This Day in Presbyterian History

TEN REASONS FOR BEING A PRESBYTERIAN.

“The great thing in the Church is CHRIST, the blood of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the presence of Christ among us. The great thing is Christ, but there is also advantage in a certain government of the Church of Christ. I am a Presbyterian, not only of situation, but of conviction and choice. Our Presbyterian way is the good middle way between Episcopacy on the one side, and Congregationalism on the other. We combine the two great principles that must be maintained in the Church—Order and Liberty; the order of government, and the liberty of the people.”—Merle d’ Aubigne.

NINTH REASON.

9. I AM A PRESBYTERIAN—because the Church of Christ was Presbyterian in her earliest and purest times. Ecclesiastical history tells me by what steps came the predicted falling away from apostolical doctrine and order (2 Thess. ii. 3); how the primitive Episcopacy (which we still hold) was supplanted by Prelacy and Popery; and how those Churches which were God’s faithful witnesses in the midst of the Anti-Christian apostasy, the Waldensian, the Albigensian, and other martyr-Churches were Presbyterian. And when the time of Reformation came, when men stood, and saw, and asked for the ancient paths, then the good old way of Presbyterianism, with its Evangelical truth, its apostolical order, its wholesome discipline, and primitive worship, was with one consent resumed by the Reformed Churches. In England alone it was not so; but for this we satisfactorily account in the assumption of the headship of the Church by Henry VIII.—the indecision of Cranmer and the early Reformers—the limited extent to which the work of Reformation could be carried—together with other later events in England’s national history.

Although outward forms in themselves are of minor consequence, yet they are important as means for the building up of the spiritual Church. And if Church history is of any use, we should search it to see which form of Christianity best fulfills the purposes of a Church of Christ. Let Presbyterianism be so tried : contrast the state of the English Church as to vital religion in the Puritan times, and after the restoration of Charles II., and the ejection of the two thousand Nonconformists, nearly all of whom were Presbyterians; contrast the present state of Presbyterian Ulster  with any other province of Ireland; contrast the state of Scotland with any other country of Europe; and every friend of Bible instruction, of Sabbath observance, of true religion, ought to rejoice in the prospect of Presbyterianism being extended in every part of the world.

TENTH REASON.

10. I AM A PRESBYTERIAN—because I know of no Church that has been so valiant for the truth, or that has been honoured to do and suffer so much for the cause of Christ on earth. None can show a more goodly company of confessors, a more noble army of martyrs, than the Presbyterian Church. Let history testify this, from the earliest times, through the dark ages of Popery, down even to our own day, when the Free Church of Scotland, in her noble stand for truth, and in the sacrifices made by her ministers and people for Christ’s sake, has displayed a spirit worthy of olden times, and shown that living faith and high principle are yet to be found on the earth. While maintaining in common with other Protestants the truths relating to the Prophetical and Priestly offices of the Redeemer, the Presbyterian Church has especially been called on to testify and to suffer in defense of the Kingly office of Christ; that He is the only Head of the Church, visible and invisible, (Colossians i. 16, 17, 18,) that Christ alone is king in Zion—(Psalm ii. 6.)

The Bible teaches us to be subject to the powers that be, to render honour to whom honour is due, tribute to whom tribute, to all their dues (Rom xiii. 1—7), but not to render unto Caesar the things that are God’s—(Matt. xxii. 21.) While contending for spiritual independence against Erastians on the one hand, we contend against the spiritual supremacy of Papists and Prelatists on the other. Popery has ever found in our Church a stern and uncompromising opponent. She is no less opposed to Arian, Socinian, and other forms of Anti-Christian error. And though some have wrongfully used our name, and some branches of our Church have at times been on the side of error, true Presbyterians have ever been foremost in contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints.

For these and other reasons I am a Presbyterian. While I know that God has His people among different denominations of professing Christians, I prefer the Presbyterian Church, because I believe it to be most conformable to the Word of God, most conducive to the spread of truth and righteousness, and most fitted for the extension of the cause of Christ on the earth.

GRACE BE WITH ALL THEM THAT LOVE OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IN SINCERITY. AMEN.—EPH. VI. 24.

We are a few days off from the anniversary of this event, but other scheduled posts bumped this post to today. Close enough, for our purposes, I think.

In the late 19th century, an effort was begun to revise the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as held by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. This effort toward revision was led by Charles A. Briggs and several other then prominent men in that denomination. Opposing them, among others, was the Rev. Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield, professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary. Here he presents some of his earliest arguments in countering the revisionists:—

Professor Warfield’s Paper presented to the New Brunswick Presbytery, June 25, 1889.

THE PRESBYTERY OF NEW BRUNSWICK AND THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION.

At the June intermediate meeting of the Presbytery of New Brunswick, held on June 25th at Dutch Neck, the overture of the General Assembly anent the revision of the Confession of Faith was answered in the negative, nemine contradicente, as follows :

“The Presbytery of New Brunswick, having carefully considered the overture in relation to the revision of the Confession of Faith, proposed by the General Assembly, respectfully replies as follows :

“This Presbytery does not desire any revision of the Confession of Faith.”

The reasons to be assigned for this answer, as proposed in a paper presented by Prof. B. B. Warfield, were then taken up ; but, on account of lack of time for full consideration, were laid over until the October meeting of the Presbytery. These reasons have been printed by order of the Presbytery, that all who are interested may have opportunity to consider them before the Fall meeting. They are as follows :

1. Our free but safe formula of acceptance of the Confession of Faith, by which we “receive and adopt it” as “containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures” (Form of Government, XV., xii.), relieves us of all necessity for seeking, each one to conform the Confession in all its propositions to his individual preferences, and enables us to treat the Confession as a public document, designed, not to bring each of our idiosyncrasies to expression, but to express the general and common faith of the whole body—which it adequately and admirably does.

2. Enjoying this free yet hearty relation to the Confession, we consider that our situation toward our Standards is incapable of improvement. However much or little the Confession were altered, we could not, as a body, accept the altered Confession in a closer sense than for system of doctrine ; and the alterations could not better it as a public Confession, however much it might be made a closer expression of the faith of some individuals among us. In any case, it could not be made, in all its propositions and forms of statement, the exact expression of the personal faith of each one of our thousands of office-bearers.
3. In these circumstances we are unwilling to mar the integrity of so venerable and admirable a document, in the mere license of change, without prospect of substantially bettering our relation to it or its fitness to serve as an adequate statement of the system of doctrine which we all heartily believe. The historical character and the hereditary value of the creed should, in such a case, be preserved.

4. We have no hope of bettering the Confession, either in the doctrines it states or in the manner in which they are stated. When we consider the guardedness, moderation, fullness, lucidity, and catholicity of its statement of the Augustinian system of truth, and of the several doctrines which enter into it, we are convinced that the Westminster Confession is the best, safest and most acceptable statement of the truths and the system which we most surely believe that has ever been formulated ; and we despair of making any substantial improvements upon its forms of sound words. On this account we not only do not desire changes on our own account, but should look with doubt and apprehension upon any efforts to improve upon it by the Church.

5. The moderate, catholic, and irenical character of the Westminster Confession has always made it a unifying document. Framed as an irenicon, it bound at once the Scotch and English Churches together ; it was adopted and continues to be used by many Congregational and Baptist Churches as the confession of their faith; with its accompanying Catechisms it has lately been made the basis of union between the two great Presbyterian bodies which united to constitute our Church ; and we are convinced that if Presbyterian union is to go further, it must be on the basis of the Westminster Standards, pure and simple. In the interests of Church union, therefore, as in the interests of a broad and irenical, moderate and catholic Calvinism, we deprecate any changes in our historical standards, to the system of doctrine contained in which we unabatedly adhere, and with the forms of statement of which we find ourselves in hearty accord.

Words to Live By:
Our Confession of Faith can be thought of as a commentary on what the Scriptures teach. As such, it serves to bring unity, when we jointly concur that the Confession summarizes some of the central doctrines taught in the Scriptures. It also serves as a public notice of what will be taught in our churches—think of it as something akin to a truth-in-advertising document : As the Confession is our agreed upon Standard, visitors to our churches should be able to expect a faithful proclamation of the Gospel from our pulpits and teachings that are in accord with the Westminster Standards. For these reasons and more, efforts to revise our Confession should be considered with the greatest care and reluctance. It’s not that the Confession is inerrant or incapable of further perfection, but changes should be soundly Biblical, vested with much prayer, and always with a clear purpose to glorify our Lord and Savior. The changes that eventually were made in 1903 proved damaging to the PCUSA, weakening the Calvinism of the document and thus paving the way for the 1906 reception of the larger portion of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church [about 1000 pastors and 90,000 members]. This was a denomination that historically had opposed Calvinism and taught Arminianism.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.—Hebrews 10:23 (NASB)

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

Q. 88. What are the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption?

A. The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are his ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all of which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.

Scripture References: Matt 28:19, 20. Acts 2:41, 42.

Questions:

1. Who communicates these benefits to the believers and what are these benefits?

Christ communicates these benefits for such is His responsibility. These benefits are everything that Christ purchased for the elect both here and forever.

2. How are these benefits communicated to the believers?

These benefits are communicated to the believers through mediation by Christ as He works through the ordinances.

3. Why do we call the benefits of redemption “His ordinances?”

They are called His ordinances because He instituted them in His Word and He is the Head of the Church.

4. Why does this Question state “especially the word, sacraments, and prayer …. ?”

These three are stated because they are the chief outward means of communicating the benefits of redemption. This is taught in Acts 2:42. It does not mean that the other means are not important. It simply means these are more important.

5. Why are these called “outward means”?

They are called outward means to distinguish them from the inward means such as faith and repentance, those mighty inward means of the Holy Spirit.

6. What do we mean by “salvation” in this Question?

By salvation in this Question is meant the complete doctrine of salvation. It means the beginning of deliverance from sin; the possession of new life and its resulting happiness in this life; the living unto God day by day; the blessedness which is to come when the believer gets to glory.

THE MEANS OF GRACE

When we hear these words, we are to think immediately of the Word, the sacraments and prayer. We do not think of them as the Roman Catholic Church thinks of them, that of rites which have the power to confer grace. Rather, the Reformed Faith has always thought of them as those means appointed by God for the purpose of conveying grace. The manner of conveying the grace comes through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The difficulty for the believer always comes when he does not make the proper use of the means of grace. Whether by disuse, or whether by a lack of use, the resulting effect will be a life that is not pleasing to the Lord. It is especially true in this day of the church that a proper use of the means of grace be made. Peter writes, “That ye may be mindful (care for) of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts.” (II Peter 3:2, 3). The time has come when believers must make a proper use of the means of grace in this day of apostasy in the church.

How can we best make use of the means of grace? First, we must be persuaded that it is important that we know them and make use of them. We must realize they come from God, that their efficacy depends solely on God, not on man nor the church. This is one of the greatest dangers facing us today, this false view of the means of grace.

Second, we must prepare ourselves for their use in us. We cannot expect God to work in unprepared hearts, hearts that are harboring sin. We must prepare ourselves for their use by saying with Paul, “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world.” (Titus 2: 12)

Third, we must make use of the means of grace. To make use of them we must use them! We should ever study the Word, making sure that each day finds us giving time to it. We should never miss an opportunity to partake of the Lord’s Supper and we should always keep our covenant vows made at baptism. We should pray without ceasing, knowing full well that a life void of prayer will be a fruitless life.

May God help us to recognize the means of grace as essential to our spiritual well-being!

Published by The SHIELD and SWORD, INC.
Dedicated to instruction in the Westminster Standards tor use as a bulletin insert or other methods of distribution in Presbyterian churches.

Vol. 6, No. 5 (May 1967)
Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn, Editor.

“A Sermon Preached Before A Convention of The Episcopal Church”
by William Smith (June 22, 1784)

Aberdeen born and educated Bishop William Smith ((1727–1803) left Scotland for New York City in 1751. His eloquence and brilliance attracted Ben Franklin’s attention, and Franklin brought him to teach in Philadelphia in 1755. For the next several decades Smith received academic accolades, taught philosophy, and was ordained to the Anglican priesthood. Shortly after arriving in Philadelphia, the fiery Scot sided with colonists (leaving the Quaker pacifism of Franklin and others), opposing the French in the war.

Although his views alternated on certain issues (preaching against the 1765 Stamp Act but later warning against the rebellion), he championed the American cause at one time preaching A Sermon on the Present Situation (1775; available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N11435.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext). That sermon in turn provoked a rebutting sermon from John Wesley (A Calm Address to Our American Colonies). However, for the last decades of his ministry he became an out-of-favor but articulate voice against the American revolution. In 1779, he was banned from Pennsylvania, but eventually returned there. An equal opportunity offender, throughout his time, he denounced popery, revivalistic emotionalism, Quakerism, and “the dangers of republicanism bereft of virtue and the steadying hand of traditional authority.” He was the founder of the Episcopal Church in this country.

Smith saw himself as one of the many biblical echoes. This sermon is taken from Paul’s second epistle to his understudy, Timothy (1:13-14 and 4:3-4).

In this sermon, the preacher urges an avoidance of heeding fables and vain thoughts. He also warns against a faith that listens only and does not bear fruit. Next, he calls for a faithful preaching of the gospel, regardless of the condition of the audience; indeed, one of the most salutary things that the church can donate to a nation is sound preaching of the Word as Paul did in these epistles. Following a fine and irrefutable exposition of these verses from 2 Timothy, Smith pointed to a recovery of this sound doctrine, as follows:

After the long night of darkness and error, the day dawned, and the glorious sun of the gospel again shone forth under the blessed Reformation; when our fathers, the founders, or rather the restorers, of the church whereof we profess ourselves the members, bore an illustrious part (many of them with the price of their blood) in throwing down the vast fabric of straw and stubble, and building again upon the pure and stable foundation, that rock of ages which is Christ! True religion again lifted up her radiant head in ours and other reformed churches, who ‘sought the good old way to walk therein, that so they might find rest to their souls.’ They turned their hearts to the truth as it is in Jesus, and did not seek to be turned unto fables.

However, Smith thought that these Reformed churches had now become compromised and were deserting the true faith, serving political ideals instead. One result, he lamented, was the diminution for the role of civil discourse and enquiry. The once stalwart Reformed churches, he thought, were associating with a “contrary temper” and accommodating “religion to worldly purposes.” This “general reforming spirit,” he suggested occasionally took “to reform too much, to fill the world, as of old, with disputes and distinctions totally unessential to Christianity, and destructive of its true spirit, when set in opposition to the weightier matters of the law—vital piety and true evangelical obedience.”

He feared that “there is a greater weight of religion in the evangelic grace of charity, in one sigh of good-will to men, than in all the doubtful questions about which the Protestant churches have been puzzling themselves, and biting and devouring each other since the days of their Reformation!” Throughout this sermon, he warned against pride, lack of charity, the tendency toward privatized religion, and demagoguery.

Denunciations of other sincere believers and a sectarian divisiveness troubled Smith, leading him to comment: “Can this be the true fruits of the spirit, or tend to the edification, or building up the body of Christ’s church? I would speak with great love, but with great plainness too—this may build up the walls of a Babel, but cannot rear up the walls of Jerusalem, which is to be a city of peace, at unity within itself.”

Before his audience, he lamented: “But in this country, at present such is her state, that she calls for the pious assistance and united support of all her true sons, and of the friends of Christianity in general. Besides a famine of the preached word, her sound doctrines are deserted by many, who “turn away their ears from the truth” as taught by her, and heap to themselves teachers as described in the text.”

Notwithstanding, it might complete the reader’s ideas about Smith to hear a few choice nuggets from his earlier 1775 sermon (June 23) on Joshua 22:22.

THE whole history of the Bible cannot furnish a passage more instructive than this, to the members of a great empire, whose dreadful misfortune it is to have the evil Demon of civil or religious discord gone forth among them. And would to God, that the application I am now to make of it could be delivered in accents louder than Thunder, till they have pierced the ear of every Briton, and especially their ears who have meditated war and destruction against their brother-tribes of Reuben and Gad, in this our American Gilead. And let me add—would to God too that we, who this day consider ourselves in the place of those tribes, may, like them, be still able to lay our hands on our hearts in a solemn appeal to the God of Gods, for the rectitude of our intentions towards the whole common wealth of our BRITISH ISRAEL. For, call’d to this sacred place, on this great occasion, I know it is your wish that I should stand superior to all partial motives, and be found alike unbiass’d by favour or by fear. And happy it is that the parallel, now to be drawn, requires not the least sacrifice either of truth or virtue!

LIKE the tribes of Reuben and Gad, we have chosen our inheritance, in a land separated from that of our fathers and brethren, not indeed by a small River, but an immense Ocean. This inheritance we likewise hold by a plain original contract, entitling us to all the natural and improvable advantages of our situation, and to a community of privileges with our brethren, in every civil and religious respect; except in this, that the throne or seat of Empire, that great altar at which the men of this world bow, was to remain among them.

HAVING never sold our birth-right, we considered ourselves entitled to the privileges of our father’s house—”to enjoy peace, liberty and safety;” to be governed, like our brethren, by our own laws, in all matters properly affecting ourselves, and to offer up own our sacrifices at the altar of British empire; contending that a forced devotion is idolatry, and that no power on earth has a right to come in between us and a gracious sovereign, to measure forth our loyalty, or to grant our property, without our consent.

IT is time, and indeed more than time, for a great and enlightened people to make names bend to things, and ideal honor to practical safety? Precedents and indefinite claims are surely things too nugatory to convulse a mighty empire. Is there no wisdom, no great and liberal plan of policy to re-unite its members, as the sole bulwark of liberty and protestantism; rather than by their deadly strife to encrease the importance of those states that are foes to freedom, truth and humanity? To devise such a plan; and to behold British Colonies spreading over this immense Continent, rejoicing in the common rights of freemen, and imitating the Parent State in every excellence—is more glory than to hold lawless dominion over all the nations on the face of the earth!

BUT I will weary you no longer with fruitless lamentations concerning things that might be done. The question now is— since they are not done, must we tamely surrender any part of our birthright or of that great charter of privileges, which we not only claim by inheritance, but by the express terms of our colonization? I say, God forbid! For here, in particular, I wish to speak so plain that neither my own principles, nor those of the church to which I belong, may be misunderstood.

Sounding like Mayhew and Calvin before him, the earlier Smith proclaimed:

A CONTINUED submission to violence is no tenet of our church. When her brightest luminaries, near a century past, were called to propagate the court doctrine of a dispensing Power, above Law— did they treacherously cry—‘Peace, Peace,’ when there was no Peace! Did they not magnanimously set their foot upon the line of the constitution, and tell Majesty to its face that ‘they could not betray the public liberty,’ and that the Monarch’s only safety consisted ‘in governing according to the laws?’ Did not their example, and consequent sufferings, kindle a flame that illuminated the land and introduced that noble system of public and personal liberty, secured by the revolution? Since that period, have not the avowed principles of our greatest divines been against raising the Church above the State; jealouse of the national rights, resolute for the protestant succession, favourable to the reformed religion, and desirous to maintain the faith of Toleration? If exceptions have happened, let no society of christians stand answerable for the deviations, or corruptions, of individuals.

THE doctrine of absolute NON-RESISTANCE has been fully exploded among every virtuous people. The free-born soul revolts against it, and must have been long debased, and have drank in the last dregs of corruption, before it can brook the idea

The reader may choose to like the earlier or the later Smith. But most could wish for Anglican preaching of this ilk.

Available online at: http://consource.org/document/a-sermon-preached-before-a-convention-of-the-episcopal-church-by-william-smith-1784-6-22/. Also in Ellis Sandoz??

By Dr. David W. Hall, Pastor
Midway Presbyterian Church

Taken from Twenty Messages to Consider Before Voting

TEN REASONS FOR BEING A PRESBYTERIAN.

“The great thing in the Church is CHRIST, the blood of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the presence of Christ among us. The great thing is Christ, but there is also advantage in a certain government of the Church of Christ. I am a Presbyterian, not only of situation, but of conviction and choice. Our Presbyterian way is the good middle way between Episcopacy on the one side, and Congregationalism on the other. We combine the two great principles that must be maintained in the Church—Order and Liberty; the order of government, and the liberty of the people.”—Merle d’ Aubigne.

SEVENTH REASON.

7. I AM A PRESBYTERIAN—because the Sacraments are in our Church administered agreeably to the Word of God. We baptize  adults on profession of their faith in Christ, and we baptize the infants of such as are members of the visible Church.—(Acts xvi. 33; Gen. xvii. 7, with Colossians ii. 11, 12; 1 Cor. vii. 14.)

In the dispensation of the Lord’s supper we do not kneel before an altar, but we sit at the Lord’s table, receiving the sacramental bread and wine in the customary posture of men who celebrate a feast, as Christ and his disciples set the example. We have no altar in our Churches, because the sacrament of the supper is not a sacrifice, but an ordinance commemorative of the one sacrifice of Christ. The admission of members to the Lord’s supper is after examination and warning and instruction as to the nature and objects of the ordinance.—(1 Cor. xi. 26–28.)

EIGHTH REASON.

8. I AM A PRESBYTERIAN—because I love and pray for unity; not uniformity at the expense of truth, but unity based on truth and charity. Our Presbyterian Church has its congregations knit together in mutual dependence and sympathy, as one body in the unity of the Spirit, having one Lord and Head, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. And all are united under one superintendence and government, holding the same standards, and maintaining the same principles, the strong helping and bearing the burden of the weak, the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel. We thus enjoy a visible, as well as a spiritual unity, according to the scriptural idea of the Church, the body of Christ.—(Ephesians iv. 8–16.)