A Man Who Cared Greatly, Standing Faithfully in Christ.
Our post today comes from guest author, Rev. Dennis Bills, who since 2012 has served as pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New Martinsville, West Virginia. Besides his recent publication, A Church You Can See: Building a Case for Church Membership, and in addition to his labors as shepherd of the Lord’s people there at Trinity, he is also a diligent student of history and for the last several years was preparing a volume on the history of Presbyterianism in West Virginia. That work is now available. Today’s post draws from this book, and accordingly we have chosen to retain his footnotes, as they are a further help and interest:
The Rev. Henry Ruffner, D.D. (1790-1861)
Presbyterians should remember Henry Ruffner as the founder of Presbyterianism in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia, including three prominent churches that still exist today; for his vocation as professor and president at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University); and for his influential anti-slavery efforts in the years leading up to the Civil War.
Dr. Ruffner was born in the Shenandoah Valley on January 16, 1790. In 1796, his grandfather Joseph Ruffner and father Colonel David Ruffner moved the family to the Kanawha Valley to build the area’s first salt works on a 502 acre tract by the Kanawha River.[1] Young Henry Ruffner preferred scholasticism to salt, so in 1809, at age nineteen, he moved to Lewisburg to study at Dr. John McElhenney’s classical school. He was so well prepared by McElhenney that he was able to move on to Washington College to finish the complete curriculum in only a year and a half. As was the way for ministers in the frontier regions, he was tutored in theology by the president of the college for an additional year before being licensed to preach by Lexington Presbytery in 1815.
For the next four years, the young licentiate preached up and down the Kanawha Valley. The Society of Christians Called Presbyterians gathered to hear him preach in two locations: on his father’s property near the saltworks in Malden—a place known as Colonel Ruffner’s Meetinghouse—and at the courthouse in Charleston six miles downriver to the north.[2] At the same time, he also taught at and apparently paid for much of the construction of the new Mercer Academy near the courthouse. The wealthy Ruffner family’s influence was still on display, as young Henry’s work was subsidized by and the academy was built on land donated by his father.
In the fall of 1818, the Presbytery ordained Ruffner in Lexington, and he immediately returned to start one of the oldest churches in the Presbyterian Church in America.[3]Under his authority, the Society for Christians called Presbyterians organized in 1819 to become the united “Presbyterian Church on Kanawha and in Kanawha Salines.” At first, the church met in one place or the other under a single session but eventually divided in 1841 to become the Kanawha Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and the Kanawha Salines Presbyterian Church (then PCUS, now PCA). Still a third church divided from the Kanawha Church in 1872—ironically named the First Presbyterian Church of Charleston (PCUS). To this day, all three churches claim to have been constituted in 1819 by the famed Henry Ruffner, and each claims the prestige of being the lineally original church.[4]
Ruffner did not stay to pastor the church he founded. Soon after, he embarked on a career in education at his alma mater Washington College, progressing from Latin and Greek professor in 1819 to president in 1838. In 1847, Ruffner wrote a widely-distributed anti-slavery pamphlet called “Address to the People of West Virginia.” [5] The controversy of the pamphlet occasioned his retirement from the presidency in 1848, whereupon he returned to the Kanawha Valley around 1850. With an eye toward finishing out his years in serenity, he bought property seven miles up Campbell’s Creek and tried his hand at sheep farming.[6] He was unsuccessful. Thankfully he was still a preacher, so he returned once again to the pulpit of the church he had started forty years before. He may have served as pulpit supply until they called their next pastor in 1853. When the pulpit became vacant once again in 1857, Ruffner appears in the records once again for one year as the moderator of the session and the church’s stated supply.[7] He died on December 17, 1861 and was buried in the small family plot a few hundred yards north of the church.[8] Toward the end of his life, he expressed regret that he had not stayed home all those years to minister in West Virginia. He wondered whether he could have perhaps done more for the Kanawha Valley if he had spent his life preaching in the hills and hollers.[9]
Henry Ruffner’s son, William Henry Ruffner, wrote the following about his father’s final years:During the decade preceding the Civil War, Dr. Ruffner foresaw the approaching catastrophe, as is shown by his Union speech delivered during that period, and it depressed him grievously in both body and mind, and no doubt shortened his life. About the time that the Cotton States seceded his nervous system broke down utterly, and he was no longer able to preach. Gradually his strength failed without any attack of acute disease. His mind continued clear and that sweet peacefulness of spirit which had always characterized him never changed. His trust in God and his own hope in the future retained firm to the latest hour. He ceased to breathe December 17, 1861, aged 71 years and 11 months.
[1] History of the Presbytery of Kanawha, p. 59-60.
[2] In the 1700s “Societies for Christians” were formed by pioneers in areas where ordained ministers of the Word and Sacrament were unavailable or where colonial prejudices and policies obstructed the organization of non-Anglican churches. By Ruffner’s time, the Commonwealth no longer enforced such rules on the frontier, so the Society was free to organize as a church.
[4] The first two churches have the most obvious claim to direct lineage. The Kanawha Salines Church may hold the original constitutional document signed by Henry Ruffner and still meets in an original Malden structure built in 1840 before the congregation divided. The Kanawha Presbyterian Church continues the name of the original congregation and holds certain key historical records, but the First Presbyterian Church (which is ironically the third chronologically), retains and has built upon the original property donated by the Ruffner family in Charleston.
[8] The location of the plot is not easy to find, although many of the older locals no doubt know its location. I was able to locate it using descriptions, photos, and google maps on an out of the way spot on an industrial property nearby. The company maintains the cemetery, and the family tells me the company will open it up for inquirers who provide notice.
[9] Specifically, he regretted that he did not stay to foster a short-lived church he had started in Teays Valley at the same time as the Kanawha Church. He also regretted that he was unauthorized to organize a church up the Pocatalico River when he was only licentiate. Instead, the folks he had been preaching to were turned over to another preacher who successfully started a Methodist church. He did not begrudge this—he and the preacher were friends, and he felt that some religion was better than none at all. But he felt the loss for his denomination. He also regretted that, during his brief time preaching in the Kanawha Valley, he had focused too much on outreach to rural areas, and not enough on areas where churches were likely to be more viable in the long term. West Virginia Historical Magazine Quarterly, April 1902. The Ruffners No. IV. Henry. First Article. By Dr. W. H. Ruffner. http://www.wvculture.org/history/antebellum/ruffnerhenry01.html
When called upon to preach in difficult situations, there are thankfully available to pastors some great examples from which they can learn. One of the most difficult situations for a pastor is the funeral of a child. Equally difficult and even burdensome is the funeral of someone who was widely known to be disreputable. It was on this date, December 16, in 1825 that the Rev. William Buell Sprague, still a young pastor only 30 years old, was called upon to conduct the funeral of Samuel Leonard, who had murdered his wife Harriet and then committed suicide. As a pastor, what would you say? How would you conduct such a funeral? A portion of that sermon, heavily edited for length, is presented here today. As you read, consider a wider application to the state of affairs today.
[For a more contemporary portrait of Rev. Sprague, as he would have looked about the time of this sermon, see the engraving preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. ]
Taking as his text, Psalm 9:16, “The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands,” Rev. Sprague begins his discourse:
We have often assembled, my friends, to perform the last sad office for our fellow mortals; but never did we meet, in circumstances so appalling, as those which mark the present occasion. The event, which has brought us to these solemnities, has caused the ears of all, who have heard of it, to tingle, and circulated a chill of horror through the community. It is not without reluctance, that I stand here today, to attempt to guide your thoughts to some improvement of this awful dispensation; but, inasmuch as I have consented to address you, I must be permitted to say, that I shall feel constrained, as a minister of Christ, to disregard, in a great degree, the dictates of private feeling. It is delightful to a Christian minister to be able to pour consolation into the hearts of the bereaved, by pointing them to the path, by which their friends have ascended to glory; and in all ordinary cases, it is considered our privilege, so far to regard the sacredness of surviving friendship, as to avoid adverting, even indirectly, to the errors and crimes of the departed. Gladly would I be the minister of consolation to this circle of mourners, whose hearts, I well know, are rived with agony; but to attempt to mitigate their anguish, by palliating the crime which has occasioned it, would be as useless to them, as it would be unworthy of me; and I doubt not that they will do me the justice to believe, that it is with the sincerest sympathy in their affliction, that I attempt to discharge this painful duty. I wish not to heap useless reproaches upon the memory of the man, who has been guilty of this unnatural deed: that would not aid us at all to an improvement of it;—but my design is, simply to impress upon you the lessons, which it so loudly inculcates, that this awful instance of the wrath of man, may be made subservient to the praise of God.
. . . The term wicked, as it is generally used in Scripture, is of extensive application. It includes not only those, who are abandoned to open vice, but all, who are not the subjects of evangelical holiness; and in this sense, it is the counterpart of the term righteous. The word, however, is sometimes used in a limited sense, to denote such, as having made great progress in sin, openly and fearlessly insult the authority of God. It is in this latter sense, chiefly, that I shall consider it in the following discourse. And I shall endeavor to present before you an analysis of the text, by considering, first, some of the means, by which a pre-eminently depraved character is formed; and by shewing, secondly, that wicked men, in their efforts to injure others, and oppose religion, actually ensnare themselves.
I. I am, first, to consider some of the means by which a pre-eminently depraved character is formed. On this article, upon which much might be said, the time will permit me only to select two or three points, which are most prominent, and most obviously suggested by the occasion.
And, in the first place, I mention profanation of the sabbath, and especially, neglect of the public worship of God. . . .
Another means, by which men often arrive at an extreme degree of depravity, isthe indulgence of angry and malignant passion. . . .
Another means, which is often very efficacious in the formation of a habit of gross wickedness, is, resisting the influences of the Holy Spirit. . . .
I observe, once more, that there is nothing, which is more likely to constitute the foundation, or to accelerate the progress of a grossly depraved habit, than a belief in the doctrine of universal salvation. . . .
II. I pass to the second division of the discourse, in which I am to shew, that the wicked, in their attempts to injure others, and oppose religion, actually ensnare themselves.
The wicked ensnare themselves at the commencement of a habit of wickedness; inasmuch as they begin a course, which terminates in respect to their own character, very differently from what they intend. It is proverbial, that no one ever becomes a great sinner at once; it is usually from a small beginning, and by almost imperceptible degrees, that a habit of confirmed wickedness is formed. . . .
The wicked ensnare themselves, inasmuch as their conduct brings evils upon them, in the PRESENT life, which they do not anticipate. . . .
Equally true is it, that the wicked ensnare themselves, inasmuch as their conduct will bring upon them evils, in a FUTURE life, which they do not, at present, anticipate. . . .
Words to Live By: Moving ahead in this discourse to Rev. Sprague’s conclusion, he offers these words among his final thoughts:
Yes, mourning friends, it would not be strange, if, under the weight of this overwhelming visitation, you should exclaim, ‘my trouble is greater than I can bear.’ You cannot look around you, without perceiving that you have the sympathy of a thousand hearts; but the bitterest ingredients in your cup. I well know that it is beyond the power of human sympathy to extract. Happy I am to be able to point you to an all-sufficient source of consolation in the gospel of Christ. Weary and heavy laden mourner, lay down thy burden at a Saviour’s feet. Be still, and know that He, who has permitted this event, is Jehovah. Let this dark page in the history of your life, while it contains the record of the keenest anguish you ever knew, testify also to your humility and submission, under the rod of God. When the mysteries of providence shall be unfolded in a future world, may you be found among those, to whom they shall be an occasion of eternal rejoicing!
Today’s post is taken from a funeral sermon by the Rev. Charles Herr, in memory of the Rev. Charles Kisselman Imbrie [1814-1891]. In looking for a sermon that fell on this particular day, this what what was at hand. I dare say probably none of us have ever heard of Rev. Imbrie. So this sermon affords an interesting exercise: Can we read this sermon without seeing it as hagiographic? Can we read it for the lessons that the pastor presents from the Scripture text, without being distracted by personal references to a man we never knew? And can we read it in personal application, looking to our selves and asking “Has Christ done a similar work in my life?” Funerals, and funeral sermons, are at once a particularly difficult aspect of any pastor’s ministry and a uniquely powerful opportunity to speak to the most challenging issues of human existence. Nothing can be more important than our standing before a righteous and holy God—whether we are in right relation to Him. And it is death that brings each of us inevitably to face that trial.
Sermon, preached in the First Presbyterian Church, Jersey City, on Sunday evening, November 22, 1891, by the Pastor, the Rev. Charles Herr, in memory of the Rev. Charles Kisselman Imbrie, born on December 15, 1814, died on November 20, 1891.
Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.— Heb. xi. 5.
A long drive from Geneva of flat, tame miles ends before the towering majesty of Mont Blanc. It is somewhat of a dull road through the genealogical records of Genesis, but when you come to Enoch the road sweeps up into the hills. It is a weary stretch of nobodyism, but at last you meet a man, a monarch, Enoch, of whom it is on record that he walked with God, and for a reward God took him— took him into heaven without the dark process of death. Magnificent man ! Magnificent finish !
It is proper and necessary for us to talk together to-night a little, though very inadequately indeed, of Dr. Imbrie whom we have lost. In truth we cannot keep our minds away from him. We talk of him, because the glory and the sadness absorb all our thoughts. And we do not anticipate anything which will be said at the funeral ceremonies to-morrow, because our feelings are such as no one else, having other relations with Dr. Imbrie, can utter.
In thinking of some starting-place for our thoughts, it seemed to me that there was hardly a more adequately suggestive personage than this Enoch, seventh from Adam, who so early in biblical history reached a point of renown in godliness. As we look at the details of his sparse record, we shall find that they admirably prompt the recollection of the dominant characteristics of our Pastor Emeritus.
1. Enoch pleased God by seeking His heavenly companionship, by finding his happiness in God’s communion. The Genesis record reports him as one who walked with God, which signifies a very intimate, reverent and confidential intercourse.
And when we remember the times in which Enoch lived, that seems a wonderful thing indeed. He lived in the world that Cain had made, the world that was the offspring of selfishness and murder. The religion which controlled men’s actions was one which disowned the claims of God in righteousness. It confessed no sin and guilt. It refused to worship. It laughed at the words of the Almighty. It was an age when the evil thoughts of men’s hearts were far developed toward that height of wickedness which brought on the o’ersweeping flood in the days of Noah, Enoch’s great-grandson. A constituent part of the civilization of that day was a city, the stronghold in ungodly times of luxury and materialism. There were manufactures, the art of man was cultivated to the production of every possible comfort, ingenuity was taxed in ever-new devices to create what might make the world, out of which God had been rejected, bearable to man. It is truly wonderful that at such an early time and in such hard and uncongenial circumstances, Enoch walked with God. Original, peculiar, brave to oppose the religious negations of his fel- low-men, and turning his back with firm self-denial upon their ungodly lusts and luxuries, he walked with God. He is the one point of light in a black expanse.
I am sure we will all agree that it was eminently true of Dr. Imbrie thathe walked with God. His conversation was habitually and deeply with our heavenly Father.
He carried the proof of it upon his face and in his utterance. He did not try to prove it. He did not need to tell any one that he was a man of God. It proved itself. He had the Christ-spirit, the Christ- light, the Christ-speech. It was not peculiar that Moses’ face should shine with the reflection of Divine glory when he came down from the communion of the mount. Every man of God will carry the marks of the ethereal converse upon his face. No servant of the Most High ever had those marks more distinctly, more beautifully, imprinted upon his countenance than Dr. Imbrie. I suppose that he must always have been a very handsome man, of open face and clear fine features. But we know him best for something different from that and deeper than that. He had that which is not natural beauty, and which can make even plainness beautiful,— the outward signals of an inner life lived in the presence of God, lived under His smile, lived under the illumination of His grace.
And this was evident in all his action. The holiest and loveliest graces were the easy and natural features of his daily walk. There were no second-thoughts about him ; he did not need any. The first thought was always the Christ-thought, the heavenly thought. His talk never had need to be revised for any reason of spiritual inadequacy or moral lack. It was always in angelic vein. It was always the talk of a man who kept continuous company with our blessed Lord, and whose lips never for an instant dropped the continuity of their holy habit.
Perhaps no mark of his walk with God was more impressive to us than his prayers at our mid-week gathering. They were always so prompt, so helpful, so heavenly. They bore us all up so confidently, so joyfully to God. They so uttered our unutterable thoughts. They exhibited and interpreted to us the strange and fugitive sensations of our hearts with such ease of saintly power. His prayers were a sublime evidence of his reverent, yet childlike and confident familiarity with God. Their flow, their unlabored elevation, their sweet and even naturalness, their wondrous spirituality, and that amazing quality by which the delicatest thoughts were fixed and the most vanishing feelings caught and uttered in accumulating flow and splendor ; these things showed us, as few things could, that he lived in an attitude of prayer, that his life was spent in God’s presence.
2. Enoch pleased God by the witness which he faithfully bore for Him, for the integrity of his truth against the falsehoods of unrighteous men. Though we have no record of this in Genesis, we can easily understand that his life would necessarily be of this sort. Living a rare saint of God in the midst of a wicked world, his very life would be a testimony. He must have been a martyr in every sense, a witness to the truth and a sufferer for it. We cannot believe that a character of his exceptional sort could have escaped the contumely and enmity of men, who did not even need words to condemn them while his life stood forth in silent but complete accusation. But the apostle Jude has preserved something for us out of the dying testimonies of tradition, which shows that Enoch’s life was not without its vigorous spoken protest against the wickedness of the world. “ Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold the Lord cometh among His holy myriads to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the impious concerning all their works of impiety which they impiously did, and concerning all the hard things which impious sinners spoke against Him.”
Dr. Imbrie was every way a witness for God, by life, by act, by word. He was profoundly learned in the Scriptures. I think he could be called a scientific theologian, a man who knew the testimonies of the word of God and was able to bring them together into a consistent and harmonious scheme. There are not many men in our country who can so amply justify that designation.
In all the large and burning questions that came before the Presbyterian Church he was a ready, faithful, courageous and splendidly intelligent witness for the truth of God, as he understood it. And he understood it in the old way, the way made glorious by the singing feet of the generations which echo to us from the past. The struggle connected with the proposed revision of the Confession of Faith saddened his heart deeply, and I somehow feel that he would not have found out how to adjust himself with repose of heart in the new conditions which now seem likely to come to pass. He was a redoubtable antagonist. Those who came forward from time to time with raw ideas and radical departures and sudden enthusiasms of revolution met in him an unconquerable foeman and found their propositions overwhelmed with the condemning testimony of scripture.
He was with us at communion seasons (and perhaps there we shall miss him most), and talked to us so winningly of the love of Christ, and ministered to our fainting souls the comfortable encouragements of Divine grace. He was with us at our prayer-meetings, and spoke upon all the varied subjects which come before us in the round of the year. His address was the glorious feature of the occasion, that for which our souls waited as (or their food. He was with us at protracted meetings, when the duties of the unworldly life in their multitudinous forms of expression,—the obligation and wisdom of early profession, the sinfulness of sin, the misery and despair of the ungodly life, the responsibility and privilege of responding to the redeeming love of God, the deceitful persuasions of Satan,—were declared by him with exceptional and pressing emphasis, with stirring freshness and power. His facility in all these things, his supreme adequacy for every occasion, was the mark of a great and faithful witness for God.
3. Enoch pleased God by his faith. This is asserted in the Epistle to the Hebrews as the explanation of his godly walk. “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death ; and was not found because he had translated him : for before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him ; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”
Dr. Imbrie believed that God is. He believed it with all his soul. He knew it. To him it was the truest of truths. It was more real to him than anything else in the wide universe.
And he grasped it as a truth that has meaning—a truth to live by. It was not an intellectual tenet; it was a life-faith. He accepted all that it entailed. It involved him in relations of love and duty which he entered into with sincere joy, into which he threw himself with abandonment of soul. This is the only belief in God’s existence which has value and virtue. With so many men that truth, though accepted, lies bedridden in the dormitory of the soul. It does not go like an arrow into their consciences ; it does not plough up their hearts like a coulter ; it does not shake them with its magnificent significance. With Dr. Imbrie it had all these pure and stirring effects. He saw what it meant that God is. He saw that it required the response of his adoration, his obedience, his love. And he gave them with gladness and without reserve.
He digged deep into this truth of truths. He felt it so fully and so intelligently that he became not merely a servant of God, but a son. The utmost that a large number of Christians realize in their religious experience is just that they are pardoned criminals. But Dr. Imbrie entered into the higher and sweeter relationship. He took God’s word for his adoption into the heavenly family, he under-stood the testimony of the Holy Spirit in his soul, and gave convincing evidence of his faith by acting out in all his life the spirit of a son. He was sweetly constrained to all happiness of temper and all gladness of service by the fact that he was an accepted and beloved child of the Heavenly Father. In his heart sprung up and lived the graces that belong to that relationship—confidence, serenity, love, courage, assurance.
And he believed that God rewards those who diligently seek Him. This is evident, because he devoted himself to the attainment of those rewards, and those only. He wanted nothing except what came from the hand of God. That which supported him in the patience and joyfulness of his daily walk, that which inspired his unrequired yet uninterrupted faithfulness in the service of this Church, that which fortified his exhaustless activity in every direction of usefulness, was not the hope of reward from men, not even their good opinion or their grateful word. Before the face of his unseen master he lived ; for Him he did all this; to Him alone he stood or fell.
The wholesome and serene sweetness of his mind amid many cares and trials shows to what comforts his heart was turned. No one would ever have judged from his words or manner that he had quite the full measure of human griefs and burdens, if indeed he had not a little more than the common share. The pain and loneliness that came to him from his wife’s death only six months ago were absolutely undiscoverable to any except those to whom he was willing to utter them in words. I have never known any one who could more thoroughly make his own the declaration of the Apostle Paul: “ None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”
And how has Dr. Imbrie been rewarded ?
I. By blessedness here. He pleased God—and behold the consequences in his revered and beautiful life—“ honor, love, obedience, troops of friends.” A face upon which were written the peace and grace of the Saviour. Lips which moved with delight to the motive of this ancient German hymn, which was his favorite :
Fairest Lord Jesus ! Ruler of all nature ! O Thou, of God and Man the Son ! Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor, Thee, my soul’s glory, joy and crown.
Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands, Robed in the blooming garb of Spring : Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer, Who makes the woful heart to sing.
Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight, And all the twinkling starry host; Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer, Than all the angels heaven can boast.
And above all, he had the sweet heart, glad in the inward testimony that he pleased God and having secret springs of heavenly joy and satisfaction.
Such are some of the rewards that God bestows in this world. Is anything else to be named beside them ? Is anything else desirable without them ? Can riches compare with the rewards of God’s favor ? Dr. Imbrie never wanted anything, for he was a child of the Father ; but he never was rich. He did not need to be. No man needs to be. Avaunt the despicable materialism which weighs men by their purses and strives for wealth as the chief good ! The greatest thing in the world is to be a Christlike man, a God-inhabited soul.
2. Then God rewarded him with death. Strange reward, say you ? Oh, no !
Enoch was not—for God took him. His translation was supernatural. But many saints die not much dissimilarly. Dr. Imbrie’s death was such. It was just as little to him as translation was to Enoch. His death-bed was a sublime spectacle of faith. I suppose that most of us, if we should undertake to imagine an ideal picture of a believer’s closing hours, would illustrate them with expressions of confidence and hope, with triumphant utterances of fearlessness, with emotional testimonies and rapt prayers of faith. But though he had clearness and vigor of faculty, there was quiet in Dr. Imbrie’s room. No audible prayer; no last messages of warning or appeal ; no ejaculations of high confidence broke the tender hush. He had left nothing undone or unsaid in his holy life that needed fuller witness from his death-bed. His faith did not need to encourage itself with outward asseveration. Perfect self-control, self-restraint, rest, peace.
3. Last of all, best of all, fulfillment of all, heaven ! As the gray line of light on the morning sky is the pledge of the shining sun and the risen day, as the blade above the soil is the earnest of the waving corn-field and the plentiful granary, so are these first rewards of service here the foretokens and prelibations of eternal joys. We know that our beloved Pastor and friend inherits the precious promises of God in the Scriptures.
They are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple. And the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
Our post today comes from the blog PRESBYTERIANS OF THE PAST. This is a blog written by our good friend Barry Waugh. His blog posts are typically fuller treatments of a subject than we can afford here, but today I will be presenting one of his blog posts in its entirety. The subject of today’s post is the Rev. Alexander Waugh (no relation to our author!):
Alexander Waugh, 1754-1827
by Barry Waugh.
Alexander was the last child born to Thomas and Margaret (Johnstone) Waugh in their modest but comfortable home located about thirty-five miles southeast of Edinburgh in East Gordon, Berwickshire. The wee one entered a family, August 16, 1754, where home, church, and Scotland were important. Thomas was a farmer, a good father, and a third-generation Covenanter, but he knew himself well enough to discern that he was not an elder and declined the office when asked. Alexander’s maternal grandparents were Alexander and Elizabeth (Waugh) Johnstone which may indicate his father and mother were kin based on grandmother Elizabeth’s maiden name.
Scotland had a good educational system because its parish schools were developed from the plan provided in John Knox’s First Book of Discipline, 1560. Alexander graduated from tutoring at his mother’s knee at an undetermined age to attend school with the local children. The daily curriculum included Bible reading and reciting the Westminster Shorter Catechism. At the age of twelve he transferred to the grammar school in not-too-distant Earlston to study Latin and Greek with Master John Mill. During this time, he contracted smallpox, common in the day, but fortunately it was a mild case. When Alexander was sixteen, he left his Covenanters heritage to unite with the Secession Church, Burgher, in Stitchell during the ministry of George Coventry. The Secession Church was at the time divided in two as Burghers and Anti-Burgers.
In 1770, Waugh entered Edinburgh University. His studies in Latin and Greek continued but added to his language acquisition list was Hebrew. He enjoyed Latin, cared less for Greek, and found Hebrew to be on the unpleasant side. Professor of Moral Philosophy Adam Ferguson was his favorite instructor, but unbeknownst to Alexander his instructor was lacing elegant words with too high a view of reason and human nature. Ferguson had abandoned the ministry several years earlier and recently published his Enlightenment influenced Institutes of Moral Philosophy.
After completing Edinburgh, Waugh was examined by presbytery and admitted to ministerial training in the Burgher Secession Academy mastered by John Brown of Haddington. Brown was a self-taught minister who had grown up in abject poverty but became influential not only for Christians of his day but also for generations to come. His book, Self-Interpreting Bible, 1778, was a well-received title among several beneficial books published by him. It was a wonderful opportunity for Alexander, but things did not start well. According to a fellow student his first discourse before class was presentation of a philosophical essay “at which the professor and students were extremely grieved” and Brown said, “I hope I shall never hear such a discourse again in this place.” It was not the way to start off studies with Pastor Brown. Professor Ferguson’s philosophical perspective and didactic panache had unfortunately provided Alexander with the wrong presuppositional base, so Brown undid Waugh’s Edinburgh education for three years and continued the process by sending him to the University of Aberdeen for a year. Marischal College at Aberdeen was the antidote for Edinburgh. Faculty members that persuaded him greatly were James Beattie and George Campbell who both wrote against David Hume. Campbell had written Essay on Miracles and Beattie published An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, 1770. Waugh found both professors knowledgeable and informative, but Campbell, the divinity professor, was more congenial to Alexander’s thinking. It was really an important time in the history of philosophy because the rise of reason had descended into skepticism which was met handily by Thomas Reid and his commonsense compadres. Scottish Common Sense Realism was philosophy, not theology, but its epistemology was friendlier to Christian presuppositions than Hume’s empiricist skepticism. Waugh was granted the Master of Arts, April 1, 1778. Thanks to John Brown’s instruction, Alexander built his foundation on the theological rock of Scripture and the philosophically acceptable epistemology of Scottish Realism. Aberdeen trumped Edinburgh. The history of Christianity has repeatedly shown the devastating results of faculties that embraced aberrant views which were then passed on to ministers that propounded them from pulpits and led the following generations astray.
It is not clear what Waugh was doing between graduation and examination by the Presbytery of Edinburgh when it met at Duns, June 28, 1779, but he may have returned for further instruction from Brown. The meeting was presided over by his pastor from Stitchell, George Coventry. He passed the examination trials to become a probationer and was appointed to supply the Secession Church on Wells Street in London. The Wells Street congregation needed his ministry because the former pastor, Archibald Hall, had passed away. After a short time, he was invited to become pastor but instead he returned to Scotland and supplied pulpits until accepting a call from a poor country church in Newtown. A friend of his from Edinburgh days, George Graham, writing from his mission work in St. Croix discouraged him from accepting the call because he believed a city church was better suited for Waugh. Not only Graham but John Brown provided advice, however Brown took a different perspective. It seems that the new minister thought more highly of himself than he ought.
I know the vanity of your heart, that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small in comparison of those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself, on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ at his judgment seat, you will think you have had enough.
Alexander was ordained August 30, 1780 by presbytery then led worship September 3 in the Newtown Church. John Brown had proved persuasive as the Holy Spirit illumined Alexander’s heart. It was really a good situation for Rev. Waugh because he provided the small congregation with a pastor, and the limited salary provided by the church was not so great a problem for him because his father’s house was just thirteen miles away.
Waugh settled into work at Newtown, but the Wells Street Church in London continued to pursue him. After two attempts to call him in 1781, Wells Street accomplished its purpose in March 1782. The Presbytery of Edinburgh agreed with the move and appointed him to the London church to commence ministry the third Sabbath of June. His first sermon was from Psalm 45:2, “Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore, God hath blessed thee for ever.” He had refused a call when he supplied Wells Street as a probationer because he wanted to return to Scotland, but the persistence of the congregation overcame his national yen and his sense of God’s call led to settlement in London.
Two important personal events occurred within a few years of his installation at Wells Street. Alexander’s father died in 1783 and he married. The young lady was Mary Neill. Following pronouncement of the bans in the Church of England parishes of their residences, Alexander and Mary were united in marriage by Rev. John Riddoch of the Secession Church in Coldstream, Scotland, August 10, 1786. Their first child was born almost nine months to the day later and was named Thomas for his grandfather. It was a good beginning for the Waughs.
In addition to pulpit ministry Waugh catechized the children of his church the first Tuesday of every month after which the session met for an hour and then prayer meeting was held. How a session could accomplish its work in an hour a month must remain a mystery. During the winter, classes for the single men were held every Tuesday in order to study the Westminster Confession, discuss theological subjects, and consider recommendations from the pastor regarding books. There was a disproportionately large number of young men because many were moving from the country and other cities to London to find work in the growing number of factories created by the Industrial Revolution. The unmarried ladies’ event was not scheduled on Tuesday but instead on Monday so Waugh could meet with them once a month for tea and conversation. One might wonder how Mrs. Waugh played into these gender-separate events as a matchmaker. Likely not much because as the Waugh’s years of marriage passed, she became very busy with eleven children.
Key events during Alexander Waugh’s ministry were both within his connectional church and what would today be called interdenominational or parachurch ministries. The greatest event for his church was the reunion of the Burghers and Anti-Burghers of the Secession Church in 1820. After an amicable meeting and reunion, Waugh led the remainder of the session in prayer and devotional exercises. His interest in missions led to membership on the organizing committee that founded the London Missionary Society, 1795. He was the chairman of the candidate examination committee for the Society for twenty-eight years and travelled in its behalf throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales as well as in France. During one trip he visited forty-six locations in two months and preached numerous times. Other interests included membership in the Corresponding Board of the Society for Propagating Christianity in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, the Scottish Hospital Society for thirty-seven years, and he was a member of the Irish Evangelical and Religious Tract Societies. He was not often published but after participation in the organizing committee for London’s Evangelical Magazine, 1793, he contributed some articles and all the memorials for deceased Scottish ministers. Alexander was honored with the Doctor of Divinity by Marischal College, 1815.
A key event in the ministry of Dr. Waugh had nothing to do with church, state, family, or foes, but was instead physical. In May 1823 the sixty-eight-year-old minister was leading a dedication service for construction of an orphanage at Clapton. The corner stone was being set and a scaffold was built for his use. Something in the scaffold failed and it collapsed. Pastor Waugh fell and severely injured his ankle. It incapacitated him for some time and he never fully recovered suffering limited mobility for the remainder of his life.
Alexander had been at Wells Street for forty-one years and the lengthy tenure, combined with possibly too much work outside his congregation, and his troublesome ankle may have contributed to restlessness among some members regarding his ministry. The session recognizing the infirmity of Pastor Waugh, the attitude of the flock, and the need to prepare for the future, sent him a letter in May 1827 asking him if they could seek student supplies for the pulpit. He would still be allowed to preach on occasion. He acquiesced but expressed concern about the financial cost to the church. The decision was a good one because the church was prepared when Alexander Waugh passed away December 14. His funeral was conducted by Revs. Roland Hill and Edward Irving in preparation for the procession of forty-two mourning coaches and thirteen private carriages to accompany his remains to Bunhill Fields for interment next to his son Alexander amidst generations of dissenters from the Church of England. The next Sabbath a memorial sermon was given in Wells Street by Rev. William Broadfoot on Job 5:26. Waugh’s lengthy memorial inscription on his grave includes the text of Job 5:26.
Mary survived Alexander. They had four sons enter the ministry, but one, Alexander, Jr., died at the age of twenty-nine shortly after he married and became a pastor. From Alexander’s near dozen children there were born twenty-six grandchildren to continue as seed of the Covenant and to remember their faithful grandpa.
Barry Waugh
Notes—The picture of Dunnottar Castle Cliffs, Aberdeen, is by Collie581 on Pixabay.
The terminology used to describe the Secession Church was for me confusing and varied from writer to writer. David C. Lachman’s articles “Associate Presbytery,” “Associate Presbyterian Churches,” along with the brief entry “Secession Church,” in which six ecclesiastical entities are listed, and help from K. R. Ross’s article, “Secessions,” combine to provide a sense of the complexity; see, Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology, IVP, 1993; my terminology is intended to keep it simple even though it is not as complete as it could be. The standard work on the Secession Church is from M’Kerrow’s History of the Secession Church, 2 vols., 1839.
See, David Laing, The Works of John Knox, vol. 2, 209f, concerning parochial schools.
The primary source for this post is A Memoir of the Reverend Alexander Waugh, D.D. with Selections from His Epistolary Correspondence, Pulpit Recollections, &c, by James Hay and Henry Belfrage, 2nd edition, London: Printed for Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1831; the two portions in quotation marks about Waugh’s experience with Brown are from this book.
Sermons, Expositions, and Addresses at the Holy Communion, by the Late Rev. Alexander Waugh, A.M., Minister of the Scots Church in Miles Lane, London, 1825, includes material that is Alexander’s son’s work and not Alexander the father; it has a brief memoir of the young man’s life; no one is noted as the editor, but it is likely his father.
J. Ligon Duncan’s MA thesis at Covenant Seminary, “Common Sense and American Presbyterianism an Evaluation of the Impact of Scottish Realism on Princeton, ” 1987, provides a nice summary of Common Sense Realism in Scotland and then considers its influence at Princeton Seminary.
The quote by Brown is from Memoir and Select Remains of The Rev. John Brown, Minister of the Gospel, Haddington, edited by Rev. William Brown, M.D., Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, [1856?].
Broadfoot’s sermon was published in the pamphlet, The Christian Ripe for Eternity: A Sermon Preached in Wells Street Chapel, December 23, 1827, Occasioned by the Death of the Rev. Alexander Waugh, D.D., by the Rev. W. Broadfoot. To which is added the Address at the Grave, by the Rev. Robert Winter, D.D., [1828].
The Comfort of the Scriptures. A Devotional Meditation by the Rev. David Freeman, Th.M.
[excerpted from Christianity Today, 3.9 (September 1933): 14-15.]
” … I count not myself to have apprehended . … ” “I press toward the mark. …. . “-Philippians 3 :13, 14.
How true these words are to the experience of every child of God. They strike a responsive chord in our hearts, especially at the beginning of a new year. These words were uttered after years of devotion to the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ and after much labor for the Kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul filled his years with suffering and noble effort for his Lord. He did not live merely to pass the time away as do those who live only to spend their years aimlessly and hopelessly.
O, shame upon us if we have lived merely to pass the time! Christ did not live that way. When He came to the end of His course He said, “I have finished the work servant Paul said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.”
But the past with all its devotion and labor is nothing for us to glory in. A Christian can only say after a review of the things that are behind, “I count not myself to have apprehended.” Over the written chapters of our lives we place the word “FAILURE” because it is all so different from, and comes so far short of what God has required of us. In our prayer at the close of this year there should be this confession, “O God we have sinned and come short of thy glory.”
That is the way Paul felt about it. But did Paul need to feel that way in view of his singular devotion to Christ? Yes. The devoutest saint always feels that way because he measures himself with the rule of God’s which thou gavest me to do.” And His true righteousness. Any want of conformity to that is sin and for sin, we stand before God in penitence.
Forgive Lord! How miserably we have failed!
With such a confession upon our lips our souls grasp the Saviour. In the acknowledgement of our unworthiness lies our hope in Christ. The prize is ours because our need of Him is so great. He will give Himself in all His mercy and love us, even as He did to those who pressed toward Him in their infirmities, when He trod among men. We “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Such a going after Christ is not something produced by any form of natural exertion. It is of Christ Himself who worketh in us, “both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
For all the days to come our highest desire is to rest and abide in Christ. This will show itself by our walking before the Lord in holiness.
Christ will accept a resolve of faith like that and bring to ultimate victory the issues of such a life.
“Lord, Thy mercy still entreating, We with shame our sins would own, From henceforth, the time redeeming, May we live to Thee alone.”
