Our post today was written some years ago for the PCA Historical Center by guest author Barry Waugh. Today is the anniversary date of Dr. Warfield’s inaugural address at the Western Theological Seminary of Pittsburgh, PA, upon his installation as Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Literature.

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was born to William and Mary Cabell Breckinridge Warfield in the rolling bluegrass country of Lexington, Kentucky, on November 5, 1851.  His father bred cattle and horses and was a descendant of Richard Warfield, who lived and prospered in Maryland in the seventeenth century.  William also served as a Union officer during the Civil War.  Benjamin enjoyed both the finances and heritage of the Breckinridges of Kentucky, along with the prosperity and ancestry of the Warfields.  His mother’s father was the minister Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, who was a leader of the Old School Presbyterians, an author, a prominent Kentucky educational administrator, a periodical editor, and a politician.  The Warfields financial prosperity enabled them to have Benjamin educated through private tutoring provided by Lewis G. Barbour, who became a professor of mathematics at Central University, and James K. Patterson, who became president of the State College of Kentucky.  L. G. Barbour wrote some articles for the Southern Presbyterian Review on scientific subjects and his own scientific interests may have encouraged Benjamin in a scientific direction.  Ethelbert D. Warfield, Benjamin’s brother, has commented that:

His early tastes were strongly scientific.  He collected birds’ eggs, butterflies and moths, and geological specimens; studied the fauna and flora of his neighborhood; read Darwin’s newly published books with enthusiasm; and counted Audubon’s works on American birds and mammals his chief treasure.  He was so certain that he was to follow a scientific career that he strenuously objected to studying Greek.

Following the years of private tutorial instruction, Benjamin entered the sophomore class of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) in 1868 and was graduated from there in 1871 with highest honors at only nineteen years of age.  Having concluded his college years, he then traveled in Europe beginning in February of 1872 following a delayed departure due to illness in his family.  After spending some time in Edinburgh and then Heidelberg, he wrote home in mid-summer announcing his intent to enter the ministry.  This change in vocational direction came as quite a surprise to his family.  He returned to Kentucky from Europe sometime in 1873 and was for a short time the livestock editor of the Farmer’s Home Journal.

Benjamin pursued his theological education in preparation for the ministry by entering Princeton Theological Seminary in September of 1873.  He was licensed to preach the gospel by Ebenezer Presbytery on May 8, 1875.  Following licensure, he tested his ministerial abilities by supplying the Concord Presbyterian Church in Kentucky from June through August of 1875.  After he received his divinity degree in 1876, he supplied the First Presbyterian Church of Dayton, Ohio, and while he was in Dayton, he married Annie Pearce Kinkead, the daughter of a prominent attorney, on August 3, 1876.  Soon after he married Annie, the couple set sail on an extended study trip in Europe for the winter of 1876-1877.  It was sometime during this voyage that the newly weds went through a great storm and Annie suffered an injury that debilitated her for the rest of her life; the biographers differ as to whether the injury was emotional, physical, or a combination of the two.  Sometime during 1877, according to Ethelbert Warfield, Benjamin was offered the opportunity to teach Old Testament at Western Seminary, but he turned the position down because he had turned his study emphasis to the New Testament despite his early aversion to Greek (vii).  In November 1877, he began his supply ministry at the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, where he continued until the following March.  He returned to Kentucky and was ordained as an evangelist by Ebenezer Presbytery on April 26, 1879.

In September of 1878, Benjamin began his career as a theological educator when he became an instructor in New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh.  Western Seminary had been formed by the merger of existing seminaries including Danville Seminary, which R. J. Breckinridge, Benjamin’s grandfather, had been involved in founding.  The following year he was made professor of the same subject and he continued in that position until 1887.  In his inaugural address for Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Literature, April 20, 1880, he set the theme for many of his writing efforts in the succeeding years by defending historic Christianity.  The purpose of his lecture* was to answer the question, “Is the Church Doctrine of the Plenary Inspiration of the New Testament Endangered by the Assured Results of Modern Biblical Criticism.”  Professor Warfield affirmed the inspiration, authority and reliability of God’s Word in opposition to the critics of his era.  He quickly established his academic reputation for thoroughness and defense of the Bible.  Many heard of his academic acumen and his scholarship was awarded by eastern academia when his alma mater, the College of New Jersey, awarded him an honorary D. D. in 1880.

[*Warfield’s inaugural lecture can be found under the title “Inspiration and Criticism,” published in the volume Revelation and Inspiration. (Oxford University Press, 1927): 395-425. In the P&R reprint (1948), the lecture is included as Appendix 2, pp. 419-442.]

According to Samuel Craig, Dr. Warfield was offered the Chair of Theology at the Theological Seminary of the Northwest in Chicago in 1881, but he did not end his service at Western until he went to teach at Princeton Theological Seminary beginning the fall semester of 1887.  He succeeded Archibald Alexander Hodge as the Charles Hodge Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology.  His inaugural address, delivered May 8, 1888, was titled “The Idea of Systematic Theology Considered as a Science.”  As he taught theology, he did so using Hodge’s Systematic Theology and continued the Hodge tradition.  The constant care Annie required and the duties associated with teaching at Princeton, resulted in a limited involvement in presbytery, synod, and general assembly.  Annie lived a homebound life limiting herself primarily to the Princeton campus where Benjamin was never-too-far from home.  The Warfields lived in the same campus home where Charles and Archibald Alexander Hodge lived during their years at Princeton.

Isaac Van Arsdale Brown was born in Pluckamin, Somerset county, New York, on November 14, 1784. Little seems to be known of his parents or his early years. He graduated at Nassau Hall, as Princeton University was known in those days, and then studied theology privately under the tutelage of Dr. John Woodhull, of Freehold, New Jersey. He was licensed and then later ordained by the Presbytery of New Brunswick in 1807, being installed as the pastor of the church at Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

Three years later, in 1810, Rev. Brown established the Lawrenceville Classical and Commercial Boarding School, located near Princeton, and up until 1833 Rev. Brown remained the head of this school. The school has continued to this day and is one of the oldest private boarding schools in the nation. Then in 1833, both his wife and his son died, and it seems likely that their deaths led to his decision to leave Lawrenceville. In 1834, he sold the school and relocated to Mount Holly, New Jersey to plant a church there, while also preaching at Plattsburg, NJ and working to establish another church there. The last two decades of his life were spent preaching in the areas around Trenton and New Brunswick.

Dr. Brown was one of the founders of the American Colonization Society and also an original member of the American Bible Society. He died on April 19, 1861. (for historical reference, Fort Sumter had been fired upon, and the Civil War thus began, a week prior, on April 12, 1861)

Dr. Isaac V. Brown is noted as the author of several works, but most importantly, that of A Historical Vindication of the Abrogation of the Plan of Union by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. (1855). This is a careful treatment in defense of the Old School position on the 1837-1869 Old School/New School split in the PCUSA. It can be read online, here.

To read about the efforts of the Lawrenceville School in relocating Rev. Brown’s grave to a more appropriate location, click here.

Words to Live By:
In all likelihood, Rev. Brown started the school in Lawrenceville simply as a way to make ends meet. Pastors were not well paid in those days, and it was quite common for a pastor to turn to teaching in order to augment his salary. Nonetheless, the works that you do may live well beyond your own life-time. God will use what He will use. It is our part to be faithful in doing what He calls us to, and to do all things as unto the Lord.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10, ASV)

A list of Rev. Brown’s published works which are available on the Web:

• A Historical Vindication of the Abrogation of the Plan of Union by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (1855)
• Memoirs of the Rev. Robert Finley, D. D., late pastor of the Presbyterian congregation at Basking Ridge, New-Jersey, and President of Franklin College, located at Athens, in the state of Georgia . . . (1819)
• Biography of the Rev. Robert Finley, D. D., of Basking Ridge N. J. : with an account of his agency as the author of the American Colonization Society; also a sketch of the slave trade; a view of our national policy and that of Great Britain towards Liberia and Africa. (1857)
• Slavery Irreconcilable with Christianity and Sound Reason; or, An Anti-Slavery Argument. (1858)

Ordained on this day in 1833.

Though reared in a Christian Presbyterian home in Albion, Maine, where the family emphasis was that of a religious obligation to help rid the world of sin in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ, young Elijah  Lovejoy did not receive the Savior during those years. Instead, he grew up on the family farm of the Rev. Daniel and Elizabeth Lovejoy, assisting in the tent-making ministry.  In 1823, he attended Waterville College, where he was a serious student who made strides in journalism, so much that he became a tutor for many in his class.  Graduating at the top of his class in 1826, he moved west to St. Louis, Missouri to raise up a high school and teach many children of the wealthy and important families of that city.  Still however, he did not know the Master.

His relationship with God was to change in 1832 when the Rev. David Nelson held a series of revival meetings at the First Presbyterian Church of that city.  From the sound preaching of the Word of God, God’s Spirit regenerated his soul.  That same year, he began to study at Princeton Theological Seminary back in New Jersey.  The following letter from the Illinois State Historical Library, in Springfield, Illinois, tells of his spiritual state to his parents:

“So I am here preparing to become a minister of the everlasting gospel!  When I review my past life, I am astonished and confounded, and hardly know which most to wonder at, my own stupidity and blundering and guilt or the long suffering and compassion  of God. That He should have blessed me with such opportunities of becoming acquainted with his holy word — should have given me parents who in the arms of their faith dedicated me to them according to his gracious covenant, and who early constantly and faithfully and with many tears warned and entreated me to embrace the salvation through Jesus Christ, and not-withstanding all this, when he saw me hardening my heart, resisting the prayers of my parents and friends, grieving his Holy Spirit, counting the blood of the covenant into which I had been baptized an unholy thing, that He should have still borne with me, should have suffered me to here, and last given me season to hope that I have by his grace been enabled to return to my Father’s house, all this seems a miracle of goodness such as God alone could perform and far too wonderful for me to comprehend.  I can only bow down my head and adore.”

Graduating early from Princeton, it was on this day, April 18, 1833, that Elijah Lovejoy was licensed to preach the gospel by the Second Presbytery of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Leaving this city, he traveled back to St. Louis, where he began his ministry in Presbyterian churches of that western city.  Using journalism gifts, he became a powerhouse for the abolition of slavery, which eventually was to take his life by violent means in 1837.  (We will cover that part of his history on November 7 devotional)

Words to Live By:  When the good news of eternal life transforms a life by grace alone through faith alone, in Christ alone, then a new creation has come into existence.  It manifests itself not only by godly words but also in godly actions.  Have you reader. have that religious experience in your spiritual life?

STUDIES IN THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM
by Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn

Our guest author for our current Saturday series on Election Day Sermons, Dr. David W. Hall, is taking a well-deserved break today while he attends to some pressing pastoral matters. With great trepidation then I’m taking his place today, and have the following to offer, and only mostly tongue-in-cheek, have found this sermon by the Rev. Lyman Beecher, titled A Remedy for Duelling. A most fitting election day sermon, don’t you think?  Well, maybe not. Maybe not on several levels, in fact. Anyway, . . . .

Duelling was serious problem in the early days of this nation. What began as a practice among the nobility in Europe had no class boundaries when brought to America’s shores. So today we will look briefly at one earnest sermon against the practice, delivered first before his own congregation and then before the Presbytery of Long-Island, by the Rev. Lyman Beecher. The year was 1809 and Beecher’s sermon was considered by his peers as worthy of a large edition at a low price, for wide publication of the arguments presented. Perhaps the so-called drive-by shooting is our nearest modern counterpart. The former was called “one of the foulest blots on our national character,” and the latter certainly deserves that title as well.

The published edition of the sermon begins with a Preface, rehearsing the decision made by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. in 1805, declaring “their utter abhorrence of the practice of duelling,” . . . “utterly inconsistent with every just principle of moral conduct;” “a direct violation of the sixth commandment, and destructive of the peace and happiness of families.” In calling its ministers to action, the Asssembly urged pastors to “refuse to attend the funeral of any person who shall have fought a duel, and that they admit no person, who shall have fought a duel, given or accepted a challenge, or been accessory thereto, unto the distinguishing privileges of the church, until he manifest a just sense of guilt, and give satisfactory evidence of repentance.”

“And Judgment is turned away backward, and Justice standeth afar off; for Truth is fallen in the streets, and Equity cannot enter.”—Isaiah 59: 14-15.

So having picked up his text, Rev. Beecher began:

“The people of Israel, when this passage was written, had become exceedingly corrupt, and were sinking under the pressure of awful judgments. But although hardened in sin, they are not insensible to misery; and though regardless of God as their benefactor, they murmur and tremble before him as the author of their calamities.

Beecher’s sermon is simply too long to rehearse here. Forty pages long, in good early 19th-century fashion! But to focus on just one portion of his sermon, and here is where I think Beecher speaks in principles that cross over readily for contemporary application, he continues with a major point we will look at closer:

4. The system of duelling is a system of absolute despotism, tending directly and powerfully to the destruction of civil liberty. A free government is a government of laws, made by the people for the protection of life, property, and reputation. A despotic government is where life and all its blessings are subject to the caprice of an individual.

So dueling is a threat to civil liberty. How so? Beecher explains:

(1.) Equal laws are essential to civil liberty, but equal laws are far from satisfying the elevated claims of duellists. That protection which the law affords to them in common with others, they despise. They must have more–a right to decide upon and to redress their own grievances.

Thus duelling is a form of vigilantism, a taking of the law into your own hands.

(2.) The administration of justice ought, above all things, to be impartial; the rich and the honourable to be equally liable to punishment for their crimes with the poor, and, according to their desert, punished with equal severity. But while duellists bear sway, this can never be. It is a fact in this state, at the present moment, that the man who steals a shilling is more liable to detection, and more sure to be punished, and to experience a heavy penalty, than the man who, in a duel, murders his neighbor.

Duelling survives because the crime is not punished; a system has developed that protects the practice.

(3.) A sacred regard to law is indispensable to the existence of a mild government. In proportion as obedience ceases to be voluntary, and the contempt of law becomes common, must the nerves of government be strengthened, until it approach in essence, if not in name, to a monarchy. We must have protection; and the more numerous and daring the enemy, the more power must be delegated to subdue and control them. That contempt of law, therefore, which is manifested by the duellist, is a blow at the vitals of liberty.

Duelling tramples our rights and freedoms:

(4.) The tendency of duelling to restrain liberty of speech and of the press, is certainly direct and powerful. The people have a right to investigate the conduct of rulers, and to scrutinize the character of candidates for office; and as the private moral character of a man is the truest index, it becomes them to be particular on this point. But who will speak on this subject? Who will publish, when the duellist stands before him with pistol at the breast?

Duelling endangers our children’s futures:

(5.) Duelling, in its operation, exposes, to additional risk and danger, those who would rise to usefulness and fame in civil life. With what views can a Christian parent look to the law as a profession for his son, where, if he rise to fame, he must join the phalanx of murder–or if he refuse, experience their united influence against him?

Words to Live By:
As Rev. Beecher continued, his solution seemed to boil down to denying public office to those who supported the practice of dueling. This evil had infected what amounted to the ruling class of the young nation. But apart from urging his listeners to action and specifically to the polls, Beecher closes with the admission that “It is the gospel which must heal the nations; and the more the spirit of the gospel can be diffused, and made to express itself in the arrangement of society, the more will the world recover from its deadly wound. Salvation belongs to the Lord. So too any true change for the better in any society. To read the full sermon, click here:  A Remedy for Duelling (1809).