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February 25: Old Mortality

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

Old Mortality: Robert Patterson [ca. 1713-1801]

The purpose of this blog is to remind us of those saints who have gone before, and to recall something of our common history as Presbyterians, for regardless of our denomination, we are all connected, one with another. We learn from one another, are encouraged by one another, and are reminded to pray for one another.

dewittWmRAnd so it seemed very fitting when I stumbled across the content chosen for today’s post. Our entry for the day was to focus on the Rev. William Radcliffe DeWitt, (pictured in the photo at the right), who was born on this day, February 25, 1792, and who was for forty years the pastor of the English Presbyterian Church of Harrisburg, PA. Looking for more about his ministry, I was pleased to find among our church history collection a copy of The Centennial Memorial of the English Presbyterian Church, 1794-1894, with a section on DeWitt’s ministry at that church. That in turn led to the serendipitous discovery of the following poignant words which serve as the opening paragraphs for the chapter on that church’s history:

“Now go write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever.”–Isaiah 30:6.

“Walter Scott has very touchingly told us of Old Mortality, a religious itinerant of his times. He was first discovered in the burial ground of the Parish of Gaudercleugh. It was his custom to pass from one graveyard to another, and with the patient chisel of the engraver clear away the moss from the grey tombstones, and restore the names and the lines that Time’s finger had well nigh effaced. It mattered little to him whether it was the headstone of some early martyr to the faith, or only love’s memorial to some little child. It was his joy to do the quiet and unbidden work of bringing again to the notice of men the history and the heroism of some of God’s nobility of whom the world was not worthy, nor less to honor the unknown ones who were laid to rest with unseen tears.

abeel_graveOur work to-day bears something of the same character. Like Old Mortality, we step softly and reverently among the graves of the past. Chisel in hand we pass from memory to memory. We clear away the gathered moss. We refurnish the ancient stones and read again the names of the departed, dropping here and there a tear as precious memories are awakened, and reminding ourselves anew of a fellowship that is only interrupted for a little time. The past is ours. We are its heirs. Its good comes down to us in an apostolic succession of benedictions. The links that bind us to past days and years are golden links. It is one of the choicest gifts of grace, that we may at the same time live three lives in one. Past memories and present experiences and future hopes do blend to make human life noble and attractive. Our holy faith commemorates the past, gladdens the present and brightens the future.”

[excerpted from “A Century Plant,” by Rev. Thomas A. Robinson, in The Centennial Memorial of the English Presbyterian Congregation of Harrisburg, PA, 1794-1894, George B. Stewart, editor. Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Co., 1894, pp. 192-193. This book is available on the Internet, here.

And as it turns out, there was a real person behind the Walter Scott’s character of Old Mortality.

oldMortality_lg“Robert Patterson was born circa 1713 on the farm of Haggis Ha, in the parish of Hawick and as a married man moved to the village of Balmaclellan. A stonemason by trade and owner of a small quarry, he spent most of his life touring the lowlands of Scotland visiting and maintaining Covenanter grave sites. His method of cutting or incising letters and the ability to get so much into a limited space makes his work very distinctive. He gained some fame as ‘Old Mortality,’ the character in the book of the same name by Sir Walter Scott.”

To read more of that account, click here.

Words to Live By: Perhaps it is by divine design, but no monument lasts forever. Our worship is not for the saints or for their graves, but for the Lord of glory, whose love moved their hearts to serve Him. We remember them because of their testimony to the truth of the Gospel.

“And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is this?’ then you shall say to him, ‘With a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.’ ”
[Exodus 13:14, NASB]

 

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February 19: Ordination of Samuel Davies

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

When God Prepares a Vessel

Charles Hodge wrote one of the first major histories of the Presbyterian Church in America, which was published in 1851. A year later, the Presbyterian Historical Society was established, and the first major publication of that organization was another major work, this time by Richard Webster, issued in 1857. Where Hodge was more interested in the polity of the Church, alongside its history, Webster devoted a substantial portion of his work to biographical accounts of notable pastors.  The text of today’s post is excerpted from Webster’s work,  A HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, pp. 549-550—

Rev. Samuel Davies [3 November 1723 - 4 February 1761]Samuel Davies was born near Summit Bridge,  in the Welsh Tract, in New-castle county, Delaware, November 3, 1723.  His father, David Davies, was a Welshman, a plain, pious planter.  His mother was an eminent saint; and having, like Hannah, asked a son of the Lord, and having in her heart dedicated him to the ministry, she named him Samuel.  She was his only instructor for the first ten years, and early imbued him with her prevailing desire that he might be a minister.  Though otherwise careless of divine things, he was mindful of his nearness to death, and daily prayed to be spared to preach the gospel.  He was sent to receive the rudiments of classical learning, under the Rev. Abel Morgan, afterwards the Baptist minister at Middletown, New Jersey.  Away from home-influences, he became more estranged from God; but, at the age of twelve, he was awakened to see his guilt, vileness, and ruin.  After much and long-continued distress, he obtained peace in believing.  This great event took place in 1736, probably under the preaching of Gilbert Tennent, whom he called his spiritual father.  It was a day of great deadness; but God was then preparing many wonderful men for the good day that was at hand.

He commenced keeping a diary, which, after his death, was examined by President Finley:  it is a record of great distress relieved by large measures of heavenly comfort.

“About sixteen years ago,” he said, in 1757, “in the northern colonies, when all religious concern was much out of fashion, and the generality lay in a dead sleep of sin, having at best but the form of godliness and nothing of the power,—when the country was in peace and prosperity, free from the calamities of war and epidemic sickness,—when, in short, there were no external calls to repentance,—suddenly a deep general concern about eternal things spread through the country; sinners started from their slumbers, broke off from their sins, began to inquire the way of salvation, and made it the great business of their life to prepare for the world to come.  Then the gospel seemed almighty, and carried all before it.  It pierced the very hearts of men.  I have seen thousands at once melted down under it, all eager to hear as for life, and scarcely a dry eye to be seen among them.  Thousands still remain shining monuments of the power of divine grace in that glorious day.”

Amid such animating scenes, under the preaching of Whitefield, Blair, Robinson, Tennent, and Rowland, Davies pursued his studies.  There were obstacles in his way, but his uncommon application was followed by surprising progress.  Robinson supplied his wants.  Blair taught him, not only by his words, but by his holy example, as a man and his inimitable excellencies as a preacher.  He was licensed by Newcastle Presbytery, July 30, 1746, at the age of twenty-three, and ordained an evangelist, February 19, 1747.  He was desired by all the vacant congregations.  He was manly and graceful; he had a venerable presence, commanding voice, emphatic delivery; his disposition sweet, dispassionate, tender.

Words to Live By:
Real revival brings lasting change. May the Gospel again in our day be seen as almighty; may it again carry all before it, to the piercing of the hearts of men. Pray that the power of divine grace would again melt sinful hearts, to His greater glory.

For Further Study:
The original publishing of Richard Webster’s A History of the Presbyterian Church in America was an inexpensive production and not many copies have survived in good condition. Thankfully, the work was reprinted just a few years ago by Tentmaker Publications in England, and copies may still be available.

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February 17: Death of Lyman H. Atwater

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

Two Decades A Congregationalist Pastor; Three Decades A Presbyterian Professor.

atwaterLymanIn the winter of 1831, in New Haven, Connecticut, and on the campus of what was then Yale College, there was a remarkable season of revival. Of some eighty students in the Yale class of 1831, sixty came to claim Christ as Savior, including among them, the subject of our post today, Lyman H. Atwater. Lyman and thirty-three of his classmates subsequently became pastors. Following graduation from Yale, he served as a tutor there while pursuing his studies for the ministry.  Two years later, he was installed as the pastor of a Congregational church in Fairfield, CT.

Rev. Atwater had grown up in New Haven, where  Nathaniel Taylor was his pastor.  Taylor, along with two other Congregational theologians, Samuel Hopkins and Timothy Dwight, taught a modified Calvinism which came to be called the New Haven Theology. Because of the Plan of Union, that Congregational influence found its way into the Presbyterian Church, and thus the formation of the New School wing of Presbyterianism.

Those pastors and churches who opposed Nathaniel Taylor’s system constituted the Old School wing of the Presbyterian Church.  The Princeton faculty were notable opponents of the New Haven Theology, and oddly enough, Lyman Atwater also opposed it, despite the fact that he had grown up in Taylor’s church.

A. A. Hodge said of Atwater that he “was unquestionably more intimately and accurately versed in all the varieties and the entire history of what is known as New England theology, than any other member of the Presbyterian Church. He was certainly, together with the late Dr. Charles Hodge, the most able as well as the most voluminous theological reviewer and controversialist of the Old School branch of the Presbyterian Church during the last quarter of a century.”

With that estimation in hand, it was remarkable to then read in another funeral eulogy this recollection from Atwater’s life:

“In May, 1872, he was present at the semi-centennial anniversary of the Divinity School of New Haven as an alumnus, and I have no doubt it was with extreme pleasure, as one of the most delightful acts of his life, that he pronounced a glowing eulogy upon Dr. Taylor as his pastor and theological teacher, followed, as was fitting, with a tribute equally warm to the two eminent friends of his active life, Drs. Charles Hodge and Nathaniel Hewit. Referring to the other teachers of the Seminary, Drs. Goodrich, Fitch, and Gibbs, he gave the following memorable testimony, which will be heard with a new interest by this great assembly who mourn him in his death: ‘Constrained, as I have been in the conflicts of the past generations, to take a different view from these distinguished men of some great issues in metaphysics and divinity, I rejoice, my brethren, that, however we then thought, or may think, we differ, or do differ in our thinking, we can look over these barriers and find a higher, indissoluble ‘unity of faith’ in the one body of which we are members; the one Spirit by which we are sealed; one hope by which we live; one Lord, our Prophet, Priest, and King; one faith by which we live in and through and unto Him; one baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Trinity in unity, to whom be glory forever.’ “

Dr. Archibald Alexander Hodge said in eulogy of Lyman Atwater,

“He parted from us his fellow-worshippers at the Table of the Lord, with his face glowing with the affections of Christian faith and brotherhood, and reflecting the light of that heavenly temple into whose bright and joyous services he has entered before us. It was a fit closing of his public life among us.”

Dr. Atwater died at his home, on February 17, 1883.

Words to Live By:
It is a measure of Christian maturity to be able to oppose sin and error while standing in our convictions in a way that is full of an obvious love and concern for the other person. How can we attain that measure? First, by speaking from a strong sense of our own sin, together with a deep recognition of the forgiveness that we have in Christ alone. But beyond that, we have to remember that the battle is the Lord’s. God has charged us with presenting the message of the gospel, but He alone changes the heart. Salvation belongs unto the Lord.

For Further Study:
Addresses delivered at the funeral of Lyman H. Atwater can be read here.

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February 16: Death of Rev. David K. Myers

16 February, 2013 in February 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | 2 comments

He Died with his Boots On

myersDavidKThe Rev. Dr. David K. Myers had a full ministry during his life of eighty-nine years.  Rural pastor, church planter, evangelist, Army chaplain through two wars, seminary professor, this husband and father of four  children lived and ministered through the turbulent years of the modernist-fundamental controversies of the nineteen thirties.  He took his stand with the historical Christian faith by leaving the Presbyterian Church USA in 1936.  Back then, their form of government stated that you could do that, if there were no charges against you.  So in 1936, he joined the newly formed Presbyterian Church of America.  Imagine his surprise when his  former PCUSA Presbytery brought charges against him for leaving what the form of government allowed him to do.  While the Presbytery eventually dropped the charges, the western Synod of that same increasingly liberal church brought them up again and, after a trial, deposed him from the gospel ministry.  They put him out after he had been out for a full year!  His ordination was restored by the Presbyterian Church of America.  He went on to minister in the Bible Presbyterian Church for over 50 years.

What is striking about his long ministry is the manner in which the Lord took him home on February 16, 1992.  After the death of his Scottish wife, he entered the County Home in Muskegon, Michigan.  At this time, he was in his late eighties.  Once, his two sons, both ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America, visited him.  They wanted to find out how their widowed father was doing.  One of them has sent  him a chess set to take up his time.  They were both surprised to find out that it remained half opened on his window sill.  Questioning their father who loved a good chess game, they were interrupted by the County Superintendent who had heard that Chaplain Myers’ two minister sons were visiting.  He proceeded to fill them in on their father’s activities.

Chaplain Myers has become, he said, the unofficial  chaplain of the home.  Several prayer chains were going strong in the Home.  Bible studies were being held regularly inside the home.  Daily visitations were being made to all the hospital beds by Chaplain Myers in his wheel chair.  Even a Sunday afternoon worship service was being conducted by evangelical ministers in the city.  He was still busy in the work of the Lord, and thus, the superintendent said, had no time for a silly game of chess.

It was at one of these worship services that God took His servant home. The regularly scheduled pastor failed to show for some reason.  So Dad took over the worship service himself,  Playing the piano for the song service, he even sang as a solo that old gospel favorite “Jesus is tenderly calling me home.”  Preaching a gospel sermon impromptu, he gave the benediction, even shaking hands with everyone who came out to the service.

Visiting several who couldn’t make it due to health, Chaplain  Myers went back to his own room to wait for lunch.  It was there that  they found him in the body, but his spirit was already in heaven.  As someone remarked, “Chaplain Myers died with his boots on.”

Words to Live By: As the gospel song puts it, “Let us labor for the Master from the dawn till setting sun, let us talk of all his wondrous love and care; then when all of life is over and our work on earth is done. and the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.”  Reader, is it your assurance that you will have a place in heaven?  You can, if you trust in Christ’s life and work on your behalf, by grace alone, through faith alone.  And Christian reader, is it your life work to labor for the Master until your work on earth is done?  May God’s Spirit give such to His church who will answer in the affirmative this question.

Also on this day:
1921 – Death of Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield.

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February 10: Milo F. Jamison

10 February, 2013 in February 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | 2 comments

To Tell the Truth

Milo Fisher Jamison proves to be an interesting figure in Presbyterian history. He and his father were both founding members of the Presbyterian Church of America in 1936 (the PCofA was renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1938). Then little more than a year later, both father and son left to become part of the Bible Presbyterian Church.

Milo Jamison was born in Richmond, Kansas in 1899, studied at Princeton Seminary and was ordained by the Presbytery of Monmouth (PCUSA) in 1924. He was the pastor of churches in New Gretna, New Jersey and Hollywood, California before founding the University Bible Church in Los Angeles. While serving as an associate pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood, he was engaged in campus ministry at UCLA and it was here that his conservative theology ran afoul of modernists (aka, theological liberals) in the Los Angeles Presbytery of the PCUSA. That in turn eventually led to his departure from the PCUSA.

We could talk at length about the controversy with the Los Angeles Presbytery, but Rev. Jamison’s role in the OPC and the BPC is perhaps more interesting. To examine that role, we turn to the text provided by Dr. Gary North in his book, Crossed Fingers. It turns out that Milo Jamison was the inspiration for that book title.

In the year before his death on February 10, 1985, I spoke on the phone with Rev. Milo F. Jamison, who in 1933 became the first pastor to be thrown out of the denomination because of orthodoxy. [Without a trial, the Presbytery erased his name from their rolls.] He told me the story of a fellow graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary who had just been ordained in the mid-1920’s. Jamison knew that the man did not believe in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Jamison asked him: “How could you tell the examining committee that you believe in the Westminster Confession when you really don’t?” The man answered: “I kept my fingers crossed.” Jamison repeated the man’s statement again, as if to affirm it categorically with a double witness.

But Jamison himself did not believe this historic Confession of Presbyterianism, nor had he believed it when their exchange took place. He was a premillennial dispensationalist. When, in 1937, he was defeated for Moderator at the second General Assembly of the year-old Presbyterian Church of America, he immediately departed with Carl McIntire’s secessionist group. He joined McIntire’s Bible Presbyterian Church, founded in 1938, which revised the Westminster Confession’s section on eschatology in order to make it conform to premillennialism, although the denomination was not formally dispensational. Jamison left the Bible Presbyterian Church in 1968, but in fact he spent his post-1933 career as the pastor of an independent Bible church that taught the Scofield Reference Bible. He did not discuss the Westminster Confession in the pulpit. [Dr. North notes that his own parents were members of this church in the 1960’s] He was not a Calvinist. He had crossed his fingers early.

This was Machen’s dilemma: everyone on all sides of the Presbyterian conflict had his fingers crossed. The strategically relevant question was: On which issues?

Words to Live By:
I think Dr. North overstates his case when he says, “everyone on all sides,” but you get his point. “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Where there is no fear of God—where men tell lies to promote their own agenda or to serve their own purpose—then the Church is likely under its gravest threat. Resolve to be forthright and honest in all your dealings. Your prayers first and your example second are your only hold on the behavior of others. The Lord will bless those who stand for the truth.

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