This Day in Presbyterian History

Good Words for Any Congregation

In this charge to the congregation, there is as well something to pray about for our pastors and for our churches. It was on this day, May 4th, in 1860, that the Rev. Thomas Smyth brought the pastoral charge to Rev. James H. Thornwell and Rev. Francis Mullaly, who were to serve as co-pastors of the First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South Carolina. In God’s providence, Thornwell did not remain at this post long, dying on August 1, 1862. Rev. Smyth died in 1873, and Rev. Mullaly served as pastor of ten different churches before he died in 1904. In addition to his pastoral charge, Rev. Smyth also presented the charge to the congregation of First Presbyterian, the text of which is provided below. It is brief, but full of good wisdom for any congregation. To read Smyth’s pastoral charge to Thornwell and Mullaly, with a link to a PDF version, click here.

These protracted services should now be properly closed by a charge to the people, and as, in the failure of both the brethren appointed, it has been made my duty to carry out this requirement of our church, you will bear with me, dear brethren, in very briefly addressing you.

And the very first thing I would impress upon you is, that in this eventful scene you are not spectators merely, but participants—not merely eye-witnesses to an interesting pageant, but partners to a solemn compact.  The relations and responsibilities now constituted are mutual, and cannot be separated. Have these Brethren now become your pastors?—you have become their people. Are they under obligation to preach, to reprove, to rebuke, to make known God’s will and your duty?—you are bound to hear, to obey, and to perform.  Are they, in conscious impotence, to undertake a work

                    Which well might fill an angel’s heart,
                    And filled a Saviour’s hands?—

They are to be strengthened with all might, obtained through your prayers on their behalf. Are they to give themselves wholly to the things which pertain to your spiritual welfare?—you are to provide all things needful for their temporal comforts; to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake; to count them worthy of an adequate and honorable maintenance; and to consider it a small thing to impart freely of your carnal things in return for their spiritual gifts.

You perceive, therefore, Brethren, that the solemnities of this occasion involve you not less than those who are set over you in the Lord.  For weal or for woe you are now joined together. The relations and the responsibilities are mutual.—

You must be helpers or hinderers of each other’s prosperity and progress.  Like priest like people, is not more true than like people like priest.  It is in the power of any people to paralyse or to put life and energy into their pastor, and to make him not only a lovely song and as one that playeth well on an instrument, but the power of God and the wisdom of God, to the salvation of souls.  And for all that they might do, and ought to do, they must give account when they shall stand confronted at the bar of Him who judgeth righteous judgment.

May you so live and labour together as that this account shall be given with joy, and not with grief. Yours, I have said, is a model pulpit.  May you be a model people.  Model preaching will demand model practice, model piety, liberality and zealous devotion to every good cause. I congratulate you, Brethren, upon the present occasion and your future prospects. I rejoice with you in your joy. I remember your kindness to my youth, and your appreciation of my early ministrations, when you so cordially invited me to live and labour among you.  Allow me, with all my heart, to pray that peace may be within your walls, and prosperity within your borders. May you go forward prospering and to prosper—a city set on a hill, a burning and a shining light, provoking all around you to love and liberality. May strength go out of this Zion, and may you arise and shine the glory of the Lord having arisen upon you.

This occasion must now close, but we who are now assembled must meet in review all the issues of this rehearsal. Oh, my friends, realize and lay to heart the hastening hour. Pray, oh, pray earnestly, that when pastors and people shall meet face to face, at that awful tribunal, instead of mutual upbraidings and reproaches—you accusing them of unfaithfulness or negligence, and they accusing you of coldness, formality, and refusal to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty—you may be able to congratulate each other; you blessing God for them as helpers of your faith, and they presenting you to God as their joy and crown of rejoicing.

The time is short. These earthen vessels cannot hold out to any of us much longer, though the riches they contain may never fail. For myself, especially, the time of departure must be near at hand. And oh, my beloved Brother, (looking towards Dr. Thornwell), if permitted to become an indweller in the new Jerusalem, how shall I long and look for your coming! And when intelligence of your approach shall be conveyed by ministering spirits, with what alacrity and ardour of love shall I ascend to the loftiest heights of its projecting battlements, and as the seraph minstrelsy announces your approach, how shall I exulting spring to catch you by the hand, and welcome you to the kingdom and the crown prepared for you; to the white robe, and the palm of victory; to the harp of melody; to everlasting joy; to communion of soul, as well as communion with saints and angels; to the river of life and the tree of life; and above all, and beyond all, to Jesus the light and life of all, and Himself the heaven and happiness of all His faithful followers!

Laboring Outside the Limelight

Charles Tennent, the fourth son of the Rev. William Tennent, Sr., was born at Coleraine, in the county of Down, on May 3d, 1711. There he was baptized by the Rev. Richard Donnell. When his father gathered the family and immigrated to the American colonies from Ireland. Charles would have been just seven years old. Like his older brothers, he received his education from his father, and in particular, his education for the ministry was gained in the famous Log College run by the Rev. Tennent, Sr.  The Tennents and the Log College figured prominently in the Old Side/New Side split of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. It could even be said that they were the principal cause of the split, which began in 1741 and which was finally mended in 1758.

While Charles appears to have been less distinguished than his brothers, he nonetheless was a respectable pastor and preacher of the Gospel. The Presbytery of New Castle licensed Charles to preach, on September 20, 1736, and he was soon settled in place to serve the Presbyterian congregation at Whiteclay Creek, Delaware, in 1737. In 1739, the great revival under the preaching of George Whitefield began, greatly affecting this particular congregation. During this remarkable season of God’s presence, Rev. Whitefield spent a number of days ministering with Charles Tennent, and assisted him in the administration of the Lord’s Supper, preaching to a great multitude of people every day during that communion season, which, according to the custom of the times, continued for four days.

Some years before his death, Rev. Charles Tennent resigned his pulpit at Whiteclay Creek and withdrew to Buckingham Church, in Maryland. It was there that he ended his days, passing away in 1771. It is presumed that his mortal remains were buried there. Regarding those final years, and the circumstances of his death, there are no confirmed accounts.

Words to Live By:
Most pastors conduct their ministries without fanfare, attention or great crowds. They may labor in the shadow of better known contemporaries. Their congregations may be relatively small. But the joys of a faithful ministry have an eye to eternity, and don’t depend upon numbers or other worldly reward.

Opposition to Modernism Rallies.

In the early years of the second World War, the Japanese invasion of China forced missionaries from the Chinese field, including medical missionary L. Nelson Bell. Returning to the States, Bell found his Southern Presbyterian denomination in spiritual decline and slowly falling over into modernism and unbelief. As Dr. Bell settled in the Asheville, N.C. area, he joined with other like-minded men who had been discussing the denomination’s problems and who, since 1936, had been planning to establish a magazine as a voice for sound Biblical principles.

May 2, 1942 marks the first issue of The Southern Presbyterian Journal. Authors for that first issue included Dr. William Childs Robinson, Rev. E. Edwin Paulson, Rev. Robert F. Campbell, General Douglas MacArthur, Rev. Samuel McPheeters Glasgow, Rev. D.S. Gage and Rev. Daniel Iverson.

William Childs Robinson wrote the lead article, in which he set out four “banners” or defining principles of historic Presbyterianism, principles which had been formerly emulated among Southern Presbyterians. These four banners were loyalty to Christ as King, the Bible as the Word of God written, the Westminster Standards as an expression of sound doctrine, and lastly, the banner of the Great Commission. These were the values that the new magazine espoused as it sought to call the denomination back to faithfulness.

For forty-five years, the Journal faithfully proclaimed these values. In 1959, L. Nelson Bell stepped down as editor and was succeeded by Dr. G. Aiken Taylor. At that same time, the word Southern was dropped from the magazine’s name, reflecting Dr. Taylor’s wider focus on the breadth of conservative American Presbyterianism. And within a few more years, The Presbyterian Journal was increasingly involved in the events leading up to the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America, in December of 1973. The Presbyterian Journal continued on for another fourteen years, finally closing with the March 18, 1987 issue.

Click here to download a PDF file of that first issue of The Southern Presbyterian Journal.

Words to Live By: In the opening editorial of that issue, L. Nelson Bell wrote:

The civilization of which we are a part is perched precariously on the edge of an abyss. This is obvious to all, whether in or outside of the Church. The tragedy is that, in part, the Christian Church is to blame.
It is to blame in so far as it has left its God-given task of preaching the Gospel of salvation from sin through the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is to blame in so far as it has turned from faith in, and the preaching of, the Bible as truly and wholly the Word of God, condoning preaching and teaching calculated to question or destroy this precious faith.
It is to blame where it has substituted for the Gospel of redemption a programme of social reform.
It is to blame to the extent to which it has stepped out of its spiritual role, to meddle as the Church, in political and economic matters and affairs of State.
It is to blame where, as has so often been the case, the Gospel message has been diluted and made pleasant to the taste of unregenerate man; denying the fact of, and the heinousness of sin, and the certain doom of the unrepentant sinner.
But despite these failures of the Church, a return to a faithful ministry of the Truth can yet, by the power of the Holy Spirit, provide the spiritual and moral stamina which is essential for world stabilization. To this spiritual awakening and revival THE JOURNAL is dedicated.

Testimony of a Scottish Lass
|by Rev. David T. Myers

Lilias Dunbar was born in 1657 to parents of high society in Scotland. Yet such extraordinary circumstances did not guarantee a long life.  Early in her young life, both parents died, leaving her an orphan. Reared by a cousin, she eventually was taken into the family of a pious woman by the name of Lady Duffus, who reared this adopted daughter not just in manners, but also in the things of the Lord. When Lilias was seventeen years of age, a bout with small pox brought her dangerously ill. The sickness led her to promise God that if He healed her, she would strive to be His servant.  Made well, she responded to her promise to be the Lord’s servant by seeking to establish her self-righteousness. It was only when her adopted mother passed away in 1677, that she became a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus.

Listen to her profession of faith as found in her diary for May 1, 1677.  She writes: “The Lord, who is the Almighty, by his power, made my soul to close with the Lord Jesus, wholly on the terms that the gospel holdeth forth; and the Lord himself gave me faith to believe in Jesus Christ, that he was my Savior, which I could never attain before that time on good grounds. On that blessed morning to me, I got the Rock of ages to be my support, and I got Christ Jesus to be to me the end of the law for righteousness, to comfort me inwardly, under my disconsolate condition outwardly; for it was but fifteen days after the death of my Lady Duffus, who was in place of my parents and all my relations to me. Now I cannot pass by without observing the wisdom and goodness of God to me, in choosing that day and time for my deliverance out of the hands of all mine enemies, that I might serve him without fear. It was the time wherein I was more desolate. I was deprived of my parents by death, and had not the expectation of other means to supply my wants. It was then I was deprived of the only person in the world who took care of me, when it pleased the wise Lord by death to put a separation betwixt my Lady Duffus and me, who died April 16, 1677. Then it was that the gracious God, who delights in showing mercy, did enlarge my heart and make me to take hold of him who is the pearl of great price, in whom all fullness dwells.”

What is interesting to this author about this profession of faith is the custom in those days for new-born Christians to have their religious experiences tested, by communicating their profession of faith with godly minister.  In Lilias Dunbar’s case, she went to a minister who was then in prison due to his field preaching, under whom this young convert had heard him preach to her. She brought all that the Lord had done for her soul, which her pastor confirmed the Spirit’s work in her.

At age 22, she married Alexander Campbell. Eventually they would have a dozen children, but not without difficulties in the way.  She was charged by the authorities with not attending the parish church where the prelacy pastors led the worship.  They brought charges that she instead was attending the outdoor worship of banished Presbyterian pastors meeting in the pastures of the land.  She pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to be banished from the kingdom of Scotland. Such punishment was never carried out however.

Words to Live By:  What a worthwhile practice our historical character  had in seeking to test her religious conversion before a godly minister. Such a practice today would remove the “easy-believism” experiences which are too often found today in the visible church. Second Corinthians 13;5 is clear: “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you — unless indeed you fail the test?” (NAS)