George Whitefield

You are currently browsing articles tagged George Whitefield.

August 6: Rev. Samuel Blair

6 August, 2013 in August 2013 by archivist | No comments

What Type of Preaching is Necessary Today for a Spiritual Awakening?

Our question in the title is a key one.  We have read in history of various revivals of religion which took place in our country from her earliest days, including the first great awakening under George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, Jonathan Edwards, and Samuel Blair.  Samuel Blair?  Yes, Samuel Blair.

Blair was born in Ireland in 1712, and brought to America in his youth.  He was a Log College graduate, and licensed by the Presbytery of Philadelphia in 1733.  He was ordained and installed as a pastor in  New Jersey in 1734.  Five years later, he answered a call to serve the Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church, just south of Cochranville, Pennsylvania.  The church had been founded in 1730, and had been ten years without a shepherd.  Rev. Blair was led to receive the call and thus came to this church.

He  had been there for four months, commenting that religion lay as it were a-dying.  He preached but four months when a powerful revival of religion occurred in the church and surrounding community, beginning on August 6, 1744.  Writing later on what type of preaching the Holy Spirit was pleased to bless, Rev. Blair said,

“The main scope of my preaching was, laying open the deplorable state of man by nature since the fall, our ruined, exposed case by the breach of the first covenant, and the awful condition of such as were not in Christ, giving the marks and characters of such as were in that condition, through a Mediator, with the nature and necessity of faith in Christ the Mediator.  I labored much on the last mentioned head, that people might  have right apprehensions of the gospel method of faith of life and salvation.  I treated much on the way of a sinner’s closing with Christ by faith, and obtaining a right peace to an awakened, wounded conscience; showing that persons were not to take peace to themselves on account of their repentings, sorrows, prayers, and reformations, not to make those things the grounds of their adventuring themselves upon Christ and His righteousness, and of their expectations of life by Him, . . . but by an understanding view and believing persuasion of the way of life, as revealed in the gospel, through the surety-ship, obedience, and sufferings of Jesus Christ, with a view of the suitableness and sufficiency of that mediatory righteousness of Christ for the justification of law-condemned sinners; and thereupon freely accepting Him for their Savior.  I endeavored to show the fruits and evidences of a true faith.”

To be sure, other voices had been added to such preaching of the gospel. Four years before this year, in May and November of 1740, George Whitefield preached the gospel before 12,000 persons on the grounds of Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church.  Great spiritual results occurred on these occasions as well.

Today, the church continues and is the second oldest Presbyterian church in the Presbyterian Church in America.  Only the name has changed, to Manor Presbyterian Church.

Words to live by:  Pray diligently for our teaching elders and congregations, that we would first humble ourselves, confessing our sins, and seeking the Lord, that the Lord would draw us near, and that we would grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as we sit under the faithful proclamation of the Word of God.

Tags: , , , ,

June 14: Samuel Blair

14 June, 2013 in June 2013 by archivist | No comments

He Lived Holy and Died Joyful

The Presbyterian preacher and pastor didn’t make it to age forty.  But his almost four decades was filled with work for the Savior in His church.

Our focus for This Day in Presbyterian History is Samuel Blair.  Born June 14, 1712 in Ireland, Samuel traveled to America when he was quite young.  He received his classical and theological education in the school of the Rev. William Tennent, Sr. at Neshaminy, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a school which later became celebrated as the Log College.  When he finished his training, he was licensed to preach at Abingdon, Pennsylvania by the Presbytery of Philadelphia on November 9, 1733.

For five years, he labored as a pastor in a double charge in the Presbyterian churches in Middleton and Shrewsbury, New Jersey.  The people of those congregations were said to be very irreligious.   Not much spiritual fruit was registered in his ministry among them.  But then a call came from Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church in eastern Pennsylvania.  The Presbytery of New Brunswick, of which he was a member, advised him to accept that call, as they were convinced that a wider field of usefulness would be found there.  To Faggs Manor then in 1739, Samuel Blair went, and after one year, he began his ministry in 1740.  Samuel Blair would be the first pastor they had, even though they had been in existence for ten years.

Preaching to a congregation in which Blair later on characterized as “religion lay as it was a-dying,” the Holy Spirit began after four months a spiritual awakening in their hearts and minds which later on would be part of the first great awakening in the colonies.  Faggs Manor Presbyterian would be the middle location of that awakening which took place from Massachusetts to Georgia.

The same year of 1740, on two occasions in May and November, evangelist George Whitefield would preach at Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church as a guest evangelist.  This author has stood many times on the property of this congregation at approximately the same location where this spiritual awakening took place.  He has on many a day imagined in his mind’s eye the twelve thousand people in attendance responding in repentance and faith at the powerful peaching of the Word of God.  And Samuel Blair himself went around the colonies, preaching the same good news of eternal life, extending that which the Spirit of God began in earnest that year.

But conversions to Christ did not stop in Blair’s ministry.  Seeing the effect on his life and ministry from the log college, Samuel Blair began his own training station for godly young men.  Some of the most illustrious “scholars, preachers, pastors, and patriots” became “a noble company, a goodly fellowship, showing the Church what manner of men the apostles and martyrs were.” (Alfred Nevin, Encyclopedia of the Presbyterian Church, p. 79.)

Involved in the beginnings of the College of New Jersey as a trustee, he took an active part in that school of the prophets.  Remember, travel in those days involved long hours on horseback.  It was one hundred miles from the church to the college.  On one of those long and tiring trips, his health broke and  he died on June 5, 1751 at the age of 39.  Nevin sums up his life by stating “he spoke as he believed, he practiced what he preached, he lived holy, and he died joyfully.” (Nevin, p. 79)

Words to Live By:
Evangelism and equipping. The two go together, in that our Savior in His Great Commission commanded us to “go and make disciples.”  Don’t misread it to say, “go and make decisions.”  Biblically, disciples are made, not born.

Note: Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church is the second oldest Presbyterian Church in America congregation, having been organized in 1730.  It is now called simply Manor Presbyterian Church.

Samuel Blair’s gravestone:

blairgravestone02

Tags: , , , , , ,

November 22: Rev. George Whitefield

22 November, 2012 in November 2012 by davidtmyers | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History:

The World Turned Upside Down

In writing his journal on November 22, 1739, the Rev. George Whitefield described an evangelistic tour in the year of 1739 through the American colonies.  Coming to the home congregation of Rev. William Tennent, Senior, in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, Whitefield preached to some 3000 individuals gathered in the yard. After the Word  has been proclaimed in all of its fulness, to the immediate spiritual effect upon the hearers, Whitefield went on to describe the famous forerunner to Princeton Seminary and University, the Log College.  He wrote,

“The place wherein the young men study now is in contempt called the Log College.  It is a Log-house, about Twenty Feet long, and near as many broad; and to me it seemed to resemble the School of the old Prophets. For that their Habitations were mean (low), and that they sought not great things for themselves, is plain from that Passage of Scripture wherein we are told that at the Feasts of the Sons of the Prophets, one of them put on the Pot, whilst the others went to fetch some Herbs out of the Field.  All that can be said of most of our public Universities is, they are all glorious without!  From this despised Place Seven or Eight worthy Ministers of Jesus Christ have lately been sent forth; more are almost ready to be sent, and a Foundation is now laying for the Instruction of many others. The Devil will certainly rage against them, but the Work, I am persuaded, is of God, and therefore will not come to nought. Carnal ministers oppose them strongly; and because People, when awakened by Mr Tennent, or his Brethren, see through, and therefore leave their Ministry, the poor Gentlemen are loaded down with contempt, and looked upon (as all faithful Preachers will be) as Persons that turn the World upside down.”

To George Whitefield, a spiritual battle was commencing between the angel Michael and the devil himself as a result of these Log College graduates going out into the world. Yet  the great revivalist was confidant that God would prevail in the coming struggle.

Words to live by:  There is no  doubt that this tiny theological school had a spiritual influence far beyond its size in the infant Presbyterian church.  Let us learn never to judge any Christian work from the numbers which attend it. Every large church today began as a smaller congregation, sometimes but a handful of committed Christians. The more important question is, is the whole counsel of God being taught and believed and followed? If it is, then that is the church to which you need to commit your soul and body, to say nothing of your spiritual gifts and your time.

Through the Scriptures:  1 Corinthians 1 – 4

Through the Standards:  Dispensing the Lord’s Supper

WCF 29:3
“The Lord Jesus has, in this ordinance, appointed  His ministers to declare His Word of institution to the people; to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them apart from a common to a holy use; and to take and break the bread, to take the cup, and (they communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants; but to none who are not then present in the congregation.”

Image sources:
1. Engraved portrait of George Whitefield, from The General Assembly’s Missionary Magazine: or Evangelical Intelligencer: For 1806. William P. Farrand, Editor. Vol. II. Philadelphia: Printed for, and Published by, William P. Farrand, No. 170, Market Street. Fry and Kammerer, Printers. 1806. Portrait of Whitefield facing page [401].
2. Frontispiece portrait from The Presbytery of the Log College, by Thomas Murphy. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-school Work, 1889.
Scans prepared by the staff of the PCA Historical Center.

 

Tags: , , ,

August 6: Samuel Blair

6 August, 2012 in August 2012 by davidtmyers | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History:

What Type of Preaching is Necessary Today for a Spiritual Awakening?

Our question in the title is a key one.  We have read in history of various revivals of religion which took place in our country from her earliest days, including the first great awakening under George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, Jonathan Edwards, and Samuel Blair.  Samuel Blair?  Yes, Samuel Blair.

Blair was born in Ireland in 1712, and brought to America in his youth.  He was a Log College graduate, and licensed by the Presbytery of Philadelphia in 1733.  He became the pastor in  New Jersey in 1734.  Five years later, he was issued a call from Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church, just south of Cochranville, Pennsylvania.  The church had been founded in 1730, and had been ten years without a shepherd.  Rev. Blair was led to receive the call and came to this church.

He  had been here for four months, commenting that religion lay as it were a-dying.  He preached but four months when a powerful revival of religion occurred in the church and surrounding community on August 6, 1744.  Writing himself later on what type of preaching the Holy Spirit was pleased to bless, he said,

“The main scope of my preaching was, laying open the deplorable state of man by nature since the fall, our ruined, exposed case by the breach of the first covenant, and the awful condition of such as were not in Christ, giving the marks and characters of such as were in that condition, through a Mediator, with the nature and necessity of faith in Christ the Mediator.  I labored much on the last mentioned head, that people might  have right apprehensions of the gospel method of faith of life and salvation.  I treated much on the way of a sinner’s closing with Christ by faith, and obtaining a right peace to an awakened, wounded conscience; showing that persons were not to take peace to themselves on account of their repentings, sorrows, prayers, and reformations, not to make those things the grounds of their adventuring themselves upon Christ and His righteousness, and of their expectations of life by Him, . . . but by an understanding view and believing persuasion of the way of life, as revealed in the gospel, through the surety-ship, obedience, and sufferings of Jesus Christ, with a view of the suitableness and sufficiency of that mediatory righteousness of Christ for the justification of law-condemned sinners; and thereupon freely accepting Him for their Savior.  I endeavored to show the fruits and evidences of a true faith.”

To be sure, other voices had been  added to such preaching of the gospel. Four years before this year, in May and November of 1740, George Whitefield preached the gospel before 12,000 persons on the grounds of Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church.  Great spiritual results occurred on these occasions as well.

Today, the church continues and is the second oldest Presbyterian church in the Presbyterian Church in America.  Only the name has changed, to Manor Presbyterian Church.

Words to live by:  Pray much for the teaching elder and congregation that there be another outpouring of the Spirit of God upon your church, its pastors, the Session of Elders,  its families, and the entire denomination.  In fact, make it your personal prayer, “Lord, begin a revival of your people, and Lord . . . begin it in me.”

Through the Scriptures: Jeremiah 3 – 5

Through the Standards: The eighth commandment: sins forbidden

WLC 142 — “What are the sins forbidden in the eighth commandment?
A. The sins forbidden in the eighth commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, theft, robbery, man-stealing, and receiving any thing that is stolen; fraudulent dealing, false weights and measures, removing landmarks, injustice and unfaithfulness in contracts between man and man, or in matters of trust; oppression, extortion, usury, bribery, vexatious law-suits, unjust inclosures and depopulations; engrossing commodities to enhance the price; unlawful callings, and all other unjust or sinful ways of taking or withholding from our neighbor what belongs to him, or of enriching ourselves; covetousness, inordinate prizing and affecting worldly goods; distrustful and distracting cares and studies in getting, keeping, and using them; envying at the prosperity of others; as likewise idleness, prodigality, wasteful gaming; and all other ways whereby we do unduly prejudice our own outward estate, and defrauding ourselves of the due use and comfort of that estate which God has given us.”

WSC 75 — “What is forbidden in the eighth commandment?
A.  The eighth commandment forbids whatsoever does or may unjustly hinder our own or our neighbor’s wealth or outward estate.”

Tags: , , ,

Newer entries »