Samuel Blair

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November 9:

9 November, 2013 in November 2013 by archivist | No comments

None Excelled Him on Two Continents

blairgravestone02Samuel Blair was born in Ireland in 1712 and emigrated to America at a young age.  Educated at the Log College by William Tennent, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Philadelphia on November 9, 1733.  Called to two congregations first in New Jersey, he ministered the Word of grace for six years. But it was at Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church in Cochranville, Pennsylvania where he came to have his greatest influence upon colonial America.

Installed there in April of 1740, he began a classical and theological college for pastoral training, similar to what he had received at the Log College. The new school would later produce for the kingdom of grace men like Samuel Davies, apostle to Virginia, John Rodgers, first moderator of the General Assembly, John McMillan, Apostle to western Pennsylvania, Charles Cummings, Robert Smith, Hugh Henry and many others who would make a mark for Christ’s kingdom.

In 1740, a great reawakening came upon the colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia, including Faggs Manor Presbyterian Church. Blair took as his initial text that of our Lord’s words in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness.”  That priority in the things of the Lord brought a spiritual awakening and revival to the people of that 1730 congregation. Soon, Pastor Blair was engaged in preaching tours all over New England. All of this revival emphasis, plus the question of education for the ministry brought about a schism in the Presbyterian Church in 1741.

blairSamuel_graveIn his doctrinal views, Samuel Blair was thoroughly Calvinistic. A spiritual awakening is of the Lord. Period! He did not hesitate to preach on predestination to his people. His pulpit manner was such that Samuel Davies believed no one was more excellent than he was in exposition of the Word of God. When the latter took a trip to England to raise funds for the College of New Jersey, and heard many a fine preacher, he still concluded that none held a candle to Samuel Blair.

Over his grave in the cemetery, at what is now called Manor Presbyterian Church, there is found the following inscription. It says “Here lieth the body of THE REV. SAMUEL BLAIR, Who departed this life The Fifth Day of July, 1751, Aged Thirty-nine Years and Twenty-one Days. In yonder sacred house I spent my breath; Now silent, mouldering, her I lie in death; These lips shall wake, and yet declare A dread Amen to truths they published there.”

Words to live by:  Thirty nine years plus!  Not a large amount of life on this earth was spent by the Rev. Samuel Blair. But his life was not to be measured by the shortness of his life, but rather by what the Holy Spirit accomplished through Him for the sake of the gospel. And when we look at that, Samuel Blair lived a full life for the increase of the kingdom and the edification of the elect. Only one life will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.

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October 8: A Mother’s Testimony

8 October, 2013 in October 2013 by archivist | No comments

What Matters Most in This Life?

The following testimony was written by the wife of the Rev. Samuel Blair. It is dated October 8, 1763:—

My Dear Children–It is my concern for your souls’ welfare, as well after my decease as whilst I am present with you, that I seem to be irresistibly urged to leave you a few sentences to peruse; and if it should please a gracious God to bless them to you

My design at this time shall not be to give you a narrative of diary of what I have experienced, of as I trust, the Lord’s gracious dealings towards me, for that would be too great; and as I did not prosecute that begun work in my young days, I could not now recollect without adding or diminishing. What discourages me now, was that the same reason when I first attempted, is, that I believe the Lord did not give me such enlargement of judgment that I should be useful to any but such as I am nearly connected with, who, I hope, will make no bad use of any thing that may not appear with such embellishments as the public would require. However, that now is for my design in these few lines.

When I was about fifteen, or soon after, it pleased a gracious God to stop me in my career of youthful follies, and to make sweet religion to appear the most noble course a rational creature could pursue. And what first brought me to reflect was: that summer I was visited with one affliction after another; first, the measles, and then the intermitting fever, and then the whooping cough–all to no great purpose, until by my being brought so low I apprehended myself in a decay, which put me to think I should set about reformation, a work which I thought only consisted in growing serious, and praying often, with other duties. When having an opportunity of hearing Messrs. Gilbert and John Tennent, they engaged me more, and strengthened me in my resolution to devote myself to religion. But the bed was too strait for me. I was often allured into my former vain company to the wounding of conscience and the breach of resolutions; was like a hell upon earth, and put often to think that the day of grace was over, and I might as well give up with all. However, it pleased a gracious God again to strengthen and encourage me to wrestle and cry for free mercy, and that in myself I could do nothing, nor keep the least resolution I could make.

But soon after the way of salvation in and through Christ, was clearly and sweetly opened to me in such a point of light that it appeared to me I had not lived or breathed or known what pleasure was before then. I then got victory over sin and the devil. But oh! how soon Satan came with another hideous temptation, which was blasphemy. This, as I had never felt or heard of before, filled me with such horror, that I was near being overcome with an unnatural sin. But as the distress was great, the deliverance was greater, which made me loathe myself, and almost life, and say with Job: “I would not live always.” I was then persuaded by my dear minister, John Tennent to join in communion with the people of God in the precious ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. Which, though I could scarcely be prevailed on to venture, and though with trembling, lest I should meet with a salutation of “Friend, how comest thou hither?” I know not whether ever I had a greater discovery of the dying love of a dear Redeemer. It appeared so clear to the eyes of my understanding that for a little while I saw nothing of the world besides. Then I went on my way rejoicing, singing in the Psalmist: “Return unto thy rest, O! my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.” I thought then I should never sin more; never indulge sloth or inactivity, or wandering thoughts, for sin had got such a dash it would no more have any access to my spirit; but sad experience soon made me wiser, and I was left, not many days after, to go mourning without the sun. So my chariot wheels moved slowly for many days. Though, blessed be God, a sense of religion, and my deep obligations still remained with me, and I was assiduous for the good of poor sinners; taking such opportunities as fell in my way, and such of my acquaintance as I had access to. And in the way of my duty I suffered much reviling, but was not suffered to be moved thereby, though young, and religion at that time an uncustomary thing, and not much of morality only among the aged.

And now, my dear children, let me enjoin this duty on you, to make conscience of your conversation and words. You may be apt to excuse yourselves with, that you are young, and it does not become you to talk of religion, and that is the minister’s part. But if you have received the grace of God, have you received it in vain, or only for yourselves? Has not the Lord deposed a trust in your hands–His glory and honor–and should you not every way strive to advance it? At that time I was much perplexed with my own heart; spiritual pride seemed as if it would undo me, for I concluded at some times as if it was the spring of all my actions. This I groaned under; but sometimes was tempted to cast away all for my ignorance of divine life. And the depth of Satan made me conclude that there never was a child of God that had ever the least rising of such a horrid feeling, and so much akin to the devil. But conversing with a humble, honest woman, I found that she was wrestling under the same, and so I got new courage to fight this Apollyon, and so from time to time I was helped. As I let down my watch, and grew cold and formal, and to backsliding from Him, the Lord left me to such exercises as cost me broken bones before I was restored to a sense of His favor. As I informed you, I cannot recollect the particular exercises at such a distance; if I can but say:

“Here, on my heart, the impress lies,
The joys, the sorrows of the mind.”

What reason have I this day to praise my heavenly Father, who is a Father to the fatherless, in providing for me such a companion in life, when my fond fancy would sometimes have led me to choose one that had little or no religion! Oh! the goodness of God in preventing me then, and at other times, when I had formed schemes to ruining myself. This, my dear children, I would have you carefully to ponder and beg for direction in before proceeding in such an affair in which your happiness for this world, if not the next, depends. Let the words of the inspired apostle be the moving spring of all your actions: “the glory of God.”…

My care for your immortal part never left me in the midst of all my own perplexities and fears; and when I had freedom for myself, your happiness was next to my own. Before your entrance into the world, (or before you drew the vital breath of life) my concern for you came next, which prompted me at one time to spend some time more than common to implore heaven in your behalf. It pleased God by His gracious influence to smile upon me and encourage my faith and trust for you. Now let this be an excitement to you, to be earnest for the salvation of your own souls, and, as it were, to storm heaven–offer violence to your carnal selves. For though none can win heaven by all they can do, yet the command is, “Give all diligence.” He that sows sparingly, shall reap so. Otherwise it shall avail nothing that you have so many petitions put up for you….

Words to Live By:
There are many duties that we encounter in this life. What a wonderful exercise, to write your testimony for your children (and their children). Most likely such an exercise would first be a witness to you yourself. But what a blessing and comfort, to leave a testimony to future generations! And by that document, to be reminded to pray often for them, for their salvation, and for their place and role in God’s kingdom.

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. – (2 Timothy 1:5)

Source: Sketches of Virginia, by Wm. Henry Foote (1856), pp. 81ff.

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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.

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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

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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.”

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