August 28: And Now For Something Completely Different

28 August, 2017 in August 2017 by archivist | No comments

A Different Look at the Auburn Affirmation

In the first year of its existence, Carl McIntire’s publication, THE CHRISTIAN BEACON, included a four panel comic strip drawn by a cartoonist by the name of Hal Veech. We’ve never been able to discover biographical information about Mr. Veech, nor do we know where else he might have worked. He may have simply been a talented amateur. His cartoon strip was titled THE “CHRISTIAN” FAMILY.  The strip certainly did not major in subtlety.  In these two installments, the two central characters, Wurldlee and his wife Trustphul discuss aspects of the Auburn Affirmation. [We have posted previously this year regarding the momentous publication known as the Auburn Affirmation, a casting down of the gauntlet by modernists within the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. See also here and here.]

[click on the image to get a larger and hopefully legible version].  

Auburn Affirmation

[Veech cartoons excerpted from The Christian Beacon 1.28 (20 August 1936): 6 and 1.29 (27 August 1936): 7.]

August 27: Van Horn on WSC Q. 24

27 August, 2017 in August 2017 by archivist | No comments

STUDIES IN THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM
by Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn

Q. 24. How does Christ execute the office of a prophet?

A. Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by his word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.

Scripture References: John 1:1-4; John 15:15; John 20:31; II Pet. 1:21; John 14:26.

Questions:

1. Is Christ called a “prophet” in Scripture and if so, why?

He is called a prophet in Acts 3 :22. He is called a prophet because He has made a full revelation of the whole counsel of God.

2. How does Christ reveal to us the will of God?

He reveals God’s will to us in two ways: outwardly, by His Word and o inwardly, by His Spirit.

3. What is the word of Christ?

The word of Christ is the whole Bible, the Scripture, containing the Old and New Testaments.

4. How can it be that the whole Scripture is the word of Christ since His words constitute only a small portion of it?

The whole Bible is called the word of Christ because those who wrote it wrote the word they had from the Spirit of Christ (1 Pet. 1:10-11)

5. Is it possible to be saved simply by means of the Word of God without the Spirit?

No, it is not possible to be saved simply through the Word apart from the Spirit. The teaching concerning this is found in I Cor. 2: 14.

6. Is it possible to be saved by the Spirit apart from the Word?

There is a difference here from the previous question in that the Word can not save you apart from the Spirit and the Spirit will not save you apart from the Word. The Bible teaches that the whole will of God necessary to our salvation is revealed in His Word.

7. How does the Spirit of Christ make us wise unto salvation?

The Spirit of Christ makes us wise unto salvation by opening up our understandings, for the entrance of His word gives us light so that the soul is enabled to see the way of salvation and the way offered.

THE WORD AND OUR SALVATION

Every once in a while the Christian is called upon to present a defense of the position that the knowledge for man’s salvation comes only from the Word of God. This defense is necessary for many sects and heretical groups deny the teaching and insist upon their belief in the man-made doctrine that God has and does save and reveal His will apart from the Word of God.

The poet put the truth very well when he said:

“The starry firmament on high
And all the glories of the sky
Yet shine not to thy praise, a Lord,
So brightly as thy written word.

“Almighty Lord, the sun shall fail,
The moon forget her nightly tale,
And deepest silence hush on high,
The radiant chorus of the sky;

“But, fixed for everlasting years,
Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres,
Thy word shall shine in cloudless day,
When heaven and earth have passed away.”

There are many today who insist that salvation can be obtained apart from the Word of God. It is the modern, popular way to believe today to Lay aside the Scriptures and discover the way to God through self, with philosophical or mystical overtones. The Reformed faith stands in opposition to this. In one of the Reformed catechisms the question is asked: “Whence do you know your misery?” The answer is: “Out of the law of God.” (Heidelberg Catechism, Question No. 3). The mirror is ever present with us, the mirror of the Word of God, and because it is the revelation of God it shows us our sin.

The danger to the church today is from those who profess Christ but who do not take the Word of God seriously. There are too many Christians who do not read it, study it, or fill their very hearts and minds with it. Humanly speaking, if it were possible to receive all the answers to life by a human means that could be gathered together in a small book we would never be found without it. And yet that is exactly what we have in the Word of God. In it we have our salvation and all that is necessary for us to please God and therefore enjoy Him forever.

Published By:
THE SHIELD and SWORD, INC.
Vol. 2 No. 24 (December, 1962)
Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn

August 26: Rev. Thomas Hart Law [1838-1923]

26 August, 2017 in August 2017 by archivist | No comments


law_thomas_hartREVEREND THOMAS HART LAW, D. D., was born in Hartsville, Darlington county, South Carolina, August 26, 1838, the son of Thomas Cassels and Mary Westfield Law. His father was a successful planter, systematic, untiring in effort, and a public-spirited citizen. He held no public positions but those of country postmaster and commissioner of public schools. He revered religion and brought up his family to fear God and to strictly observe every religious duty. The first paternal ancestors to come to America were Scotch-Irish, who settled in lower South Carolina, and the noted French Huguenot, DuBose. The maternal ancestors came from Wales and located at Welsh Neck, near Society Hill, South Carolina. The subject of this sketch, while healthy in childhood and youth, was never of robust physique. From his earliest years he was fond of reading and keenly observant of persons and things. His early life was passed on his father’s plantation; and, although no special tasks were assigned, his father always encouraged him in such employment as would aid in his physical development. His deeply pious mother exercised a particularly strong influence on his moral and spiritual life. He found the Bible and books on Christian experience most helpful to him in fitting him for his work.

He graduated at the South Carolina Military academy (Citadel), April 9, 1859, with first honor. He subsequently took a course of professional study at the Presbyterian Theological seminary, at Columbia, South Carolina, graduating in 1862.

On March 16, 1860, he married Miss Anna Elizabeth Adger, daughter of William Adger, of Charleston, South Carolina. Of their eleven children, seven are now (1907) living.

He was led by personal preference, and a controlling sense of duty, to the choice of the Gospel ministry for his life-work. The first strong impulse for success in his career was to obey God and to serve him acceptably and usefully, and he ascribes the success he has attained to his “home training of the strict old Presbyterian kind, and the rigorous discipline at the Citadel.” His first charge in the Gospel ministry was in Florence and Lynchburg, South Carolina,which pastorate he held from May, 1862, to October, 1865, serving also during this time for a few months in 1863 as chaplain at Fort Caswell, North Carolina. He accepted the call to the Spartanburg Presbyterian church in August, 1869, serving acceptably and with fruitful results till November, 1886. For several years previously he served also as evangelist of the Charleston presbytery. In April, 1887, he became the active field worker of the American Bible society, and in this sphere of usefulness he continued until July, 1907, with increasing beneficial results. He has served as stated clerk of stated clerk of the South Carolina Presbyterian synod since October, 1875; was stated clerk of Enoree presbytery from April, 1898, to October, 1905, and has also served as permanent clerk of the Southern Presbyterian general assembly since 1904.

He has constantly identified with the Democratic party and has done what he could to further its policy and for the best interests of his section and our nation. In 1889, as a recognition of his useful and comprehensive labors, the Presbyterian college Of South Carolina conferred upon him the degree of D. D.

He has had but little time for so-called sports or amusements, finding all requisite physical exercise in his appointed work.

He lays down as the maxims of life, and talismanic to true success, to our American youth:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. To fear God and keep his commandments is the whole duty of man.” “Self-control, industry and system are the principles and habits I would commend.”

He died in Spartanburg, South Carolina on December 14, 1923.

Honors awarded during his life included the Doctor of Divinity degree, conferred by the Presbyterian College of South Carolina in 1889. Rev. Law served as Stated Clerk for the Synod of South Carolina (PCUS) from 1876-1922 and as Stated Clerk for the Presbytery of Enoree from 1898-1904.

Source: Hemphill, J.C., ed. Men of Mark in South Carolina. Washington, D.C.: Men of Mark Publishing Company, 1908.

Addendum:

We seem to be having problems with the Comments feature. Until such time as that is fixed, here’s a comment sent in by the Rev. Richard Hodges, pastor of the Salem Presbyterian Church (PCA), in Blair, SC:—

Rev. Dr. Thomas Hart Law wrote an amazing journal while he was a cadet at the South Carolina Military Academy entitled, Citadel Cadets: The Journal of Cadet Tom Law by Thomas Hart Law, 1838-1923 (out of print). In it he describes in great detail the almost daily spiritual climate at the school and the surrounding city of Charleston. He mentions and commends the preaching and ministries of the Rev. Dr. John L. Girardeau, Dr. Thornwell, Adger, Jacobs, and many others. He was the Honor Graduate of the SCMA Class of 1859 and had a profound and beneficial Christian influence on his fellow cadets at The Citadel, 1856-1859. 
 
See https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=38989058

[Editor: For more about Law’s journal, see the review article which appeared in the William and Mary Quarterly.

August 25: David Caldwell

25 August, 2017 in August 2017 by archivist | No comments

The Patriarch of the Pulpit Patriots
by Rev. David T. Myers

How many pastors have you known who had a price put on their head by the national government?  Such was the case with the Rev. David Caldwell of North Carolina during the Revolutionary War in our country’s fight for independence.

David Caldwell was born in Quarryville, Pennsylvania in 1725.  Reared by two godly Presbyterian parents on a farm in the County of Lancaster, he would receive one of the most extensive educational experiences of that day.  First, he sat under the Rev. Robert Smith’s classical school in the county.  Then he attended the Rev. William Tennent’s Log College, where he also met some of the great revivalists of the First Great Awakening in America, men such as George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, and Samuel Davies.  His last educational experience was with the College of New Jersey.

There was no hesitation then to his being licensed by the Presbytery of New Brunswick in June of 1763 and ordained two years later in 1765.  Later, an entirely new presbytery, Orange Presbytery, was organized in 1770. By then, David Caldwell was the pastor of two Presbyterian churches at Buffalo and Alamance Presbyterian Church, in North Carolina.  He would remain the pastor of these two churches for over fifty years.

It was from his ministry in the pulpit that during both the Revolutionary and the War of 1812, he didn’t hesitate to look upon both wars as biblical wars against the British government.   Consider words such as these in a sermon on Proverbs 12:24 “The slothful shall be under tribute.”  He said, “If we act our part well as men and as Christians in defense of truth and righteousness, we may with the help of the Lord obtain a complete and final deliverance from the power that has oppressed us.” (Southern Presbyterian Leaders, by Henry Alexander White, p. 162)  Whereupon he joined the American army along with most of his congregation.

In this whole ministry, he had the help and support of his wife Rachel, who was herself the daughter of a New Side Presbyterian minister, named Alexander Craighead.  Married for sixty years, they ministered side by side, especially in the Log College which David had begun in the area. It was a classical Christian school, like those he had attended in earlier years.

He would go to be with the Lord on August 25, 1824, remembered by countless whose lives he had touched with the Word of God.

Words to live by: The cause of independence must be defended at the cost of life, fortune, and sacred honor.  David Caldwell would have his plantation burned, his books and Psalm books destroyed, his sermons defaced, a price put on his head, and forced to live in a swamp for safety.  His wife Rachel of sixty years would be treated harshly, being evicted from her home and forced to live in a smokehouse with their children with only dried peaches to eat for several days.  In times of trouble, God watches over His children.

August 24: Never Forget This Historic Day

24 August, 2017 in August 2017 by archivist | No comments

August 24th is an important date in Protestant church history.

  • 1560 – The Scottish Reformation was made official when what has been termed the Reformation Parliament rejected papal jurisdiction, outlawed Roman Catholic worship and the mass, and adopted a Protestant confession of faith, now known as the First Book of Discipline.

* 1572 – St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in France. Persecution of the French Huguenots began as Catherine de Medici, mother of King Charles IX of France, ordered the assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. He was attacked early on August 24th, setting off mob action throughout Paris by Roman Catholics. Nearly 3,000 Huguenots were killed in Paris, and perhaps as many as 70,000 across the nation of France.

* 1631 – Birth of Philip Henry, an English Puritan and father of the renowned Matthew Henry.

* 1662 – The Great Ejection of English Puritans from their pulpits, sometimes called “Black Bartholomew’s Day,” harkening back to the Massacre of 1572. As Charles II returned to the throne and worked to establish his power over the English nation, the Act of Uniformity required allegiance to the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. Those ministers who in good conscience could not swear allegiance were forced to step down from their pulpits, thus losing their livelihood and leaving their congregations bereft of a pastor. Over 2,000 Puritan pastors chose obedience to God over obedience to king.

* 1683 – Death of John Owen, one of the greatest theologians and Bible commentators in Christian history, whose works ranks with those of Augustine, Luther and Calvin. John Owen was a Congregationalist, not a Presbyterian, but his writings have been of tremendous influence throughout the Reformed world.

Words to Live By:
Throughout human history, God has been at work, sovereignly accomplishing His grand design, which culminated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. Even now the goal of human history continues under His loving hand, as the dates shown above stand in evidence. God raises up and prepares great leaders for His Church. Or He may allow times of persecution, sometimes employing those trials to move His people on to new fields, as we saw in the Book of Acts. At times the Church may enter into what seem like times of great victory, while at other times the Gospel seems under grave threat. Through all of this, His power, His mercy, His lovingkindness are daily on display all around us. May the Lord open our eyes.

 

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