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August 23: Rev. Alexander Cumming

23 August, 2019 in August 2019 by archivist | No comments

Our post today is drawn from Richard Webster’s History of the Presbyterian Church in America (1857).

ALEXANDER CUMMING
He was full of prayers.

WAS born at Freehold, New Jersey, in 1726.  His father, Robert Cumming, from Montrose, Scotland, was an elder, and often sat in synod.

He was educated under his maternal uncle, Samuel Blair, and studied theology with his pastor, William Tennent.  Licensed by the New-Side Presbytery of Newcastle, in 1746 or ‘’47, he was sent by the synod, in compliance with pressing supplications, and spent some time in Augusta county, Virginia.  He was the first Presbyterian minister that preached within the bounds of Tennessee.  Remaining some time in North Carolina, he married Eunice, daughter of Colonel Thomas Polk, the President (in May, 1775) of the Mecklenburg Convention.

He was a stated supply in Pennsylvania for some time.  Though not ordained, he opened the Synod of New York with a sermon, in September, 1750.  In the following month he was ordained, by New York Presbytery, and installed collegiate pastor with Pemberton, in New York.

Unanimously called, his clear, discriminating mind, his habits of close study, his instructive and excellent preaching, his happy faculty of disentangling and exhibiting difficult and abstruse subjects, peculiarly attracted and delighted his more cultivated hearers.  The Hon. William Smith, in writing to Bellamy, says, “His defect in delivery was not natural, but the effect of bad example:  his elocution, however, is not, and cannot ever be, as prompt as yours.”  But before the second year of his ministry closed, the presbytery was called to consider the difficulties which had arisen, and, in 1752, referred the case to the synod.  The complaints against him were, that, when disabled by sickness, he did not invite Pemberton to preach; that he insisted on his right as pastor to sit with the trustees, and manage the temporalities; for encouraging the introduction of Watts’s Psalms, and for insisting on family prayer as a necessary prerequisite in every one to whose child he administered baptism.

He requested to be dismissed, October 25, 1753, because his low state of health would not allow him to go on with his work in the divided, confused state of the congregation.  No opposition was made, and he was dismissed.

Cumming joined with his parishioners, Livingston, Smith, and Scott, in publishing the “Watch-Tower,” the “Reflector,” the “Independent Whig,”—spirited, patriotic appeals against the steady encroachments of the royal prerogative on our constitutional liberties.

In feeble health, and with little prospect of usefulness, he remained without charge till February 25, 1761, when he was installed pastor of the Old South Church in Boston.  He preached on that occasion, and Pemberton gave the charge, and welcomed him.  “I do it with the greater pleasure, being persuaded, from a long and intimate acquaintance, that you are animated by the spirit of Christ in taking this office upon you, and that you desire no greater honour or happiness than to be an humble instrument to promote the kingdom of our adorable Redeemer.”

William Allen,[1] of Philadelphia, Chief-Justice of Pennsylvania, wrote to Dr. Mayhew, of Boston, in 1763, and thanked him for the gift of two sermons, “which, you hint, were preached on account of Mr. Cumming’s reveries; for I can call nothing that comes from him by a better name, nor ought I, if he continues to be the same man he was with us.  He offered himself to the congregation here, of which I am a member:  though the greater part are moderate Calvinists, they could not relish his doctrines.” After charging Cumming with teaching that works are dangerous to the soul, faith being every thing, he adds, “He may be a pious, well-disposed man, but I believe he is a gloomy, dark enthusiast, and a great perverter of the religion of Jesus Christ as taught in the gospel.”

To Allen and Mayhew, Cumming seemed “an extravagant fanatic.”  It was a wonder how he could have been admitted a minister in Boston.  Yet he was condemned as a Legalist by the favourers of the other extreme.

Andrew Croswell, a zealous follower of Davenport, had settled in Boston.  He published a sermon, with the title, “What is Christ to me if he is not mine?” presenting the view—perhaps distorted—of Marshall, in his “Gospel Mystery of Sanctification,” and Hervey, in his “Theron and Aspasio.”  Cumming replied, taking the ground of Bellamy.  It was perhaps his earnestness on this point that arrayed his Scottish hearers against him in New York. They had the Erskines in great reverence:  they loved the doctrines which rallied Scotland’s best men against the Assembly’s decision in the Marrow controversy. Smith speaks, in his history, contemptuously of the opposition, as of the lower class; and Robert Philip brands it as a cabal of ignorance and bigotry. The fact that these persons called the Rev. John Mason from Scotland, and that they and their children constituted the congregation of Dr. John M. Mason, is a sufficient refutation of these charges.

Cumming died on this day, August 23, in 1763.  “He was full of prayers, with a lively, active soul in a feeble body.”  This was the testimony of the excellent Dr. Sewall, with whom he was joined as colleague in Boston.

Words to Live By:
We pray this can be said of you as well, that you are “full of prayers.” It is the mark of a true Christian and the blessing of a Christian who is being used in the Lord’s kingdom, seeking His will upon earth.

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February 4: Rev. Samuel Davies

4 February, 2016 in February 2016 by archivist | No comments

He Preached His Own Funeral Sermon
by Rev. David T. Myers

Rev. Samuel Davies [3 November 1723 - 4 February 1761]Subscribers to This Day in Presbyterian History, are familiar with our character today, namely, the Rev. Samuel Davies. If we would sum up his life and ministry, the following titles would adequately describe him: Presbyterian pastor, who in the early days of this country, before it was a country, rode a circuit of five hundred miles through forests and fields ministering to the hearts of saved and unsaved alike; church planter, the first non-Anglican minister in Virginia; hymn writer, author of “Great God of Wonders!” on page 82 of the red Trinity Hymnal, evangelist, defender of persons and places, being described at the best recruiter of the “military” in the French and Indian War; and yes, president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University and Seminary) in May 1759.

This last post of ministry, Samuel Davies, was most reluctant to take. It would mean giving up his scattered but effective ministry to the people of Virginia, especially at Polegreen Presbyterian Church in Virginia. Biblical Presbyterianism was just beginning to get a toe-hold in that area. Frankly, Virginia Presbyterians were not of the opinion that he should give up the fields which were white unto harvest. But he was convinced by the board of trustees of this young Presbyterian college to take the position. They saw that God has bestowed, as it was said then by one trustee, “prodigious, uncommon gifts” upon Samuel Davies. And so He had. Samuel Davies took reluctantly the position, though not a well man. Two years later, on February 4, 1761, Samuel Davies would entered heaven’s gates to receive his rewards.

But where does our title enter into the picture, you ask? Well, Samuel Davies did preach his own funeral sermon. It was on January 1, 1761 that Samuel Davies preached a sermon in Princeton, New Jersey on New Year’s day from Jeremiah 28:16, entitled “This Very Year You Are Going to Die!” And thirty-five days later, he did die on this day, February 4, 1761.

A few excerpts from that sermon, which is on-line, are important to recount, for they speak of the fervor of the gospel sermon which for all practical purposes was for himself, though unknown by him at the time. He preached on that Lord’s Day in Princeton, New Jersey,

“While we are entering into the threshold of a new year, it may be proper for us to stand, and pause, and take a serious view of the occurrences that may happen to us this year – that we may be prepared to meet them. Future contingencies are indeed unknown to us; and this ignorance is as agreeable to our present state, and as conducive to our improvement and happiness – as our knowledge of the things which it concerns us to know. But though we cannot predict to ourselves the particular events that may befall us – yet the events of life in general, in a vague indeterminate view, are not so contingent and unknowable as to leave no room for rationale suppositions, and probably expectations”

In the sixth paragraph of his sermon, Samuel Davies goes on to say, “Yes, it is highly probably, that if some prophet, like Jeremiah, should open to us the book of the divine decrees, one or another of us would there see our sentence, and the time of its execution fixed! ‘Thus says the Lord – This very year you are going to die!’”

In thirty-five days, after only two years as president of what later became Princeton University and Seminary, at the age of 37, Samuel Davies died! In a way, he preached his very own funeral sermon on that first day in 1761.

Words to Live By:
None of our readers, nor your two authors, like to think of this solemn and unchangeable event, but it is, as the Lord states, appointed unto us to die at some day at our Lord’s choosing. Far better for us to prepare for this eventuality, by first making sure that we have received by faith alone the Lord Jesus and His accomplished work on the cross for us. And then, in appreciation of that great salvation, seek while we are on this earth to buy up every opportunity for the Lord’s service, whether in the home, church, and/or society, by being the salt of the earth and shining the gospel light upon the spiritually dark world.(Matthew 5:13 – 16)

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January 12: Revival on Campus

12 January, 2016 in January 2016 by davidtmyers | No comments

The Means for Revival at a Presbyterian College
by Rev. David T. Myer

Ashbel Green [1762-1848]In the Life of Ashbel Green, available on-line, we have a summary of the means of a biblical revival which took place at the College of New Jersey, of which Ashbel Green was its president. Prior to this revival, only twelve students out of one hundred and five were counted as professors of the Christian faith in the college. The report to the trustees of the college is too long to be reproduced here, but a succinct summary can be given to the divine means used, which means are remarkably up-to-date for professing Christians in our day and age. They are:

          1. The revival came “chiefly, in the study of Scriptures,” which were “accompanied with comments on the portion read, and a practical application of the leading truths contained in it.”

          2. Dr. Green continued to write that “under the divine blessing, it has served to enlighten and instruct the youth in their duty; it has rendered their minds solemn and tender beyond what they were themselves aware of at the time, it has given them a deep reverence for the truth of divine revelation, it has gratified them to hear preaching with advantage, and at length, revealed truth has, we trust, been powerfully and effectually applied to their consciences, by the Spirit . . . .

          3. The Presbyterian clergyman/college president went on to write of “their attendance at public worship” for the second means, as “favorable to their religious improvement.” He went on to state “the modes of conducting public worship must be considered as being a powerful instrumental cause, both in producing an awakened attention to religion at first, and in cherishing it through the whole of its progress.

          4. The effect of moral discipline, Dr. Green observed in this report to the trustees, “has been manifestly favorable to this revival.” Evidently, three students had been dismissed from the student body for conduct unbecoming to the biblical base of the college. The effect of that was used by the Spirit of God to impress upon the students the importance of godly living.

          5. Lastly, Dr. Green commends the few pious youth (remember only 12 students in the whole college) who prayed for revival and then happily sought to impress upon their fellow students the claims of Christian living upon their lives.

The entire report is a remarkable survey of revival in the early eighteen hundreds at this Presbyterian college. What stands out to this author is that there is nothing new under the sun, so to speak, for their day or for ours. All of our Presbyterian entities – colleges, seminaries, local churches, sessions, boards of deacons, presbyteries, and yes, even general assemblies, have access to the same means mentioned in this report to the college trustees.

Words to Live By:
The Psalmist David gave us our marching orders via a prayer for revival of ourselves and those of our relationships in Psalm 85:6 “Will You not Yourself revive us again, That Your people may rejoice in You?” Personalize this text . . . by praying it for yourself, for your family, for your local congregation, for your Presbytery, and yes, for your General Assembly!

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January 2: Rev. John Rosbrugh

2 January, 2016 in January 2016 by archivist | No comments

The First American Chaplain to Die in the Service of his Country.

An Irish immigrant, John Rosbrugh was born in 1714, came to the colonies in 1735 with his brother and sister, and married at the young age of 19, only to suffer the deaths of his first wife and infant child just a year later. The next several decades are a mystery, though when his brother William and his wife died, John became guardian of their three children, and these years were likely spent seeing them safely to adulthood.

But by the early 1760’s, John had begun to pursue a calling to the Gospel ministry. He studied theology privately under the Rev. John Blair, then pastor of the Presbyterian church at Fagg’s Manor, PA. He was licensed by the Presbytery of New Brunswick in 1763 and ordained in 1764, installed as pastor of three small congregations. During these years, he married his second wife and to this marriage were born five children. Then in 1772, he answered a call to serve the Presbyterian church in Allentown, New Jersey.

But Rev. Rosbrugh is remembered in history as the first chaplain to give his life in the service of his country, when he was killed during a portion of the crucial military campaign that first involved Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River. Accounts of Rev. Rosbrugh’s death vary, but the most reliable one states that:

“…there was perhaps some confusion in the haste with which General Washington withdrew his army to the south side of the Assunpink [river], when Cornwallis marched into the town. In the haste and confusion that January 2nd, 1777, it seems Rev. Rosbrugh lingered behind the rest of his comrades. Seemingly not fully conscious of the dangers which surrounded him, he remained too long in the town before seeking a place of greater safety with the army beyond the Assunpink. He came to a pub in the city of Trenton. As night was drawing on, he tied his horse under a shed and entered the house to obtain some refreshments. While at the table, he was alarmed to hear the cry “The Hessians are coming!” Hastening out, he found that his horse had been stolen. Hurrying to make his escape, he found that one avenue after another was blocked. He then turned back into a grove of trees, where he was met by a small company of Hessians under the command of a British officer. Seeing that further attempt at escape was useless, he surrendered himself a prisoner of war. Having done so, he offered to his captors his gold watch and money if they would spare his life for his family’s sake. Notwithstanding these were taken, they immediately prepared to put him to death. Seeing this, he knelt down at the foot of a tree and, it is said, prayed for his enemies.” No sooner had he finished praying than he was murdered on the spot. “So died the ‘CLERICAL MARTYR OF THE REVOLUTION,’ at the age of sixty-three, upon a spot not trodden by the busy multitude, and forgotten amid the hum and bustle of commercial life in Trenton.”

“As the shades of that cold and dreary winter evening settled down upon the sad scene, his body lay in the icy embrace of death. The British officer at whose command he had been put to death, repaired to the pub which Mr. Rosbrugh had so recently left, and there exhibited the dead Chaplain’s watch, and boasted that he had killed a rebel parson. The woman of the house having known Mr. Rosbrugh, and recognizing the watch, said: “You have killed that good man, and what a wretched thing you have done for his helpless family this day.” The enraged officer, threatening to kill her if she continued her reproaches, ran away as if afraid of pursuit.”

Such is the account (gently edited) found in John Clyde’s biography, Rosbrugh: A Tale of the Revolution. (Easton: 1880). [available on the Web at http://archive.org/details/cu31924032738407]

Again, the fog of war still clouds much about about the death of Rev. Rosbrugh. The ferocity of his murder, historian William Dwyer contends, may be explained in that he was captured not far from Princeton, where the College of New Jersey was located, and that Rev. Rosbrugh may have been mistaken for the Rev. John Witherspoon, a man who was greatly hated by the Royalists and who had been recently burned in effigy by British troops.  [See Dwyer, William M., The Day is Ours! An Inside View of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, November 1776-January 1777. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1998, page 323.]

There is also a good deal of mystery as to where exactly Rev. Rosbrugh was buried. One grave established in his memory can be viewed here.

Words to Live By: Surely our times are in His hands. Which is to say, our lives are under the sovereign guidance of our Lord, and not one of His children ever dies a moment before God allows. This Scriptural truth affords the Christian great courage at times when others may faint away. At the same time, this fact does not mean that we can tempt God (Mt. 4:7). We should never act in a foolhardy way. In the end, Rev. Rosbrugh may have simply been careless and not kept his wits about him, at a time when he should have remained particularly alert. Each of our actions and choices will have consequences. The spiritual application should be obvious. As Christians, we are engaged in a spiritual battle: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8, KJV). Learn the discipline of confessing your sins promptly, in sincere repentance and stay close to the Lord, day by day. The only safe place is by His side.

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December 30: The Mission of Saving Mercy

30 December, 2015 in December 2015 by archivist | No comments

Sermon At A Service of Installation

greenWH_1856_missionIt was on this day, December 30th, in 1856, that the Rev. Dr. William Henry Green brought a sermon on the occasion of the installation of Rev. Heman R. Timlow, as pastor of the Harris Street Presbyterian Church, Newburyport, Massachusetts. Rev. Timlow had been called to serve this church following the resignation of the Rev. W.W. Eels in March the year prior. All of which is admittedly a rather obscure set of facts and we might honestly wonder why it should merit our attention?

Among Presbyterians, the installation of a pastor remains to this day a service carried out in much the same way. So for one, if we were to look for a model for such an occasion, then here is one example. Moreover, we have here a sermon by an admittedly brilliant young man, at a point early in his remarkable career.

There is also the contrast of the youth of Dr. Green [1825-1900], just 31 years old when he served at the installation of this new pastor, compared with the advanced age of Rev. Dana, then near the end of his life yet still faithfully serving the Lord’s people at this installation. Dr. Green came from a long line of Presbyterians, among them, Jonathan Dickinson, first president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University). Green had graduated from Princeton Seminary in 1846, was ordained in 1848, and following a brief pastorate in Philadelphia, was installed in 1851 as professor of Biblical and Oriental Literature at the Princeton Theological Seminary. He remained a professor there until his death in 1900.  Rev. Daniel Dana [1771-1859] as noted was near the end of his life, having long served the Presbyterian churches of Newburyport. It was Rev. Dana who had asked Dr. Green to bring the installation sermon on this occasion. Rev. Dana then brought the charge to the pastor. Others serving at this installation included the Rev. John Pike, of Rowley, who brought the charge to the people; and the Rev. A.G. Vermilye, of Newburyport, who extended the right hand of fellowship.

But the primary value of this sermon remains the message itself, as brought by Dr. Green that day. For his message, he chose the text of Luke 4: 18-19 :

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

By the standards of that era, Green’s message is rather brief, taking up just 12-1/2 pages in print. Many of his peers would typically produce similar sermons of twenty pages or more. But length is no judge of quality, and Green is succinct for a purpose, and from a pastoral standpoint, could be seen as a hallmark of his long career at Princeton Seminary, indicative of the heart of his ministry.

The above text, as Dr. Green states in the opening of his sermon, contains an exposition of Christ’s earthly mission. It is the commission which He received from the Father and it is the reason why He was anointed with the Spirit above measure. It comprises the errand upon which He came into the world. And so, to give a glimpse of his sermon, here below are a few choice portions:—

“The mission of the Savior was to preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And yet when He ascended to the Father, He left behind Him a world still unreconciled to God, still in its pollution, misery and sin. It was filled still with poor to whom no glad tidings had been carried, with captives whose prison doors were barred as tightly, whose fetters were as galling and whose miserable dungeons were as dark and cheerless as ever; with the broken hearted to whom no voice of the comforter had spoken relief, and with the blind whose sight was as far as ever from being removed. But judge not from this that His errand was was abortive and His work a failure.”

“The work of the world’s recovery was not one begun in a moment and ended in a moment. As there was a protracted period of preparation reaching through many ages and employing various and potent instrumentalities before He came; so there is needed a protracted period for that scheme which He set in operation and which He still conducts and superintends, to work out its expected and certain consummation. The whole might have been accomplished in an instant had the almighty grace of God so chosen; and the moment of Christ’s triumphant resurrection from the grave might have been signalized by the complete ingathering and perfect sanctification of all God’s elect people, by the utter overthrow of Satan’s baleful empire, and by the entire and final banishment from earth of sin and its accursed effects. And so, had God chosen, the world might have been created in a moment, and all its forms of beauty and its innumerable orders of creatures sprung instantaneously into being, instead of being gradually evolved through six successive days. But thus God did not work in creation; nor did He in redemption.”

“To what has been said it may be still further added, that the verses before us are descriptive of the mission of the church of God, as composed of those who have embraced this precious system of saving truth, and stand as its embodiment, its representatives and its champions before the world. . . .Every one who has received the gospel of God’s grace into his soul, is not only one redeemed from the power of the enemy, but one commissioned to ransom others; not only one upon whom the balm of Gilead has begun its work of cure; but a physician, a healer of the hurts and maladies of others; not only a captive loosed from bonds, but set to the work of breaking the chains of those who wear them still. Every Christian is not a mere passive recipient of the truth and of its saving benefits, but in his measure and according to his station, opportunity and ability, he is set for its defence and propagation. He is a light kindled that it may shine—salt put into the mass for the preservation of the whole. The gospel is given to the church of God to spread it and apply it everywhere. . . It is a work of solemn obligation; and to every Christian unemployed in this his bounden duty, comes his Savior’s reproving voice—’why stand ye all the day idle? go, work in my vineyard.’ “

Words to Live By:
The call of the Gospel is a call to real action here and now. Christ saved us that we might bear fruit—that we might live out the life of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and so be used of Him to draw others into His kingdom. For one, as Dr. Green is careful to point out elsewhere in his sermon,

“. . . there is no warrant for restricting the redeeming virtue of the gospel solely to what is spiritual and eternal, and excluding from the sphere of its potency that which is temporal; or rather since it is expressly declared, that godliness has the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come,—as the gospel is capable of undoing and was intended to undo all the mischiefs of the fall, and to banish suffering and sorrow from this present world as well as deliver from it in the next, the church is God’s grand engine of philanthropy. There is not a question bearing on man’s amelioration, individual, social or national, in which the church has not an interest, and in whose solution she should not take her share. There is not a cry of distress, that may be suffered to break upon her ear unregarded. She carries in her hand the potent remedy; and she may not, through her culpable inactivity or through her criminal lack of faith in its sovereign efficacy, keep back from suffering men, what Christ has charged her as His almoner with bestowing upon them. She must hold up the gospel which she has received, before the eyes of men, as God’s appointed cure for all the evils that are in the world. Nor may she content herself with the mere propounding of its abstract principles, nor with the diligent application of it to one class of man’s disorders; as though her caring for one part of her commanded work absolved her from the rest,—as though by caring for men’s eternal, she was absolved from all regard for their temporal interests,—as though after proffering eternal salvation to men, she was thenceforward discharged from further care for them, and might shut up her bowels of compassion from her suffering and needy brother. . . . She must not only hold up the gospel in one of its aspects, but hold it up in all,—not only state its principles but search out and exhibit its applications. ” 

 A print copy of the above sermon may be found preserved at the PCA Historical Center. Or more conveniently, it may be found on the Web by clicking here.

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