This Day in Presbyterian History

Our good friend Dr. David W. Hall continues to use his time to best advantage and returns today with another entry in our Election Day Sermon series. This sermon has particular relevance to the modern situation—very much needed regardless of who the nominees may be—and so should be read carefully if you intend to vote this November. 

“An Election Sermon”
by Samuel Cooke (May 30, 1770)

The Rev. Samuel Cooke (Harvard, class of 1735; d. 1783) preached this sermon to Her Majesty’s Council, the militia, and the Massachusetts House of Representatives in Cambridge, MA in 1770. Among the Councillors elected at that meeting were Samuel Adams (clerk) and John Hancock, whose signature has become notorious.

At the time of the Declaration of Independence, Calvinistic Americans denounced the tendencies that entrusted too much power to human agents, fearing their sinful yearning for control. Skepticism about the goodness of human nature was prevalent among the founders of the American nation: “Hostility to unchecked power was the leading idea in all debates about the Constitution, expressed in one fashion or another by all the major actors. A fair statement of the composite view is that the impulses and disorders of human nature which made government necessary also made it dangerous. Hence the need for checks and balances, divided powers, and safeguards of all descriptions.”¹ James Madison, educated at Princeton, a hotbed of Reformation thought, said in Federalist #51 that, “It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?”

Checks and balances were also the topic of numerous sermons. One by Samuel Cooke in 1770 argued as follows: “In the present imperfect state, the whole power cannot with safety be entrusted with a single person; nor with many, acting jointly in the same public capacity. Various branches of power, concentring in the community from which they originally derive their authority, are a mutual check to each other in their several departments, and jointly secure the common interest.” Cooke preached the following to a listening audience that included John Hancock and Samuel Adams: “Rulers are appointed guardians of the constitution in their respective stations, and must confine themselves within the limits by which their authority is circumscribed.” Cooke announced that a free state could not continue unless its branches and connections remained at liberty.

From 2 Samuel 23:3-4, Cooke addressed the moral qualities needed for rulers in “He That Ruleth over Men Must be Just, Ruling in the Fear of the Lord.” Although Scripture did not enjoin all the specifics of political form, notwithstanding, Cooke preached: “The ends of civil government, in divine revelation, are clearly pointed out, the character of rulers described, and the duty of subjects asserted and explained; and in this view civil government may be considered as an ordinance of God, and, when justly exercised, greatly subservient to the glorious purposes of divine providence and grace: but the particular form is left to the choice and determination of mankind.”

As societies evolve from simple to complex, “The people, the collective body only,” Cooke said, “have a right under God, to determine who shall exercise this trust for the common interest, and to fix the bounds of their authority; and, consequently, unless we admit the most evident inconsistency, those in authority, in the whole of their public conduct, are accountable to the society which gave them their political existence.” Valid expectations were as follows: “This solemn charge given to rulers is not an arbitrary injunction imposed by God, but is founded in the most obvious laws of nature and reason. Rulers are appointed for this very end—to be ministers of God for good. The people have a right to expect this from them, and to require it, not as an act of grace, but as their unquestionable due.”

Of priorities, “The first attention of the faithful ruler will be to the subjects of government in their specific nature. He will not forget that he ruleth over men,—men who are of the same species with himself, and by nature equal,—men who are the offspring of God, and alike formed after his glorious image,—men of like passions and feelings with himself, and, as men, in the sight of their common Creator of equal importance,—men who have raised him to power, and support him in the exercise of it.”

With great clarity, he said, “The just ruler, sensible he is in trust for the public, with an impartial hand will supply the various offices in society; his eye will be upon the faithful; merit only in the candidate will attract his attention. He will not, without sufficient reason, multiply lucrative offices in the community, which naturally tends to introduce idleness and oppression.” He also opined: “Knowing, therefore, that his conduct will bear the light, and his public character be established by being fully known, he will rather encourage than discountenance a decent freedom of speech, not only in public assemblies, but among the people. This liberty is essential to a free constitution, and the ruler’s surest guide.”

How’s this for a continuation of Reformation era norms: “Justice also requires of rulers, in their legislative capacity, that they attend to the operation of their own acts, and repeal whatever laws, upon an impartial review, they find to be inconsistent with the laws of God, the rights of men, and the general benefit of society. This, the community hath a right to expect.”

Accountability and transparency are seen in the expectations for rulers who “will not fear to have his public conduct critically inspected, but will choose to recommend himself to the approbation of every man. As he expects to be obeyed for conscience sake, he will require nothing inconsistent with its dictates, and be desirous that the most scrupulous mind may acquiesce in the justice of his rule.” Moreover, the desideratum was for a ruler who would be “in a measure above the fear of man, but are, equally with others, under the restraints of the divine law.”

Noting that all rulers were subject to frailty, the key restraining factor, according to Cooke was: “the true fear of God only is sufficient to control the lusts of men, and especially the lust of dominion, to suppress pride, the bane of every desirable quality in the human soul, the never failing source of wanton and capricious power.” Fear of the Lord was, according to these grandparents, a deterrent against immorality and tyranny. Such would refine and improve leaders, who would also be seeking the approval of the citizens, who expected rectitude, justice, and peace. The fear of God, indeed, was the beginning of political wisdom, once upon a time.

One modern historian credited Cooke’s 1770 sermon with the following praise: “Many of the principles on which the Declaration of Independence rests are already here: Civil government is an ordinance of God; only the people have the right to choose who will rule them; government must contain a balance of power with built-in checks; people have a ‘right’ to good government; a ruler will not forget that his subjects are ‘by nature equal’ to himself; the people will be subjected to no restrictions not founded on reason; laws must be clear and explicit . . .

Cooke concludes: “The religion of Jesus teacheth the true fear of God, and marvelously discloseth the plan of divine government. In his gospel, as through a glass, we see heaven opened, the mysteries of providence and grace unveiled, Jesus sitting on the right hand of God, to whom all power is committed, and coming to judge the world in righteousness.”

This sermon is available on line, and may be accessed by clicking here. It is also published in my Election Sermons (2012).

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

Wisdom from the Past: Should We Help the Exiles?

It was on this day, May 11th, in 1834, that the Rev. William Buell Sprague preached in the Second Presbyterian Church of Albany, New York, a sermon that Sabbath evening on behalf of Polish exiles who had recently arrived in the United States. Driven from their homeland, these twenty-six exiles now sought refuge in our country, but had arrived destitute and in urgent need of aid. Rev. Sprague was asked to preach on their behalf in an effort to raise the funds needed for their assistance. 

There are clear differences between the situation then confronting Rev. Sprague and his audience, and the situation which has in recent months consumed our headlines. For one, there were but twenty-six of these Polish exiles arriving on our shores, not thousands. And their stated intent was to become “worthy and useful citizens” who would readily adopt our laws and our ways. Nonetheless, the following is offered with the thought that perhaps there is here some wisdom that we can glean for contemporary application.  

The sermon is based upon the text of Hebrews 13:3, “Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body.” and Rev. Sprague opens his sermon in this way;

The apostle commences this chapter by exhorting the Hebrew Christians to the general duty of brotherly love. In the passage just read, he reminds them particularly of their obligations to administer, according to their ability, to the relief of those oppressed brethren whose attachment to the Christian faith had subjected them to persecution and imprisonment; and, as an argument for the discharge of this duty, he alludes to the consideration that they and their afflicted brethren possessed a common nature, and were alike subject to human calamity. You will, I think, readily perceive that the passage suggests a train of thought not inappropriate to the present occasion. 

Sprague quickly moves to the first point of his sermon, that Christians have a duty of charity to those in need:

I. Let us contemplate, for a moment, the DUTY which the text enjoins: it is charity to the wretched and necessitous.

That duty, he notes, is an active duty. Another property of Christian charity is that it is enlightened. We are not called to an indiscriminate duty of charity. Rather, our charity is to be guided by Scripture and by prayer. Then too, Christian charity is to be “controlled in its operations by a regard to the will of God:

In a gust of natural feeling, you may give all your goods to feed the poor, and this act may place you high on the list of earthly benefactors; and yet, if it be not done from a regard to the will of God, it can never turn to your account as an act of genuine Christian philanthropy.

Our duty thus underscored, Sprague then moves to the Apostle’s argument, “drawn from the fact that we are all partakers of a common nature; members of the same great family.”—”Remember them that suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.”  Sprague notes that “The fact that we are in the body, and inhabitants of this world of sorrow, is a sufficient reason why we should always live in expectation of adversity.”

Moreover,

In a world abounding with changes like the present, no man can say that his prosperity will last for an hour; or that the person who is now the object of his charity may not soon be administering charity to him. The best security you can have against being neglected or forsaken in the day of adversity, is to show yourself always the friend of suffering humanity. 

Rev. Sprague then moves to address the particulars of the subject in view, these Polish exiles and how it is that they have come to this country:

They chose America; and hither they have come in all their want and wretchedness; and their presence this evening must, I am sure, call into exercise your liveliest sympathies. Let it be remembered that they are not vulgar and uneducated men, who were born to the prospect of a life of penury; on the contrary, they are men of considerable intellectual culture, of high and honorable feelings, and some of them are connected with families of rank, and have been accustomed to move in circles of distinction. . . The idea of asking charity exceedingly revolts their feelings, notwithstanding the iron pressure of their necessities; and that what they most of all desire is, that they may be furnished with some employment, no matter how humble it may be, by means of which they may provide for their own subsistence. They come to find a refuge among us from the bloody horrors of a most disastrous revolution; and they come, of course, in all the want and wretchedness of exiles; but they bring with them a spirit of subordination and industry, and a determination to render themselves worthy and useful citizens.

Reminding his hearers of the reasons why they should extend their charity to these men, Sprague continues:

Remember too, that you are the children of those who embarked their fortunes and their lives in a bloody conflict for freedom; and that if Heaven had not been propitious in giving them the victory, you might yourselves have been the sons of slaves, groaning under the hand of oppression, or perhaps flying to the ends of the earth for an asylum.

Moreover, 

Remember also, that though you live in a free country, you live in a mutable world; and the day may come when even the grave of American liberty shall be dug; and this land shall drink the blood of its own inhabitants; and the glory of our republican institutions shall be trampled in the dust; and you or your children be chained to a despot’s car, and grace a despot’s triumph. I do not predict such an event; and I pray the God of all goodness, who has been the protector of our nation’s liberties hitherto, that it may never occur; but when I see how the spirit of revolution is abroad among the nations, and especially when I open my ear to the din of party strife which is raging on every side, I dare not say that these clouds which flit about here and there in our political atmosphere, may not, by some fearful principle of attraction, be drawn together, and concentrate in terrific blackness their angry elements, and burst upon this land in a wild storm, which shall uproot the tree of liberty which was planted at the expense of the blood of our fathers, and which had begun to yield fruit for the healing of other nations. I say again, may the merciful God avert from us this doom; but if it should be so, and the night-clouds of an ignoble bondage should come over this land, and you should be driven from your wives, and daughters, and mothers, into a foreign country, and should land upon the shores of another nation in all the depths of poverty and woe, and should be unable to tell the story of your own wrongs, say what would be so grateful to you, what would help so much to abate the anguish of recollection, as to be greeted by the spirit of Christian philanthropy; to see the stranger stepping forth to give you a brother’s hand? Put thy soul then, O man, in his soul’s stead; and by the tide of sorrowful recollection which would then press upon thee, and by the painful embarrassments which would cluster about thee,—resolve, with thine ear open to the voice of conscience, and thine eye open upon the retributions of eternity,—resolve how this appeal in behalf of thine exiled, suffering brother, shall be answered.

Words to Live By:
Sprague’s appeal on behalf of these Polish exiles was successful. His message was well received and he was even asked to deliver it again a few nights later in another church. And the crux of Rev. Sprague’s argument for extending charity to those in need comes down to this statement by our Lord Jesus Christ: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”—Matthew 7:12.

To read the whole of Rev. Sprague’s sermon delivered that May 11th in 1834, click here.

The Power of Preaching

Daniel Lynn Carroll was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, on May 10th, 1797. After surmounting great obstacles to his education, he was finally able to graduate from Jefferson College in 1823, at the age of twenty-six. He then enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary and took the three-year curriculum, staying for another six months of study after graduation. Of Mr. Carroll, Archibald Alexander said that he was one of his finest students.

Seeking a call, he was installed as the pastor of a Congregational church in Litchfield, Connecticut in October of 1827. Then early in March, 1829, he accepted a call from the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, Long Island, though this pastorate ended in 1835, due to a severe throat ailment.

Almost immediately he was appointed to serve as the President of the Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. Carroll, unknown to most at the school, was elected to the position almost entirely on the testimony of one old friend who was among the College’s trustees. His term here too was relatively brief, with Rev. Carroll resigning over what was described as “some theological difficulties.” Without further investigation, it appears that Rev. Carroll may have been a New School man, and thus his problems.

Upon his resignation from Hampden-Sydney, Carroll accepted a call to the First Church of the Northern Liberties, a section of  Philadelphia. This was the church where the Rev. James Patterson had ministered so effectively and the region where Patterson had evangelized so fervently. To have followed a beloved pastor like Patterson and done so with success, speaks well of Rev. Carroll and his abilities. Carroll remained at First Church until 1844, when declining health forced his retirement from that pulpit. After a brief tour of service for the Colonization Society, he died, in Philadelphia, at the age of fifty-five, on November 23, 1851.As a preacher,, Dr. Carroll was quite popular, and often preached to crowded churches. He had a refined taste, a lively imagination, and a careful organization in all that he did and said. He excelled at the pulpit. Two volumes of his sermons were published, along with some topical discourses issued separately.Dr. Carroll also contributed an introduction and a chapter to the Memoir issued upon the death of the Rev. James Patterson. Carroll’s chapter from that book focused on field preaching, an activity which characterized Rev. Patterson’s ministry. 

”When he first settled in the northern part of the city of Philadelphia, his church and congregation were comparatively small. But his pastoral labours and visits—his animation, his unaffected earnestness, his holy compassion for souls, and his clear and forcible presentation of the pungent truths of the gospel, soon rendered his preaching so attractive as to fill and crowd the place of worship with attentive hearers. He preached three times on the Sabbath, beside lecturing and attending prayer meetings during the week. He was most assiduous and indefatigable in visiting and pastoral efforts. Now, with this, nay, with less than this, as the measure of their labours, most ministers are abundantly satisfied. Not so with Mr. Patterson. Beside the multitude that crowded the place of worship where he preached, there was a mass of neglected suburban population who went nowhere to hear the gospel, and had “no man naturally to care for their souls.” They desecrated the Sabbath by collecting in groups round the dram-shops, and spending its holy hours in rioting and drunkenness. The benevolent spirit of Mr. Patterson “was stirred within him,” when he contemplated these dense crowds of ruined yet immortal beings, moving in unbroken procession down the pathway to hell. His concern for them soon ripened into an active, laborious compassion, which led to a series of efforts for their good that have no parallel, as we believe, in the history of any settled pastor in this country. This remark refers to his preaching on the Sabbath in the fields. With essentially the same spirit that animated Paul, when he stood on “Mars Hill,” and proclaimed the gospel to those who “were wholly given to idolatry,”
Mr. Patterson, amidst all his other exhausting labours, commenced preaching on the commons on Sabbath afternoons, after the close of the second service in church. The crowds which he drew around him, and the temporary and permanent effects of those efforts, have not been surpassed since the days of Whitefield.”To interest such an audience as that which he drew around him on these occasions was no easy task. They were a heterogeneous population, many of whom had never enjoyed a religious education–had never been trained to respect the worship of God and the ordinances of religion–had no habits of attending public worship–had never been accustomed to read or think on serious subjects, and, of course, had none of those habitudes of mind favourable to the reception and solemn consideration of divine truth.
In his labours with them, Mr. Patterson had to contend with all that ignorance, wnat of thought, waywardness, irreverence, and undisciplined moral feeling which usually attach to such a class of population. Nor had he the collateral helps furnished by an imposing church edifice, and the example of a large number of pious and respectful worshipers. Yet, in the absence of all these facilities, for arresting attention and producing impression, few preachers for the last half century, have secured a more profound attention, or been the instrument of producing so deep a feeling of interest in an audience as did Mr. Patterson in these services. It was no unusual occurrence for the whole multitude that surrounded him to be melted into tears. This was, in a great measure, the result of his singularly happy method of adapting his instructions to the character and capacities of his hearers. In this respect he exercised an extraordinary ingenuity, interspersing his discourses with pertinent and impressive anecdotes drawn from the providential dealings of God with men which he had personally witnessed.”