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February 20: Azel Roe, D.D.

20 February, 2013 in February 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | No comments

With a Name Like That, He Could Have Played Baseball.

Azel Roe was born on February 20, 1738. His father, John Roe, was a man of some considerable means, and he was able to afford his son an excellent education. Azel attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and graduated there in 1756.

He studied theology privately under the guidance of the Rev. Caleb Smith and was licensed to preach by the New York Presbytery around 1760. He was ordained about two years later, and after serving as pulpit supply for the Presbyterian church in Woodbridge, New Jersey, was finally called to serve as pastor there, being so installed in the autumn of 1763.  While for a good many years his time was split between Woodbridge and another congregation, Rev. Roe remained at Woodbridge until his death in 1815, a remarkable tenure of over fifty years.

Roe had married the widow of Rev. Caleb Smith at about the same time that he was installed as the pastor of the Woodbridge church. Roe’s wife Rebecca was the mother of all his children, two sons and six daughters. But Rebecca died in the autumn of 1794, and about two years later, Rev. Roe remarried, this time to Hannah, daughter of the Rev. David Bostwick, who was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New York. Hannah was herself a widow, having first been married to General Alexander McDougall, a famous Revolutionary War hero. When Gen. McDougall died in 1786, Hannah remarried a Mr. Barret, who was the U.S. Consul to France. He in turn died some time prior to 1796, and Rev. Roe married Hannah on December 24, 1796.

All of which brings us to a remarkable account of the love of a man for his wife. The following is recorded in Sprague’s Annals:

“In November, 1815, Mrs. Roe was seized with lung fever [pneumonia], and died after an illness of a few days, in perfect peace, in the sixty-seventh year of her age. When she saw that her husband seemed inconsolable in the prospect of her departure, she affectionately urged him to restrain his grief, and submit quietly to God’s will. Up to the time of her death, which was on the 28th of November, his health had been uniformly good, and his ability to labour in no degree impaired. But the shock occasioned by her death was greater than he could bear. An affection of the throat, apparently caused by excessive grief, seized him; and, on the 2d of December,—four days after the death of his wife, he yielded up his spirit in a manner so peaceful that his children, who were aware that he had always been subject to a nervous dread of death, could hardly find it in their hearts to mourn his departure.”

Words to Live By:
Rev. Roe loved his wife dearly, but he would have done well to listen to his wife when she urged him to submit quietly to God’s will. Difficult as it would have been, in this she was right. It is undoubtedly one of the most difficult things imaginable, to let a loved-one go. In times like that, the pastoral counsel of Samuel Rutherford comes to mind:

“Do you think her lost when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty? Think her not absent who is in such a friend’s house. Is she lost to you who is found to Christ? If she were with a dear friend, although you should never see her again, your care for her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not with a dear Friend?”

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”—(1 Thessalonians 4:13, ESV)

Sources:
Wm. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Presbyterian Pulpit (Solid Ground, 2005), p. 234;
Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Banner of Truth, 1984), Letter II, p. 34.

A portrait of Rev. Roe can be found here. And details of his grave site, here.

 

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February 8: Philip du Buisson Arcularius

8 February, 2013 in February 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | No comments

Quite a Name to Live Up To

On June 19th, 1901, Dr. Philip Edward Arcularius married Miss Marie Fermine Du Buisson. The Rev. Isaac Peck, uncle of the bride, officiated, assisted by the Rev. Frederick B. Carter, rector, with the wedding taking place at St. Luke’s Church, Montclair, New Jersey.

arculariusPNearly a year later the couple joyfully welcomed their first child into the family. Philip du Buisson Arcularius was born on May 11, 1902.  Philip’s father was a successful New York City physician with a long family heritage and good social standing and his mother came from a wealthy mercantile family, equal in social standing. Marie’s grandfather was named George Washington du Buisson, so named by his father who was both a friend of General George Washington and the Marquis of Lafayette.  No doubt Philip enjoyed a comfortable childhood, but he knew some of life’s trials as well, as his mother died when he was little more than sixteen. Then just two years later, he graduated from East Orange High School and entered Yale University in 1921, graduating in 1925 with a degree in business.

We don’t know the details of his Christian faith, but at least by the time of his graduation from Yale he had decided to pursue a calling to the ministry. He attended Auburn Seminary for his first year, 1929-30, but decided to transfer from there, due to the socialism espoused by Dr. John C. Bennett and the liberalism of the Auburn faculty. He chose Princeton Theological Seminary, arriving on campus in the fall of 1930, just a year after the reorganization of Princeton and the departure of Machen, Wilson, Allis, and Van Til, who had left over that summer to start Westminster Seminary. Geerhardus Vos was still among the Princeton faculty, but already the school and its curriculum were changing.

Philip graduated from Princeton in 1932 and then stayed for a graduate year. Ordained in October of 1933 by the PCUSA Presbytery of Morris and Orange, Rev. Arcularius soon became the Stated Supply pastor for two churches in Lackawanna Presbytery, in Old Forge and Duryea, Pennsylvania.

In a brief personal testimony delivered in 1974, Rev. Arcularius stated that,

The Lackawanna Presbytery, in northeastern Pennsylvania, then a conservative body, changed rapidly in the next two years. I felt led by the Lord to take my stand on the floor of Presbytery, on a number of controversial issues, on which my conscience would not let me remain silent. I soon found that, as the pastor of the two aid-receiving churches, I was not supposed to speak out so forthrightly, but only to take my money and keep quiet! When I withdrew from the Presbytery, in April, 1936, the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader had a headline, clear across the top of page 2, “Arcularius Quits Presbytery in Free Speech Fight.” My stand, of course, was for the basic, historic doctrines of the Christian faith, as set forth in the Westminster Confession, since superceded in the old Church by “the Confession of 1967.”

Rev. Arcularius continued,

Under the leadership of the late Rev. Dr. J. Gresham Machen, I became one of 33 Presbyterian ministers who stood with him, to form the Presbyterian Church of America, in 1936. One year later, I participated in the founding of the Bible Presbyterian Church. In that testimony to the Christian faith, I have been most happy to remain. Twice I was elected Moderator of the Presbytery of New Jersey; and also served as the Vice-Moderator of the Bible Presbyterian Synod. I have been a member of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions since May 31, 1937, on its Executive Committee since 1956.

In 1953, Rev. Arcularius began a ministry known as Friends of Israel Testimony to Christ, based in Lakewood, New Jersey. He remained with this ministry until his death on February 8, 1985.

Words to Live By: A life of privilege often leads to moral compromise. Raised in wealth, it is difficult to do without it, and corners are cut to maintain the lifestyle. But it doesn’t always turn out that way. Many people of wealth and privilege have recognized the greater worth of the kingdom of God. In some cases they have literally given up everything to follow Jesus. In other cases, they have used their wealth effectively and sacrificially for the sake of the Gospel. God has blessed most of us in this nation with relatively great wealth. Everything that we have is from His hand. How are we using that which He has provided? How are we living up to our God-given name, as followers of Christ?

Image source: Photo of Philip duBuisson Arcularius found as part of an article by Rev. Arcularius, which appeared in The Independent Board Bulletin, 8.4 (April 1942): 3.

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January 21: Rev. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle

21 January, 2013 in January 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | No comments

In His Time, the Lord Will Raise Up a Man.

There is so much that could be told here about our subject today. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle was born in Pennsylvania, near what is now the city of Harrisburg, in 1746. His parents were godly Scots-Irish settlers who raised their children in the fear of the Lord. When Samuel was just nine, his parents moved the family to North Carolina where they settled a 300 tract of forested land and with great labor, turned it into a farm. The family also became members of the historic congregation that would later be known as the Thyatira Church, not far from Salisbury, NC.

Samuel excelled at learning and even taught his brothers and sisters before going off to the College of New Jersey, where he studied under Dr. John Witherspoon. Upon graduation, he studied theology with his uncle in New Jersey, and then began to seek ordination and a pastoral call to serve a church. In God’s providence, he returned to the Thyatira Church to serve there as pastor from 1777 until his death on January 21, 1811.

But what particularly caught my eye as I read through one account of his life was the following paragraph, which brought back a professor’s lesson in seminary. Teaching a course on “The Introduction to Theology” at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia in the late 1970’s, Professor John Frame noted how often the Lord raises up one man to stand against the tide of unbelief and opposition. Besides some of the obvious Biblical examples of Moses and Daniel, he cited Athenasius and Martin Luther, among others. It is in that same vein that this following account seems so important. Here we have a picture of early America that we may not have seen before, but it is also a picture in many respects much like today:

During the Revolutionary war, and especially from the summer of 1780, when the South became the theatre of conflict, the country was in a state of utter confusion, and vice of almost every kind prevailed to an alarming extent. The civil character of the war, too, gave it a peculiar ferocity, and produced a licentiousness of morals, of which there is scarcely a parallel at the present day. The municipal laws of the country could not be enforced, civil government was prostrated for a time, and society was virtually resolved into its original elements. Mr. McCorkle came out in reference to this state of things in his utmost strength. He preached, prayed, reasoned, and remonstrated–nor were his labours in vain. From the close of the Revolutionary war, and especially from the breaking out of the Revolution in France,–North Carolina, in common with other parts of the country, was overrun with French infidelity. Here again, he stood forth the indomitable champion of Christianity : he not only preached but published in defence of Divine Revelation; and infidelity quailed before him. It has been confidently asserted that more was done, in that part of the country, by his efforts, to arrest this tide of evil, which threatened at one time to sweep every thing before it, than by any or all other opposing influences.

Words to Live By:
Surely our times today are no worse than what you read pictured in the quote above. Then should we think that the Lord’s arm is now too short to save? (Num. 11:23; Isa. 59:1). Surely not! God can still work a mighty work, as great or greater than He did in McCorkle’s day. The only question is, are we waiting on Him in expectant prayer?
“Let us therefore come boldly before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace, to help in time of need.” (Heb. 4:16)

For Further Study:
A biography of Rev. McCorkle, titled The Prophet of Zion-Parnassus, was written by James F. Hurley and Julia Goode Eagan, and can now be read on the Web, here.

Note: Our Through the Scriptures and Through the Standards sections have now been replaced by RSS feeds which appear at the top of right-hand column.

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January 19: Rev. James Francis Armstrong

19 January, 2013 in January 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | No comments

A Long Pastorate Under the Pain of a Thorn in the Flesh.

James Francis Armstrong was born in West Nottingham, Maryland in 1750, the son of Francis Armstrong, a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church of that town. James began his education in Pequea, but he showed great promise and his parents were able to secure a place for him in the noted school founded by the Rev. Samuel Blair, at Fagg’s Manor, Pennsylvania. During the time that James was a student there, Samuel’s brother John was the primary teacher, and this was shortly before John Blair was elected to serve as Professor of Theology at Princeton College.

James entered Princeton in 1771 and was accorded the rare privilege of living with the family of the College President, Dr. John Witherspoon. Graduating in 1773, he immediately began preparing for the ministry, studying theology under Dr. Witherspoon’s tutelage. James was then received as a candidate for the ministry by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, in June of 1776, and had passed a number of his examinations and trials for the ministry, but his licensure was interrupted by war, when British troops invaded New Jersey.

With Dr. Witherspoon’s aid and certification, James was able to transfer to the Presbytery of Newcastle, was received there as a candidate and soon licensed to preach, in January, 1777. The battle of Princeton occurred that same month, and we previously told of the death of Chaplain Rosbrugh during that same battle. Like Rosbrugh, James too was stirred with patriotism and joined a volunteer company, though just a year later in 1778 he was ordained and commissioned a chaplain in the Second Brigade of the Maryland Forces. It was during this time of service that he contracted rheumatic fever, and he suffered from this illness for the remainder of his life.

Leaving the Army in 1782, Rev. Armstrong began preaching at the Presbyterian church in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He married not long after and continued his preaching in Elizabethtown for about another year until his health weakened. When Dr. Elihu Spencer died at Trenton in 1784, Rev. Armstrong was asked to preach the funeral sermon, and this led to a call for him to serve the Trenton church. But it took nearly two years for the church to manage the financial aspects of the call, and Armstrong not installed as pastor until 1786.

Rev. Armstrong served the church from 1786 until his death on January 19, 1816. The entire time of his ministry in that church, he suffered the effects of the disease contracted during the war. Concerning his final year, one biographer wrote:

“It was in the summer of 1815 that he performed his last public service. There was no reason to suppose at that time, that he might not be spared for years, and be able occasionally to bear a part in the services of the sanctuary. On the Sabbath referred to, his text was “Wo is me, if I preach not the Gospel,” and it was noticed that the only Psalm used in the singing was the third part of the seventy-first; the first half being sung at the beginning, and the remainder at the close of the devotional exercises. Nothing could have been more appropriate to his circumstances, or more expressive of what seems to have been the habitual temper of his mind. A few months after this brought his sufferings to a close—he died on the 19th of January, 1816, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, the thirty-eighth of his ministry, and (counting from the date of his call) the thirty-first of his pastorship. The sermon at his funeral was preached by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller, Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton.”

[I can find no evidence that Dr. Miller’s funeral sermon was ever published.]

Words to Live By:
How remarkable to continue on in an effective life and ministry despite constant pain. Most of us are strangers to pain like that, though perhaps all of us know someone who suffers so. In the Apostle Paul’s case, what he termed a “thorn in the flesh” (II Cor. 12:7-10) was given to him by the Lord, in his case to humble him. And as much as there was the lesson of humility, there was an even greater lesson which applies to us all, that the Lord’s grace is sufficient in the face of every adversity. Moreover, as Matthew Henry notes, when we are weak in ourselves, then we are strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A photograph of Rev. Armstrong’s grave can be viewed here.

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November 24: Rev. James Caldwell

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

This Day in Presbyterian History:

The Demise of a Soldier Parson

It was back on June 23 that we profiled the provision of psalm books as wadding for the American Revolutionary forces at the Battle of Springfield, New Jersey.  The cry of “Give them Watts, boys, give them Watts,” referring to Isaac Watts’ many hymns, became a celebrated phrase from the Revolutionary War.

The Rev. James Caldwell, from whose mouth that famous line sprung, was an American Presbyterian minister from Elizabethtown, New Jersey.  He was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of that town.  Early on, this Scot-Irish minister threw his lot in with the forces of George Washington in the battle for freedom from Britain.  Joining as a chaplain of the New Jersey troops, he rallied his church for the cause of liberty, with over forty of the members becoming line officers in the battles. Caldwell himself, was known at “the Soldier parson.”

He was born in Virginia from the well-known Scot or Ulster-Irish heritage of many Presbyterian patriots. Graduating from the College of New Jersey in 1759, he was ordained by the Presbytery of New Brunswick in 1761, and no doubt, installed as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of  Elizabethtown, New Jersey (now called Elisabeth).

Because his conviction for the American cause were so well-known, the British burned both the congregation and his house at least once.  His wife was either accidentally or purposely killed by a British soldier who fired on her figure through a window or a wall, as she was praying for her children.

A year later, Rev. Caldwell was picking up a traveler in his buggy.  After carrying the baggage to the horse-drawn buggy, he went back to pick up a package.  An American sentry ordered him to stop but distance precluded the command from being heard.  With that, the sentry fired and killed Rev. Caldwell on November 24, 1781.  At the trial and subsequent hanging of the sentry, there were rumors that he had been bribed by the British to kill the soldier parson.  At any rate, he was buried beside his wife in the cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethtown, New Jersey.  A monument was placed up honoring him in 1846.  Three towns in New Jersey are named after him, including an educational facility.

Words to live by:  While the Rev. James Caldwell did not physically pick up a rifle and fire it at advancing British troops, the “soldier parson” did preach the necessity of armed revolution as well as provide supplies for the Jersey brigade.  He is looked upon as a defender of liberty as well as preaching the words of grace to a lost people.  He wasn’t the first Christian minister to embrace liberty and justice for God’s people, and he won’t be the last minister to do so.  There is a place for ministers of the Word to apply that Word of God to the social and moral issues of the day.  Our people need guidance to do the right thing in the right way.

Also on this day:

This day marks the 440th anniversary of the death of the Scottish Reformer, John Knox.

Through the Scriptures:  1 Corinthians 9 – 12

Through the Standards:  Errors of Romanism regarding the Lord’s Supper

WCF 29:4
“Private masses, or receiving this sacrament by a priest, or any other alone; as likewise, the denial of the cup to the people, worshipping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them about, for adoration, and the reserving them for any pretended religious use; are all contrary to the nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ.”

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