Old School Presbyterians

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August 1: Death of James Henley Thornwell

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

This Day in Presbyterian History:

The Greatest Divine of the South

When the great Southern theologian died on August 1, the South was winning her independence from the Union.  But it was only one year into the War Between the States.  In 1862, James Henley Thornwell succumbed to tuberculosis at age 50.  Three years later, his beloved Confederacy would be a defeated people.  He didn’t live to see that defeat and feel that sorrow.

James Thornwell, as our title puts it, was the greatest divine of the South. Biblical philosopher, Calvinistic theologian, and Old School Presbyterian defender—all these descriptions characterized Dr. Thornwell.  He believed in principle rather than expediency.  And his writings continue today in both North and South.

We will think again of him when we come to his birthday on December 9, but when he was 20 years old, he came to Christ, making a public profession of faith.  Determined from that time forward to enter into the field of theology, he began to study first up north, and then in his beloved South, where the weather was better suited to his nature.  Due to a scarcity of preachers, even before he finished seminary, he was able to be licensed and ordained two years after his salvation.  Other than a few years in the pastorate, he became a teacher at South Carolina College, serving there for the next 18 years, with only a couple of intervening calls for a short time.

Active in the church government of his chosen church, he was chosen in his young age of 34 years to be Moderator of the General Assembly. Truly his leadership gifts were outstanding for this to happen.  It had not happened before or since to someone this young.  When the northern assembly became a political agency in the eyes of Southern Presbyterians in supporting the Federal government of President Abraham Lincoln in 1861, Thornwell became the guiding light for the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America.  He  wrote and published the Address to all Churches, which stated why they as the Old School Presbyterians of the South could no longer be a part of the Old School Presbyterians of the North.   He would pass on to glory  in the next year.

Words to Live By: What saith the Scriptures?  It was said that this question, and subsequent answer, was the all-embracing rule of Thornwell’s faith and life.  Regardless of how we stand on the great national issues of the Civil War,  this question must be our key standard for believing and living.  How often do you go to the Bible to guide your thoughts, words, and actions? Since it is our rule for faith and life, your answer must be all the time. And yet before it can be so, you must know the Bible.  That is why there is in this historical devotional reading a through-the-Bible plan of reading God’s Word.  Don’t skip it.  It is the most important part of this  devotional.

Click here for an 1862 newspaper report on the death of James Henley Thornwell.

Through the Scriptures: 2 Kings 20, 21

Through the Standards: Proof texts of the sixth commandment:

Deuteronomy 5:17
“You shall not murder.” (NIV)

Genesis 9:6
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man.” (NIV)

1 John 3:14, 15
“We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers. Any who does not love remains in death.  Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.” (NIV)

Matthew 5:21, 22
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.  Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin.  But anyone who says, ‘you fool,’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (NIV)

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June 5 : Old School/New School Division (PCUSA)

5 June, 2012 in June 2012 by davidtmyers | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History:

The Mother of All Schisms in Presbyterianism

Old School Presbyterians . . . New School Presbyterians.  You were either one or the other in the early to mid-nineteenth century in the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  And the issue was not at all a light one.  The fundamentals of the faith were at stake.

First, the Old School Presbyterians held to strict subscription to the church standards, such as the Westminster Standards, with church discipline for any dissenters.  The New School Presbyterians were willing to tolerate lack of subscription if evangelism was being accomplished.

Second, the Old School Presbyterians were opposed to the 1801 Plan of Union with the Congregational church, while New School Presbyterians were committed to it.

Next, the Old School Presbyterians were opposed to the false gospel methodology of a Charles Finney, for example, while the New School Presbyterians did not wish to hinder revival, regardless of a less than theological basis for revivals.

Last, there was the matter of theology.  Influencing the New School Presbyterians were two “isms” like Hopkinism and Taylorism from New England, which denied original sin and gospel redemption.  Old School Presbyterianism held to the Westminster Standards on both of these essentials of the faith.

For several General Assemblies, there were more New School Presbyterian delegates than Old School Presbyterian delegates.  But on June 5, 1837, that majority was reversed, with the Old School Presbyterians in strength.   In the assembly that week, the Assembly was able to abrogate the 1801 Plan of Union with the Congregationalists.  They then proceeded to expel four largely New School synods from the church, composed of 28 Presbyteries, 509 ministers, and 60,000 members!  In one swift vote, they were no longer members of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

But Presbyterian polity demanded that two General meetings approve of an action like this.  And here the operation took on more of a shady spirit to it than would otherwise be proper for any Christian group.  At the 1838 assembly in Philadelphia, Old School Presbyterian delegates arrived early and took every seat in the convention hall of Seventh Presbyterian Church.  When the New School Presbyterian elders arrived, the Moderator, who was an Old School elder, simply wouldn’t recognize them as legitimate delegates.  The “we don’t know you” phrase was used a lot.  When attempts were made to appeal his ruling, the appeal was put out-of-order by the moderator.

Soon the New School Assembly of Presbyterians were meeting at the back of the church, setting up their own assembly.  Eventually they went down to the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia for a separate assembly. An appeal by the New School Presbyterian Church was eventually made to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which declared the abrogation by the Old School Presbyterians as “certainly constitutional and strictly just.”

Presbyterian churches all over the land were in schisms.  One Presbyterian church in Carlisle Pennsylvania  epitomized the false principle of “the ends justifies the means.”  The session of First Presbyterian Church (Old School)  voted out of love to give $10,000 to the departing New School Presbyterians of the new Second Presbyterian Church in the same town.  When the check had cleared the bank, the Session of Elders of First Presbyterian who had voted to give the money, promptly went over to the New School Presbyterian session!  Another church literally cut in two the building between the Old and New School sides.  All over the land, churches were being divided or left over these important issues.

Words to Live By: Scripture commands us to use biblical means to accomplish His will.  Certainly, in hindsight, there was a real apostasy in the Presbyterian church in the early nineteenth century.  But Bible believers should have dealt with it according to Scriptural principles, not man’s principles.

Through the Scriptures: Proverbs 15 – 18

Through the Standards:The nature and grounds of true assurance

WCF 18:2
“This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded on a fallible hope; but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God, which Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption.”

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May 20 : Reunion of the Old & New Schools (PCUSA)

20 May, 2012 in May 2012 by davidtmyers | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History:   Does Doctrine Divide While Mission Unites?

This was the sentiment when the schism of 1837 between the Old School and New School Presbyterians was  healed in the days following May 20, 1869.  Doctrine had divided the Presbyterian church but it was not insignificant doctrines.  It is what made the Presbyterian Church what it was, namely, a biblical, Reformed church according to its subordinate standards, the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.  The Old School, led by Princeton Theological Seminary men, held to it, while the New School Presbyterians, led by men like Albert Barnes and Charles Finney, wanted to weaken it.  (We will see all of the issues in an upcoming devotional on the schism on June 5)  But for this day, we look at the first day of the General Assembly in 1869 when there was talk of and actions of reunion.  Why did this change take place?

The pivotal reason was that a terrible Civil War had taken place in the land which consumed their attention and placed concerns for doctrine to shift to secondary place.  Ministers and churches of both Old School and New School Presbyterians were now united in political issues as it had to do with the support of the Federal government.  Slavery concerns were now a dead issue in that the war had brought  freedom for blacks.  Reconstruction was now the matter on the front burner, and both Old School and New School pretty much agreed on that.

It can also be said that the New School had become more conservative in their theology.  They had departed from the Plan of Union with the Congregationalist churches.  The New England theology which denied of certain fundamental doctrines was, for the most part, no longer an issue in their ranks.  In other words, if there was any problem with the Confessional Standards, it wasn’t an open one.  Many of the men and churches who had fought the earlier issues had passed to their heavenly reward, so they were not in the church any longer. Other men were filling their pulpits and positions.

With the opening of this Assembly, the presbyters voted to send the reunion plans down to the Presbyteries.  In the intervening months, 113 Old School presbyteries approved it, with 126 out of 129 Old School presbyteries approving the reunion plans as well.  Only fifty – two ministers of the Old School Presbyterians protested, led again by Princeton Seminary men, like Charles Hodge.

At the next General Assembly in Pittsburgh in 1870, after the required number of presbyteries had passed it,  there was a symbolic march of delegates from each assembly to a certain street in that city, where joining forces, arm in arm, they marched in tandem to Third Presbyterian Church for a mass meeting.  A broadening church had begun in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  Mission and how to serve the masses via ecumenical means, became the watchword for the church.  It would be only a question of time when Reformed conservatives would begin to not recognize the church of their spiritual fathers.

Words to Live By: Many of us are in everyday life led into dozens of compromise situations which are necessary to simply get along with others.  But when that compromise involves fundamental doctrines which weaken our Christian faith, then there is a call to stand up and be counted and hold firm to the faith once delivered unto the saints.  Are you boldly standing for the historic Christian faith?

Through the Scriptures: Psalm 119

Through the Standards:  Particular repentance more important than general repentance

WCF 15:5
“Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly.”

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