name Evangelical Presbyterian Church.