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(Click here to jump to successive references to McLean) [48]
"Shall we to men benighted, There was a vast field almost destitute of the means of grace. Most of the settlers had been accustomed to church privileges in their former homes, and were clamorous for them in their frontier cabins. Those who attended the camp-meetings returned to spread the religious interest in their neighborhoods. A sufficient supply of preachers could not be secured. The case was one of extreme urgency. The Rev. David Rice visited McGready's field, "and being informed of the destitute state of most of the churches, and the pressing demands for the means of grace, earnestly recommended that they should choose from among the laity some men who appeared to possess talents and a disposition to exercise their gifts publicly to preach the gospel, although they might not have acquired that degree of education required by the Book of Discipline. This proposition was cordially approved by both preachers and people. ... What still more clearly convinced them of the propriety of this measure was that in almost every congregation that had been blessed with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, there were one or more intelligent and spiritual men whose gifts in exhortation had already been honored by the Head of the church in awakening and converting precious souls. Accordingly three zealous, intelligent, and influential members of the church--viz., Alexander Anderson, Finis Ewing, and Samuel King--were encouraged by the revival preachers to prepare written discourses and to present themselves before the Transylvania Presbytery at its session in 1801. All these persons had previously been under serious impressions that it was their duty to devote themselves to the ministry, but as they had not enjoyed the advantages of a [49] collegiate education, and were men of families and somewhat advanced in life, they had been laboring under difficulties. At the meeting of Transylvania Presbytery, in October, 1801, the case of these brethren was brought before that body, from some of whom they met with warm opposition. However, after a protracted discussion, it was agreed by the majority that they might be permitted to read their discourses privately to Mr. Rice."(50) They did so, and Rice reported favorably. They were then sent out as exhorters to the vacant congregations, and instructed to prepare written discourses for the next meeting of the presbytery. In the spring of 1802 Anderson was received by a majority of one vote as a regular candidate for the ministry, and the others by a majority of one vote were retained in the category of catechists. In the fall of 1802 they were all licensed to preach. Here was the second ground of complaint. The question was not then, nor is it now, about the great importance of a classical education, but it was, and still is, whether after we have done our utmost in educating men for the ministry, we may supplement the supply by licensing judicious men of piety and promise to work among the perishing, even when these men have not a collegiate education. Inasmuch as there was opposition, Mr. Rice, by direction of the presbytery, addressed a letter to the General Assembly on the subject. Here is the answer:(51) A liberal education, though not absolutely essential, has been shown to be highly important and useful, from reason and experience and the prosperity of the Presbyterian and New England churches. But, whatever might be the Assembly's opinion, the standards are explicit on the subject. As to the apprehension of schism in consequence of rigid views, the reply must be that the path of duty is the path of safety, and events are to be committed to God. Parties formed under such circumstances would be neither important nor permanent. Notwithstanding, when the field is too extensive, catechists, like those of primitive times, may be found useful assistants. But great caution should be used in selecting prudent and sound men lest they run into extravagance and pride. Their duties should be carefully defined and subject to frequent inspection. They should not be considered stand [50] ing officers in the church, but, if possessed of uncommon talents, diligent in study, and promising usefulness, they might in time purchase to themselves a good degree, and be admitted in regular course to the holy ministry. {Italics mine.} This advice of the General Assembly accords in every possible particular with the views then taken by the revival party. On those views they acted, and against them the other party planted themselves. Every Cumberland Presbyterian would consent to have all the licensures by Cumberland Presbytery tried by this rule. So, too, may the licensures of Ewing, King, and Anderson by the Transylvania Presbytery be tried. Though not fully up to the requirements in the classics, these three men were all men of respectable attainments in scholarship. Ewing had considerable classical knowledge. There were catechists sent out at a later day who never expected to become regular ministers. As a considerable number of these catechists were employed, it is not a matter of surprise that a few of them disappointed the expectations of the presbytery. But, of all those whom the revival party licensed to preach, there is not one single name which is not held in the profoundest veneration to-day in all the field where they labored. Not one of them left a reputation tarnished by heresy, apostasy, or defection from the church and services of the Lord Jesus. They all died with their armor on after a noble warfare. Such things can not be said of those who constituted the other party of the Cumberland Presbytery. At a later day the revival party sent a history of their action at this time to the General Assembly. An extract from that history is here given. The history is too long to quote in full(52) but it is all interesting, and is in perfect accord with the history of the revival given in this book, especially as to when, where, and how the revival originated. After describing the origin of the revival and its wonderful spread over the whole country, they say: Now, truly, the harvest was great and the laborers few. Unable to [51] resist the pressing solicitations from every quarter for preaching, with unutterable pleasure we went out, laboring day and night, until our bodies were worn down, and after all we could not supply one third of the places calling upon us for preaching. While thus engaged, and while the gracious work was still going on, we observed what was very remarkable, that in almost every neighborhood there was some one who appeared to have uncommon gifts for exhortation and prayer, and was zealously engaged in the exercises thereof, while the Lord wrought by him to the conversion of many. Viewing the infant state of the church in our country, the anxious desire for religious instruction, the gifts, diligence, and success of those we have mentioned, and the scriptural authority for exhortation, we were induced with almost every member in the presbytery, to open a door for the licensure of exhorters, well knowing it was a liberty that was, and would be taken; and concluding if taken by presbyterial authority it might prevent disorder and weakness. It was now agreed that any of those who might be licensed, and who manifested extraordinary talents and piety, should be considered as candidates for the ministry; also, that for their improvement they should have subjects appointed, on which they were to be heard at our stated sessions of presbytery; that if, by their improvement, piety, and usefulness, they purchased to themselves a good degree, they might be set apart to the holy ministry. Accordingly, several made application, who were examined on experimental religion, and the motives inducing them to public exhortation. Those we judged qualified were then licensed. The first were all men of families, and somewhat advanced in years. Out they went, leaving wives and children, houses and lands, for Christ's sake and the gospel; suffering hunger, cold, and weariness, for weeks in succession, but the Lord was with them and made them happy instruments in helping on his work in the conversion of many. After a long trial of those men in different parts of our country, there came forward to our presbytery several petitions for their licensure to the ministry, signed by hundreds of the most moral and religious characters where they had labored. From our personal knowledge of those men's good talents, piety, and usefulness; from the numerous warm petitions of the people at large; from the example of many presbyteries; from the silence of Scripture on literary accomplishments; from your own declaration in answer to Mr. Rice's letter, viz.: "That human learning is not essential to the ministry;" from the exception made in the Book of Discipline, in extraordinary cases; we humbly conceived, that it would not be a transgression either of the laws of God or the rules of the church, to license men of such a description. We therefore did license them, and a few others at different times afterward; some of them with, and some with [52] out, literary acquisitions; but all men of gifts, piety, and influence, having spent years previous in exhortation, before they were admitted to the ministry. Several were licensed to exhort, whose names are on our Minutes, whom we never had a design of admitting to the ministry. Now the work of the Lord went on. Numbers of young and promising congregations were formed. ... So that in a few years the wilds of our country echoed with the praises of the Lord. Savage ignorance was changed into a knowledge of God and his dear Son; and savage ferocity into the lamb-like spirit of Jesus." James Hutchinson, Esq., of Montgomery County, Tennessee, gave to Dr. Cossitt a statement which will illustrate the circumstances under which these men were first sent out. He says:(53) We emigrated from Virginia in 1796, and settled where we now live, in 1797. Both my Sarah and I had been religiously raised and accustomed to read our Bible. Away from all our friends and in this then solitary place, we felt that we needed an Almighty Protector. We sought the one thing needful as for goodly pearls. In 1800 we trust we both embraced that holy religion which has been our guide and comfort up to the present hour. The country was filling up rapidly, but there was no one to break to us the bread of life. O how we did long to hear the blessed gospel preached! We joined with David Beaty and Henry Anderson in a petition praying Transylvania Presbytery to send us a preacher. We were rejoicing in hope, but hungering for the word of God. We were Presbyterians, so far as we understood ourselves, and wanted to cast our lot with that people among whom God was carrying on his glorious work. The field was wide, the harvest plenteous, and the laborers few. A preacher could not come to us. We wept, we mourned, we prayed; we could take no denial. We petitioned again without success. Still we believed God would hear and help us. We could not be discouraged, seeing that God could, in answer to our prayers, incline the presbyters to favor us, if only a little. No mortal man can conceive our anxieties unless he has been placed in a like situation. We could hear of other places within ten, twenty, thirty miles where the people, like us, were petitioning for a preacher. Some of them had attended the great meetings in Kentucky or higher up in Tennessee, and had returned glorifying God. We asked, Would not a God of love take care of his own cause and feed his own flock? ... We called to mind his precious promises and said, Surely he will. There are two periods in my life which I never can forget while I [53] remember any thing. One is when I found the Lord precious; the other is when, in answer to all our prayers, he sent his faithful servant to minister to our spiritual necessities. I often call to mind, as if it were but yesterday, the evening when a traveler, an entire stranger, as I supposed, rode up to my log-cabin. This house, built of stone, was not here then. His eyes were red with weeping, and the tears were scarcely dried on his cheeks. He inquired for James Hutchinson. On being informed that I was the man he seemed overjoyed. He said, "I have so long traveled this Indian path without seeing a house that I seriously feared it would be my lot to lie out this night and take my chances with the wolves. I have cried and prayed the Lord, my helper, ... and he has brought me to this hospitable home." I was filled with surprise and joy. I saw he was a man of genteel appearance, and, better still, his language savored of grace and piety. I had seen but few religious persons since I professed, and I greatly rejoiced that a pious traveler had done me the favor to call and spend a night with me at my cabin in the wilderness. ... He soon took occasion to let me know his business in these parts, and that his name was Finis Ewing. ... "Sarah, Sarah," I called. She was out preparing supper. Stepping to the door I said, "The preacher has come!" Sarah came in shouting, while I was crying for joy. God had answered our prayers and sent us a preacher! When we had become a little composed, Mr. Ewing modestly observed, "Do not mistake me, my friends; I am not a preacher, but have been sent in the place of one. I am authorized publicly to exhort, expound the Scriptures, and, according to my ability, give all needful instructions, without the formalities of a sermon." Being mere babes in Christ, we cared but little for the formalities of a sermon. ... We had long felt that we were in the midst of a people who were living without hope and without God in the world, actually perishing for lack of knowledge. Without the gospel, without schools, and almost without a Sabbath, we shuddered at the thought of raising our children in such a state of society. Mr. Hutchinson gathered in his neighbors and Ewing preached and left another appointment. Hutchinson then accompanied him to other destitute neighborhoods. He speaks in strong terms about the great power of Ewing's sermons at all these places. As for the other lay exhorters, each in separate fields, the one claiming attention next to Ewing is Samuel King. Like Ewing, he had been taken into the church while still unconverted; and, like Ewing, he had been truly converted afterward. Then he [54] immediately began to exhort sinners. It is the general testimony that his exhortations were greatly blessed. While he had a circuit regularly appointed around which he traveled, he seems often to have wandered beyond its bounds. From the very first his heart yearned over the most destitute. Nor did he stop with the white settlements. An incident of his work among the Indians will be given here. It was furnished originally by his son, Judge R.M. King. King was addressing, through an interpreter, a large crowd of Choctaw Indians. The interpreter became so powerfully convicted that he could proceed no further, but like the sinners at McGready's meetings, he fell to the earth and began to cry for mercy. The preacher knew not what to do. He could speak none of their language, yet they were weeping all around him. He knew, though, that God could understand him. He fell to his knees and began to pray. While King prayed the interpreter was converted. Then the preacher had a new tongue. His sermon was blessed to the salvation of many souls before he left the place. To the visits of King to the Choctaws can be traced the conversion of our first native preachers among that people.(54) But, returning to King's circuit, the indications are that it reached the wildest and sparsest portions of the field. He swam rivers; he slept often in the forest with his saddle-bags for a pillow; he preached under the trees, where there was no house of worship. Thomas Calhoun testified that King was the first man in all the West to take his stand against whisky. All these men rode vast circuits on which they preached every day, besides riding from twenty to fifty miles on horseback. Riding, too, when there were no bridges, ferry-boats, or even good wagon roads. It took them four months to make one round on these circuits. To many of the new settlers visited by them these circuit appointments, once in four months, were their only dependence for the gospel. Even the daring pioneers of Methodism had not then reached some of these regions. Alexander Anderson had gifts, in some particulars, superior to all the others. One who knew him well gave a long written statement to Dr. Beard(55) testifying to his spiritual power. Speak [55] ing of his selection by the presbytery he says: "They knew their man. They knew what he could do in prayer, exhortation, and other religious exercises. Nor were they disappointed." He says there were still living a few who remembered Anderson's sermons and could repeat whole paragraphs of them, and still wept at the mention of his name, after he had been in heaven fifty years. It is reported of him that he foresaw the schism which was threatened in his church, and prayed God that he might be taken home before it came. His prayer was answered. Colonel Joe Brown gives this incident, as related to him by the father of the Rev. James B. Porter: "The Rev. Dr. Thomas Hall, while on his way to Natchez, where he had been sent as a missionary, stopped to rest a while in Sumner County, Tennessee. There he heard about these lay exhorters. He expressed himself in strong terms against the measure, and said he would see to it that the Presbyterian Church should not be disgraced by lay preaching. That same night he attended a prayer-meeting at which Alexander Anderson exhorted. Dr. Hall was amazed. He said that man must-preach. The Lord had some great work for him to do." {See Banner of Peace, March 16, 1856.} As for Ephraim McLean, he is not in the same category as the others. While he was received as a candidate in 1802, he was not willing to be placed on the list of exceptions to the educational requirements. What little he lacked of coming up to those requirements he believed he could make up by private study while on the circuit. It is this that explains the omission of his name in the passage quoted from Smith's history. But in all the list there was no truer hero for Jesus than McLean. When he professed religion he had a wife and four children, and was living in a floorless cabin built of round poles. When he felt himself called to preach the gospel, his heroic wife urged him on, both in his preparation for the work of the ministry and in the discharge of its sacred duties afterward. He went out on his circuits, year after year, preaching to people where no other minister came. He received no pay. His wife raised the wool, spun the thread, wove the cloth, and made the clothing which he wore on his circuits. The anti-revival party sneered at his rough garments, but [56] they will not sneer in the day of judgment, when they see him wearing a crown studded with many stars. His was not a long career. He fell just after the new church was organized, but his work lives on. He had two sons who were in the national Congress afterward, one a Senator. He has a grandson now in the ministry in our church, the Rev. E.G. McLean, of California. Some idea of the way in which the revival spread, and how God pointed out to the presbytery what men to select as evangelists, may be received from the following incidents: James B. Porter had educated himself for a physician. At Shiloh camp-meeting, in Sumner County, Tennessee, 1801, he found the Savior. Soon after the meeting his mother took him with her on a trip to South Carolina. At every house where they stopped on their journey, Porter told about the wonderful grace of God to his soul, and commended his Savior to the people. There were conversions all along the journey. On the return trip Lorenzo Dow had a public meeting in which he made Porter exhort, and God greatly blessed the exhortation. The case of Alexander Chapman is similar. Soon after his conversion he went on a visit to his uncle in Virginia. On his arrival he found the family about starting to their weekly prayer-meeting. He accompanied them. After two or three prayers the way was opened for any one to read, or pray, or make remarks. Chapman, who had been brought up in the neighborhood, and whose profession of religion was unknown there, rose and gave an exhortation. A revival began at once, and spread over the community until more than one hundred persons professed faith in Christ. Among these were several of his cousins, who lived many years to adorn the profession which they had made. The Rev. Mr. Robinson, the pastor in that community, gave his hearty indorsement to the young man's zeal and usefulness.(56) Owing to the great distance between the two settlements which belonged to Transylvania Presbytery, the synod divided it, and created the Cumberland Presbytery. This presbytery embraced all the Green River and Cumberland settlements, and all that portion of the synod in which those grave differences of opinion had [57] arisen, out of which, at last, "the Cumberland schism" sprang. As the Transylvania Presbytery had received into membership a Methodist by the name of Hawe, and as he resided in the bounds assigned to Cumberland Presbytery, the revival party, by his aid, had a majority of one. The new presbytery ordained Anderson, Ewing, and King. That gave the revival party a decided majority. Against all these measures in which men were employed as exhorters or preachers without a classical education, the anti-revival party took a decided stand. Their protests in several instances were entered on the Minutes of the presbytery; but the revival party were in the majority, and had things their own way for a season. The synod, however, came at last to the relief of the minority. This question about the Westminster standard of ministerial education being made a sine qua non for the pulpit, is a live question yet. So, too, is the question about how to conduct revival meetings. Three out of the four questions of that day are still debated; though with a growing majority in all three in favor of the views then taken by the revival party. On the fourth question (the ecclesiastical one), all parties concede now that the founders of our church were right. While we believe the course pursued by the revival party was wise and scriptural, we believe also that it has been abused by many of our presbyteries since. Three errors have prevailed. One, in overlooking "aptness to teach" and spirituality, which neither education nor the lack of it can ever supply. Another is in attributing the wonderful spiritual power of Calhoun and his associates to their lack of education. If lack of collegiate education gives this wonderful spiritual power, why is it that all the army of uneducated ministers in our church, and in other churches, to-day do not have it? The third error is in calling Ewing and Donnell and their comrades uneducated men, and holding up their example as an excuse for laziness and stupidity, as, alas! so many of our presbyteries have done. True, these men were not graduates of any college, and what scholarship they had was not obtained according to regulation methods, but for all that they were educated men and profound thinkers. Their education came as Daniel Boone's did. They availed themselves of all the facilities in their [58] reach. They carried text-books in their saddle-bags and studied at night. They studied men, and profoundly studied their English Bibles. Most that colleges do for men is to teach them how to think; these men had that lesson, no matter how they obtained it. Between these men and the lazy boy of to-day who has it in his power to secure a college education and will not do it, there is no similarity at all, and their example is a rebuke rather than an apology to all such. Akin to this error of some of our own people is a slander from some who do not understand us. "They went out of the Presbyterian Church because they were opposed to education," is a threadbare slander still circulated. Many times utterly refuted, this slander is still peddled out as the most effective way of injuring our church. The real issue is not about the inestimable value of education, but about the propriety of allowing exceptions to the requirement of a classical education in cases of great pressure, like those of Ewing and King, when clearly demonstrated usefulness on the part of the aspirant combines with a very great demand for his special services on the part of the destitute. Whether it was better to allow whole vast areas of destitute settlements to remain without the gospel entirely, or to send them sound teachers who loved souls and knew the way of salvation, though they did not know either Latin or Greek--that was the question. Neither the fathers of our church nor their sons failed to appreciate an educated ministry. It requires considerable grace patiently to argue such a proposition at this late day, but I think God will give me grace to do it. Proof 1. Ephraim McLean was one of the fathers of our church. When he was ordered to prepare for ordination along with Ewing and King, he said: "Give me a little more time and I shall be able to come fully up to the standard. I am fully up now in every thing but Greek, and am working hard at that."(57) They granted his request, but with the understanding that he should pursue his studies on the circuit. This he diligently did. They cared for souls, but they cared for scholarship too. McLean then had a wife and six children, and was preaching without any compensa [59] tion whatever. His wife and boys made their support on their Kentucky farm, and his wife with her own hands spun the thread and wove the cloth for his clothing. Our fathers thought it was worth while to endure trials that the perishing multitudes might have the gospel. Nor is this all in McLean's case. When his boys were old enough to go off to school he discussed the case with his noble wife, and fell upon a plan for their education. His wife took charge of the farm herself, and by heroic struggles and sacrifices supported the family and kept her boys at school and her husband on the circuit. Was that husband opposed to education? Proof 2. All the men who took part in the organization of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church left the strongest possible testimony that they held a thorough education in the highest esteem. Finis Ewing left his testimony in several forms. He spent large sums of money in establishing a classical school near his home in Kentucky, and that before the organization of our first synod; and when this school was established he would have none but thorough classical teachers in it. This was the first classical school in all that portion of Kentucky.(58) Afterward he sent his own son, who was then looking to the ministry, to college and gave him a thorough education. When he moved to Missouri he set to work to establish a school for the classical and theological education of the ministry in Missouri, and he filled his large house full of young preachers going to school, to whom he gave gratuitous boarding. Still further, when our first college was proposed, and the practicability of establishing both a classical and theological college, with ample endowment, was under discussion, Finis Ewing made a speech in favor of the enterprise which Dr. Cossitt, a graduate of a New England college, who heard it, pronounced the ablest of all the pleas for an educated ministry that he had ever listened to. To his dying day Dr. Cossitt maintained, and published, and reiterated his declaration that he had heard no plea for an educated ministry equal to Ewing's great speech. Ewing wrote for the college some of the ablest pleas I ever read. When I was president of Cumberland University, and struggling hard to lift the institu [60] tion up from the wreck where the civil war had left it, the most telling appeal I made to our people in behalf of our college was made by republishing some of Finis Ewing's pleas for old Cumberland College. Samuel King traveled as agent for the endowment of our first college. Thomas Calhoun had a son who entered the ministry. He sent that son to college and afterward to a theological school. He nearly all his life was aiding some young preacher to obtain a college education. Samuel McAdow was himself a graduate, but his infirm health prevented his taking any very active share in any kind of work after the organization of the new church. Robert Donnell traveled as agent for our first college, at his own expense, and published many earnest pleas for it. He delivered a course of lectures to the theological class at Lebanon, Tennessee. He declared a thoroughly endowed theological school to be a necessity of the church. He himself gave large sums to that endowment. In discussing the necessity of a thoroughly endowed college he says, in a letter published in the Banner of Peace, "Without it we cannot prosper as a body." All the first numbers of our church papers teem with earnest articles from those men who planted the church, urging the importance of thorough education. Proof 3. Early ecclesiastical action. The council formed by the revival preachers before the organization of our first presbytery addressed a letter to the General Assembly, in which they say: "We never have embraced the idea of an unlearned ministry. The peculiar state of our country and the extent of the revival reduced us to the necessity of introducing more of that description than we otherwise would. We sincerely esteem a learned and pious ministry, and hope the church will never be destitute of such an ornament."(59) The first presbytery of our church thought proper to place itself on record also. The very first year of that presbytery's existence it addressed a circular letter to the churches under its care, in which it told those churches, and all the others concerned in the [61] case, to have no fears of any laxness in educational requirements; declaring its purpose to require a classical education in all cases where that was practicable, and when, in exceptional cases and emergencies that was dispensed with, in no case to dispense with a thorough English education.(60) Our first presbytery, the first year of its existence, commenced raising money to educate its young preachers. It instructed those who came as candidates, while still young enough to secure an education, to go to school first. Philip McDonnold was a poor boy, who had shown his eagerness for an education before he applied to presbytery to be received as a candidate. Presbytery determined to receive him and defray the expenses of his thorough education, and it carried out this determination. This was the first year of that presbytery's life and its first official act about education. The official records of our first three presbyteries abound in strong declarations of the great importance of an educated ministry, and declare it to be "absolutely necessary for us to have a college of our own." A convention of delegates from the presbyteries met in 1822 to consider the question of a college for the church. See Minutes of Elk Presbytery, and other minutes. Three years before we had a General Assembly, those founders of our church, who traveled in homespun clothing made by their wives, and carried text-books in their saddle-bags while they went seeking the lost among the pioneer settlements, established, through the General Synod, a college for the education of young preachers. Our later work need not now be mentioned. A curious fact of history deserves now to be noticed. It is this: During the first twenty years of our existence, what was called "the anti-revival party" of the mother church strenuously denied that lack of classical education was one of the charges against us.(61) Heresy and disorderly conduct in revival meetings were then asserted to be the offenses. Our church had, at first, no theological literature, and it was an easy matter to make people who knew us not [62] believe that we held horrible heresies. Not only were we charged privately and publicly with the grossest heresies, but also with the most abominable practices in our meetings. Good and true men who lived where we were unknown believed these reports which appeared in pamphlets and newspapers, and repeated them in dignified volumes. The Rev. J.L. Wilson, D.D., who was one of the commission, and who never ceased to pursue and persecute "the Cumberlands" till he was called to his final account, wrote a long article for his church paper in 1832, taking the same ground, and declaring the statement in Buck's Theological Dictionary about the educational issue to be a falsehood. David Lowry, then editing our church paper, replied to Dr. Wilson, and argued that education was one of the issues. {See Religious and Literary Intelligencer, April 5, 1832.} How the winds do change! Now the cry is that the question of ministerial education was the real cause of the schism, and the doctrinal difference is ignored or denied altogether. Once we were charged with denying the atonement, denying original sin, denying imputation,(62) and with various similar heresies. Now it is asserted even by the New York Observer that practically, and in our pulpits, "there is no difference." It would not be hard to point out the reason for this shifting of the winds, but it would not be edifying. No harm comes to us from these charges. The taunts about education have done us good. Let us go on our way trying to please God, and pay no attention to any misrepresentations which men may make of us or our doctrines. The main question stands today about where it did in 1800. Many millions are perishing for lack of the gospel. It is a modern thought, revived from New Testament examples, after a long sleep, that the gospel is to be carried with the utmost zeal and speed to every perishing human being. To shut it up in a select circle, and deliver it officially from stately pulpits with learned illustrations and elegant diction before cultivated audiences, may suit the tastes of ambitious ecclesiastics; but there is a far more stirring view of its solemn mission which is beginning to break in upon the vision [63] of modern churches. The appalling spectacle of a city on fire presents no such stirring appeals for sympathy and assistance as do the millions of our fellow-men who are now perishing in their sins. There is no time to lose. Our generation will be beyond the reach of the gospel when we pass away, God is dealing with the churches of this day. While lay evangelism has been abused, it is manifest that God is in it. Educate? Yes, to the utmost. Let all secure the best training possible. When good men have spirituality and aptness to teach, and feel it to be their duty to proclaim salvation to lost men, but have no opportunity to secure a classical education--hold them back? No, never. Who would blot out the record of Moody's work? Ah! even Mr. McCosh, at staid old Princeton, gives Moody a hearty welcome to those classic seats; and God uses Moody even there. Yes, and uses him at the grand old colleges of England, too. The Southern Presbyterian Church, which has been so wonderfully conservative, is seriously considering the propriety of changing its standard on this subject. A standing committee has been appointed to investigate the question. A long circular has been sent out by one of that committee, ably advocating the change. This circular shows that the ratio of increase in a hundred years between the Presbyterian and Methodist churches is as 47 to 1051. It shows that "aptness to teach," which is a Bible qualification, is not proved by the possession of a college diploma, which is not. Indeed, there is no essential connection between the two. It shows that the evangelization of the masses was not in the plans of the Westminster Assembly. The one great question which the awakened Christianity of today has to settle is how best to evangelize the masses. This one great work will require the diligent use of all the church's forces. We have not a man or a woman to spare. In some sphere or other all are to help. Men, women, and little children are all to share in this activity for Jesus. God will lead each trusting soul, and indicate to each one who is pliant in his hands just what work to do. Consecrated workers in still greater numbers, we trust, are coming up to give heart and life, tongue and pen, to the service of the [64] King. Ecclesiastical courts may advise and help, they may pray for and defend them; they may and they will soon be forced to provide a place in their ecclesiastical machinery for this uncanonical army, which cares a thousand times more for souls than it does for church canons and rubrics. The churches which refuse to do so will go into the same category with the Jewish church after it rejected its own Messiah. One measure which is both scriptural and canonical needs to be revived by all the presbyteries: that is the policy of licensing catechists or exhorters. If that had been diligently followed, many of the embarrassing questions of the present day would have been forestalled. Another step will have to be taken. God in his providence has sent us back to learn over again the teachings of his word about woman's sphere in helping on the gospel. When Mrs. Ranyard, unaided by any ecclesiastical recognition, by the simple prayer of faith secures the necessary means and employs two hundred Bible-women to labor all the time for Jesus among the outcast portions of London; and when God blesses these labors to thousands of perishing souls, what church court would dare come in with its ecclesiastical gag to stop these women's mouths? When Elizabeth Clay, leaving her aristocratic home among the high-churchmen of England, goes to heathen India, and year after year makes a regular circuit of a thousand miles preaching Jesus to the women of heathendom, and God uses her in leading many to salvation who never heard the gospel from other lips, shall any mitered churchman dare interpose his ecclesiastical gag, and say to this devoted woman, Stop! this is not canonical? One of the bitter complaints against the revival methods of 1800 was that women would "get happy," and even dare to exhort sinners in church and in public. It was to one such exhortation that the church and the country owes, under God, the conversion of that holy servant of Jesus, the Rev. James B. Porter. Would that we had more such women now. What, in my estimation, is needed in ecclesiastical
courts is to provide for and lead this lay activity, and not
sit still and be led [65] and superseded by
it. For lack of fatherly direction (not suppression), it has
run into many hurtful errors, and may yet become extensively
mischievous; while with proper direction it may yet be the
church's right arm of power. In saying this it is not
intended to reflect upon or set aside the regular ministry,
but rather to stir up their pure minds by way of
remembrance.
[66]
The young men, when licensed by the Cumberland Presbytery, made reservations in adopting the Confession of Faith. They thought that a particular and limited atonement and unconditional election amounted to fatality. They were willing to take the book "for substance," after precedents which could be cited in great numbers, but they are of no value to us now. If the traditional system of Calvinism, without any modern liberalizing, is to be maintained at all, then no reservation in the adoption of the book should be tolerated for one moment. Reservation is a leak in the dykes of Holland. The whole vast sea of modern thought presses on the barriers. "If the book were not in existence, there is no modern church which would ever produce it."(64) The one lingering hope is to hold the anchorage to "the time-honored standards." How long that anchorage will hold time will reveal. There are meanings to the word fatality which all know do not attach to the Westminster Confession. There are others which many people still think apply to that book. Webster defines fate to mean, among other things, "A decree or word pronounced by God;" "A fixed sentence by which the order of things is prescribed;" "inevitable necessity." These are the popular and common ideas of what fatality means: the doctrine of inevitable necessity. It carried the chief thinkers of the world once. Its reign took in the purest and best men of another age; but "Ilium fuit." I quote here an illustration of the doctrine which our fathers [67] called fatality. The quotation is from grand old John Bunyan. "Is there ever a time in the life of a sinner, who is not one of the elect, when it is possible for him to repent and be saved? To this I answer emphatically, No."(65) This is the doctrine from which modern thought shrinks shivering away. If this doctrine be not in the Westminster Confession, then there are some very unfortunate paragraphs in the book which greatly need to be changed. Our fathers believed that no man is sent to hell without having a chance to be saved. They preached the doctrine of a general atonement, and the operation of the Holy Spirit on all men. And now I come to a vital part of this history. The one supreme difficulty which could not be reconciled, and which still stands an insuperable obstacle to a reunion, is this doctrinal difficulty. Dr. Davidson, in his history of "the Cumberland schism,"(66) says: "It was not the want of classical learning, but unsoundness in doctrine, the adoption of the Confession with reservations (charge second, as already alluded to), that created the grand difficulty; and the removal of this would have wonderfully facilitated the accommodation of the other." Samuel Hodge was one of "the young men." His literary qualifications were much lower than Ewing's or Anderson's, but when he agreed to adopt the Confession without reservation, he was taken back, and allowed to continue his ministry. All the young men who were involved in this difficulty, after some delay, made an offer to the Transylvania Presbytery that they would yield on all other points, and come back in a body,(67) if they might still be allowed to make this reservation about fatality; and their offer was rejected. Two charges were brought officially against these preachers by the commission of Kentucky Synod: (1) That they were illiterate; (2) That they held erroneous doctrine.(68) In the apology for their proceedings, made by the members of Kentucky Synod to the Gen [68] eral Assembly, they stated explicitly that unsoundness in doctrine constituted the chief difficulty; and they deny that the lack of classical education was the greatest difficulty.(69) The General Assembly, in 1814, gave a deliverance about the Cumberland Presbyterians, in which the following words were used: "The grounds of their separation were that we would not relax our discipline and surrender important doctrines.(70) {Italics mine.} The members of the council, after the Assembly gave its final decision against them in 1809, sent two commissioners to negotiate with the synod for a reconciliation. The terms laid down by the members of the synod, on which they were willing to be reconciled, included an unconditional adoption of the Confession of Faith.(71) In 1811 there were three other ecclesiastical deliverances about this doctrinal difficulty. The West Tennessee Presbytery and the Muhlenberg Presbytery (Presbyterian) undertook to secure a reconciliation. First, they addressed, through an unofficial letter, some inquiries to the General Assembly about what terms could be accepted. The answer was, among other things, an unconditional adoption of the book.(72) This doctrinal difficulty stands today the main barrier between the Cumberland Presbyterians and the mother church. Proof of this assertion can be found in the negotiations for organic union in 1866 and 1867 with the Southern church, and 1873 and 1874 with the Northern church. In both of these negotiations (neither of which originated officially with the Cumberland Presbyterians(73)), the Cumberland Presbyterian committees offered to surrender every existing difference except the doctrinal one. I have all the documents before me, but need not make extracts now. In the platform of union submitted by the Cumberland Presbyterian committee to the Southern church was a new creed, which contains about as much Calvinism as we ever hear in Presbyterian pulpits in modern times, but that platform was not accepted. It went as far as it is possible for us to go. That platform proposed to take the West [69] minster Confession entire, except the third, fifth, and eighth chapters, for which it offered the following substitutes:
Section 1. God did from all eternity adopt the whole plan of his creation and providence with a full knowledge of all the events which would transpire therein, including the sins of men and angels. These events he determined either to bring to pass by his own direct and absolute agency, or to permit them to come to pass in view of the results which his bounding and overruling providence would bring out of the whole plan. Section 2. According to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, he did from all eternity elect to salvation all true believers in Jesus Christ. This election was perfectly definite as to the persons elected, and also as to their number: and God did in like manner from eternity reprobate to eternal perdition all that finally reject Jesus Christ, and this reprobation was also definite as to person and number. Section 3. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of mere free grace and love, all to the praise of his glorious grace. Section 4. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Section 5. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending the will of God revealed in his word and yielding obedience thereunto, may from a certainty of their vocation be assured of their eternal election; so shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel. We make the same references which are made in the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, with the addition of I Peter 1:2, and Romans 8:29.
We offer the following modification for section fourth: Section 4. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extendeth itself not only to those acts which God absolutely decrees, but also to those which he permits, joining with it a most wise and [70] powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing them in a manifold dispensation to his own holy ends.
We offer the following as a substitute for section eight: Section 8. Although Jesus Christ tasted death for every man, according to the Scriptures, yet the benefits of this death are savingly applied to those only who are chosen unto life through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth; but to all those thus chosen these benefits are so applied as to insure their eternal salvation. We offer the tenth chapter in the Cumberland Presbyterian Confession of Faith, instead of the tenth chapter in the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. In chapter seventeen we offer this change in section second: substitute for the phrase "not upon their own free will," the phrase "not upon their own ability or merit." Finally, we propose to modify certain expressions in the Catechisms so as to make them correspond with the changes indicated in reference to the Confession of Faith. As far as possible the wording of the old book was retained, even when it required some explanation to fit that wording into the general scheme. The tenth chapter, on effectual calling, in our book differs from the old in the meaning put on the word "calling." Whether the hard places in the Westminster Confession be justly called fatality or not, they are too hard for us. We believe the doctrine of grace, but we think it needs to be restated. One fact most clearly pointing to this necessity is that there are no Calvinists now of the type which composed the majority of the Westminster Assembly. Leaving Supralapsarian and Infralapsarian questions all out of the discussion, it is plain to all who study the writings of the Westminster divines that many of them believed, as Calvin before them did, that there are infants in hell. No modern Presbyterians believe any such a thing. No man dare preach any such a doctrine now. In the first draft of Westminster doctrines, the majority stated their creed, "elect of infants." The liberal party objected. To compromise matters, the statement was so modified that both parties might claim it, but with a very decided advantage given to the interpretation which the majority wished to put on the deliverance: "Elect infants" are saved. So of other places. The creed is a [71] compromise, but always with an immense advantage given to the views of that hyper-Calvinistic majority. In modern times it is the hardest surviving type of rigid Calvinists who insist on an unconditional adoption of the creed. The liberal party insist on the phrase, "for substance." Robert Shaw had easy sailing in interpreting the book according to the hard old traditional Calvinism. Dr. Morris and Dr. Schaff have a hard time of it trying to fit the liberal system to the book. True, it can be done; but the process by which it is done is itself objectionable. A genuine Calvinist of the liberal school gave utterance to this same view of the case while advocating before his presbytery a change in some of the hard places in the book. This Calvinist was the Rev. Dr. MacCrae, of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. His speech was made in 1876, and reported by the press. He says:(74) "I am aware that every doctrine in the book can be defended or explained away. But some of the casuistry employed for this purpose is as discreditable as the doctrine it is used to defend. For instance, the Confession says `elect infants' are saved. The other side of the doctrine obviously is that non-elect infants are cast into hell. This was not only, in former days, admitted and preached, but within the memory of fathers and brethren in this presbytery, one of the most eminent ministers of our church was like to have been brought before the church courts for denying it." When the Synod of Diospolis arraigned Pelagius for heresy, one of the charges brought against him was that he taught that unbaptized infants dying in infancy are saved. It is vain to deny that the world, including the Calvinists, has been drifting slowly away from this and other hard doctrines since Pelagius. Another proof that some of the hard expressions of the old book need to be changed, is found in the outburst of protest against it coming from real Calvinists whenever the spirit of evangelism comes upon them. To quote all these protests would fill many a volume. As Dr. Phelps (speaking of these stern doctrines) says: "A preacher ... finds them to be incumbrances upon the working power of the pulpit." Whenever his heart grows warm [72] with the gospel he begins to feel that something is wrong in the creed. Thus Dr. Chalmers breaks forth: The commission put into our hands is to go and preach the gospel to every creature under heaven, and the announcement sounding forth to all the world from heaven's vault was, Peace on earth, good-will to men. There is no freezing limitation here, but a largeness and munificence of mercy, boundless as space, free and open as the expanse of the firmament! We hope, therefore, that the gospel, the real gospel, is as unlike the views of some of its interpreters as creation in all its boundless extent is unlike the paltry schemes of some wretched scholastic of the middle ages. The middle age of science and civilization is now terminated; but Christianity also had its middle age, and this, perhaps, is not yet fully terminated. There is still a remainder of the old spell, even the spell of human authority, and by which a certain cramp or confinement is laid upon the genius of Christianity. We can not doubt that the time of its complete emancipation is coming, ... but meanwhile there is, as it were, a stricture upon it, ... and by virtue of which the largeness and liberality of Heaven's own purpose have been made to descend in partial and scanty droppings through the strainers of an artificial theology, instead of falling, as it ought, in a universal shower upon the world.(75) That stanch leader among modern Calvinists, Dr. Philip Schaff of Union Theological Seminary, says of the Westminster Confession: "Predestination to death and damnation ... ought never to be put in the creed or Confession of the church, but should be left to the theology of the school."(76) Again, he says of the seventh section of the third chapter: "This seventh section is or dark spot on the Confession, and mars its beauty and usefulness."(77) He has many other expressions showing that he holds the doctrine of grace in much the same sense that Cumberland Presbyterians. Many conscientious men who hold about the same views which are preached by men like Dr. Schaff are, nevertheless, too conscientious to adopt the Westminster Confession. One of our men was with a modern Calvinist, when the latter said to him, "Why, you preach as much Calvinism as I do. You would have no difficulty in our church." The answer was, "O the ministry in your church is like a bottle: there is room enough when you get in, but there [73] is such a narrow neck to pass through before you get in." Yes, that is the trouble. Cumberland Presbyterians believe pretty much the same doctrines that the liberal modern Calvinists preach, but they can not get through the neck. They believe in total depravity. They believe that man is utterly unable to come to Christ till he is drawn by God's Spirit. They believe that all the initiative steps toward salvation are from God. They believe that even infants need regeneration. They believe the theory of justification by faith alone. They believe in the imputed righteousness of Christ. They believe that the Christian's legal standing is in Jesus and not in works. They believe that God's overruling providence extends to everything, but is not the author of every thing. They believe in the perseverance of the saints, but they can not take that third chapter of the Westminster Confession. They would have no difficulty in accepting the doctrinal declaration(78) of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, if it were not for the book to which it is appended. One trouble with all of us is that we want our creeds to be theodicies. When man knows all that God knows then he may write a theodicy, and not till then. As Dr. Schaff says, the Westminster Confession attempts to give deliverances on matters that ought never to go into a church creed. As Dr. Phelps says, that book contains doctrines which we can not use in our work for Jesus. While the Cumberland Presbyterians aimed at making a working creed, it is a pity that they still exhibited some of the old penchant for making a theodicy. In the main, though, theirs is a creed for the pulpit and the mission. A typical fact exceedingly significant, is found in the debates of the Belfast council of Presbyterians about the admission of our delegates. A precious Presbyterian missionary to the heathen was the mover and the advocate of our admission. A Presbyterian preacher who, it is said, has charge of no congregation--a scholastic Calvinist--was the chief opponent to our admission. Both he and Dr. Worden, of Philadelphia, in their remarks, betrayed [74] the profoundest ignorance of the transactions of their own General Assemblies, and provoked Dr. Morris, of Lane Seminary, to give them a whack over the shoulders which was heard clear across the Atlantic. Workers, wherever we find them, who have their hearts set on the salvation of lost men, extend to Cumberland Presbyterians the most hearty cooperation. Even at a time when the ecclesiastical bitterness which "the Cumberland schism" produced was still a burning fire in Kentucky, the Presbyterian missionaries then in Mississippi Territory passed resolutions inviting the Cumberland Presbyterian Church to send more preachers among them, and indorsing those already there.(79) Yes, this is our place, our fields, our mission, beside those live workers who are struggling for souls. God never called us to scholasticism. Writing theodicies is not in our commission. Working for souls with all our forces is. Side by side with every man that loves Christ more than all other things, to struggle for the evangelization of the world, is the high calling which God has given to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. With all our forces used, whether more or less learned; with all our creed, practical and available for the pulpit, to take our places in the solemn, thrilling struggle for those now perishing, is the mission to which God calls us. If aught in our policy or in our creed fits not into this mission, let it be abandoned. With sweet confidence to go wherever there are lost men, and without any "freezing limitations," to preach Christ, not theories about him, not works, not doctrines, but a personal divine Deliverer who will save all that accept and trust him--this is our first mission. Our second mission is also Christ--to preach him to the Christian; Christ dwelling in us; realized by faith, as the way of victory over all evil habits, as the way of sanctification. To preach, not works, not self, not some imparted power, not some second conversion, not theories about sanctification, not growth, but that "same Jesus" who dwells in us, trusted for victory over sin's power, just as he was trusted for victory over sin's penalty, and [75] this also without any "freezing limitation"--this is our second mission. Our third mission is also Christ--to preach the indwelling God, not some imparted thing, but Christ in us, realized by faith as the way of all power for service, with no "freezing limitation." Not human attainments, but Christ accepted and installed as King within, and his presence realized by faith, and his promise, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," clung to and believed in, in spite of all failures, not on account of the dead covenant of works, but on account of the everlasting covenant of grace--ah, this made our first preachers a race of invincible heroes! In this work, and with a faith like this, we can never make a failure. In all three of these missions both the extremes between which we steer our way present "freezing limitations." If works are to be relied on in either of the three, then the limitation comes from he rottenness, and imperfections, and uncertainties of all human works. If the "unalterable necessity" of "unconditional" theology be the iron fence that bounds our hopes, then the "freezing limitation" in all three of these missions comes from that iron fence. Our theology is belief in the boundless divinity of the Redeemer, able, ready, and willing, in each of the three missions, on the simple condition of trust and nothing else to give us the victory. No preparation is necessary, no human scaffolding up to salvation or other blessings, but Christ trusted just as we are. Our starting point is not God's eternal and unrevealed decrees, nor man's will nor man's powers, but Christ and his divine power, and his dying love, and his unfailing promises, and his gracious invitations. This is the tried cornerstone of our system. Christ is the truth as well as the way. A theological school may cover a student all over with theories about Christ, and hide a personal Savior from his eyes so as to send him out at last a mere proclaimer of theories. Or it may be an institution conducted by men who are themselves filled with all the fullness of God; who not only know the power of the indwelling Savior, but have experience and success in leading others to that knowledge; and they may lead their pupils on and up in the blessed experience of the [76] divine life till those pupils, when they go out into their life-work, will be an army filled with divine power. The latter is the only type of a theological school which will ever fit into the Cumberland Presbyterian system, or be in harmony with Cumberland Presbyterian antecedents. From all others may the good Lord deliver us.
[77]
In vain they
smite me; men but do The two parties in Cumberland Presbytery got further and further apart. The "anti-revival" party was in a hopeless minority in the presbytery, but it had a large majority in the Kentucky Synod. In 1805 that synod appointed a commission of ten ministers and six elders to meet at Gasper River meeting-house and investigate the proceedings of Cumberland Presbytery and take such action as the case required. This commission was composed of all the men in the "anti-revival" party of the synod who had rendered themselves most obnoxious to the other party. Whether justly or not, the revival party believed that the work aimed at by the commission was not the correction of abuses, but the suppression of the revival. All the preachers and probationers for the ministry belonging to the revival party of Cumberland Presbytery received a regular citation to appear before this commission. Most of them obeyed. The commission met December 3, 1805. I have before me a full copy of the proceedings of the commission, taken from the record book by Lowry and Smith, while they were editing the church paper. The words of the charges are these: They did license a number of young men to preach the gospel, and some of them they ordained to preach the gospel and administer ordinances in the church, contrary to the rules and regulations of the Presbyterian Church in such cases made and provided; and, whereas, these [78] men have been required by said presbytery to adopt the said Confession of Faith and Discipline of said Church no further than they believe it to be agreeable to the word of God, etc. These charges are repeated, in substance, three times in the records of the commission, and are, in substance, just what Dr. Davidson makes them. The General Assembly paraphrased the charges thus: "Licensing and ordaining a number of persons, not possessing the qualifications required by our Book of Discipline and without explicit adoption of our Confession of Faith. " No prosecutor was named. No specifications were made, but on these general charges the commission required the Cumberland Presbytery to submit all its probationers for the ministry, and also four of its ordained ministers, to the commission for re-examination. To this requirement the majority of the presbytery refused to submit, claiming that the constitution of the church made the presbytery the sole judge of the qualifications of its own probationers, and that no other church court had a right to arraign and try one of that presbytery's ordained ministers.(80) It was not a case of appeal or of reference. No charges had ever been brought against these four ordained ministers in their own presbytery. Neither the synod nor its commission had any right to originate process of trial in these cases. The commission then appealed to "the young men," as the accused were called, to come forward and submit to the examination. The young men asked leave to retire and pray for divine direction. Their request was ridiculed, but a telling speech by a layman in favor of granting the request turned the current, and they were allowed to retire. Each went alone to the woods for silent prayer. Each returned alone. Each one separately declined to submit. Then the commission forbade all of them to preach by virtue of any authority received by them from Cumberland Presbytery. Ewing and King, however, did not receive their licensure from Cumberland Presbytery. Of course that fact was forgotten by the commission. The other young men placed under the interdict were numerous, including several mere catechists who never aspired to the work of the ministry; but those whose names [79] are of special interest to our people were Robert Guthrie, James B. Porter, David Foster, Hugh Kirkpatrick, Thomas Calhoun, Robert Bell, Ephraim McLean, Alexander Chapman, and William Moore. But the commission had no right to originate process against a minister, nor to suspend or depose a minister. Its action was illegal, unconstitutional, null, and void. Precedents away back in the state church of Scotland are quoted, but there is not one of these precedents that does not reek with the odors of state tyranny, overriding and subduing the lawful church courts. Riding committees, high courts of commission, and popery all go together. There was a written constitution in the Presbyterian Church in America. No matter what was done in Scotland. No matter if the Westminster Assembly itself did ordain men to preach. In the constitution of the American Presbyterian Church the sole and exclusive right to ordain was placed, where the Bible places it, in the hands of the presbytery.(81) Nor is there one single word in all the book giving that right to any other court. As to trial of a preacher, the constitution fixes that beyond all dispute. "Process against a gospel minister shall always be entered before the presbytery of which he is a member." (Discipline, ch.v. 2.) What then is the synod's redress when a whole presbytery goes wrong in its ordinations? It can dissolve that presbytery, and attach its members to some other.(82) That intensely partisan history of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, written by Dr. Davidson, has this remarkable concession about this commission: "Thus terminated one of the most interesting and important convocations ever known in the American church; without precedent, and, thus far, without imitation." {Italics mine.} It seems to be the accepted policy of the Presbyterian Church now to obey the constitution, and restrict the right to originate process against a minister to his own presbytery. {See McPherson's Hand Book, pp. 141, 144, 146.} One significant fact is brought to light by Dr. Crisman's valuable little book, "Origin and Doctrines," pp. 77, 78, and that is that [80] the very year in which the first presbytery of our church was organized, the General Assembly of the mother church pronounced the assumptions of a synod to try a minister when there was no appeal --that is, to originate process of trial against a minister--unconstitutional. When asked the next year to reconsider the deliverance of the preceding year on this subject, the Assembly declined to do so, and adhered firmly to its former decision. {See Baird's Digest, pp. 447, 448, 468.} The General Assembly of 1807 disapproved this assumption of authority by the commission of Kentucky Synod, and if it had not been for the doctrinal trouble, an appeal to that Assembly would have settled all the difficulty. But no matter what the Assembly did or would have done, the revival party stood on their constitutional rights when they refused to submit to the commission's demands. In doing so they gave a check to popish usurpations in the Presbyterian Church so decided, that there has been no effort since to repeat them in that particular way. Along with the traditions and written testimonies about this meeting of the commission at Gasper River church, come up two conflicting multitudes of angry voices, both, however, agreeing in two things: First, that "the young men" who were arraigned were prayerful, dignified, and firm. Second, that the chief manifestations of bitterness against the commission were made by the people, and not by the revival preachers. To this Mr. Rankin, who never joined the Cumberland Presbyterians, was the only exception. For the popular feeling it would be easy to find an apology. The object of the commission was looked upon as one more effort to put a stop to the great revival. It was put in the same category with the visits to McGready's churches and McGready's members in 1798 by Mr. Balch, who went from house to house and from church to church, ridiculing the revival, and trying to embarrass the young converts. The place of meeting was unfortunate. The revival party had been shut out of that meeting-house, and had established their place of worship in the adjacent grove. Among the members of [81] the commission were men who had been the fiercest partisans against the revival. Mr. Lyle, who had succeeded in winning preeminence as an unscrupulous enemy of the revival and who had traveled among the revival churches, as they thought, "in the capacity of a spy," preached the opening sermon--if a harangue three hours long against the measures of Cumberland Presbytery may be called a sermon. Mr. Rankin, the most excitable of the revival party, harangued the people on the other side of the question, going for that purpose to the grove where the revival party had established their place of worship. The popular feeling of the neighborhood had been roused against "Mr. Lyle and his commission" to such an extent, that none of the people near the church out of which the revival party had been locked, would open their houses to the commissioners. Mr. Cameron, who had also won the title of "the spy," was present with these commissioners. Joshua L. Wilson, who to the day of his death pursued "the Cumberlands" with a malignity which would have disgraced a Romish priest in the days of Martin Luther, was also one of the commissioners. But Rice and other conservative men of the synod were not on the commission. The revival party complained much of the haughty and dictatorial language used by the commission in all its demands upon them. It often reminded them that they were no longer where they were in a majority, and could have things their own way, but were standing at the bar of their masters, arraigned for trial. Ah! well; we have had enough of that. God rules. The actors in that scene have all long ago gone before a tribunal which never makes any mistakes. One thing we do know. God still used the revival party in leading poor sinners to their Savior. 2. This MS. was written by R.B. McMullen, D.D., and was loaned me by J.H. Bryson, D.D., of Huntsville, Alabama. It is a very valuable MS. What a pity we have not a history of the Presbyterian church in the rest of the State! 3. This minister was the Rev. Dr. Brooks. For reasons unknown to the writer his name never appeared on the roll of the Kentucky Synod, in whose bounds he lived. 4. MS. History of Presbyterian church in East Tennessee, by Dr. McMullen. 8. Davidson's History, pp. 103, 129, 130. 9. He had been tried and suspended before he came to Kentucky, and was restored to the ministry by a different presbytery without the consent of his own presbytery. He was a disturber of the peace wherever he went.--Dr. McMullen's MS. 10. McGready, Hodge, Ewing, Calhoun, Smith, Speer, Foote, and others, are my authorities for this chapter, 11. John McGee's statements were written from memory, twenty years after the events, and contain internal proofs of inaccuracy in other matters. 12. Several of his hard sayings on that occasion are preserved in the Kirkpatrick MSS., and in others. 13. Foote's North Carolina, pp. 64-73. 14. Speer, Rev., 1800, pp. 24, 43, 48, 84. 16. Revivalist, Feb. 13, 1833. 17. There is good reason to believe that he was wrong in the date. He describes events which seem to belong to the next year. He wrote from memory long after the events. 18. See appendix to Life and Times of Ewing, Dr. Frizzell's semi-centennial pamphlet, and Revivalist, 1832, for these circulars. 19. Assembly Minutes, Vol. I., p. 117, et seq. 20. See McSpeddin's papers, filed in Cumberland University Library; also Banner of Peace, September 8 and October 26, 1853. 21. From Glasgow to Springfield, by Fergus Ferguson, D.D. 22. An explanation of what "tokens" were and what "fencing the table" was will be found in another chapter. 25. Bishop's Memoir of Rice, p. 367. 26. From the Western Sketch Book, published in East Tennessee by the Rev, James Gallagher, of the Presbyterian church. 28. Conversations with Old Kentuckians. 29. Judge W.S. Delany, Columbus, Texas. 31. This prohibition was revoked in 1825. 32. Lowry's Life of Donnell, pp. 43, 45 33. Beard's Memoirs of the Rev. William Harris, p. 138. 34. Dr. Frizzell's semi-centennial pamphlet, pp. 57, 58. 35. Smith's History, p. 563; Foote, p. 50. 36. Smith, p. 567, et seq.; McGready's Posthumous Papers 37. See Mrs. Williamson's letters in Bird's Chapman. 38. Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery, 1801; Revivalist, April 16, 1834. 39. Lowry's Life of Donnell, p. 26. 41. Conversations with Old People at Red River. 42. John McGee locates this incident incorrectly. 43. Southern Quarterly, 1868, p. 155. 44. See his ninth letter to Presbyterians. 45. See his History of the Presbyterian Church in America. 46. See New York Evangelist, 1833. 47. Revivalist, June 13, 1834. 50. Quoted from Smith's History. 51. Quoted from Cossitt's Life of Ewing, p. 346. 52. See Revivalist, May 14, 1834. See also appendix A, in Life and Times of Ewing. 53. Life and Times of Ewing, pp. 70-77. 56. Bird's Life of Chapman, p. 35. 57. Incidents furnished by his son, Finis E. McLean. 58. Incidents reported by Hon. F.E. McLean. 60. Dr. Frizzell's Semi-centennial Pamphlet, p. 14. 61. See "The anonymous pamphlet of Kentucky Synod;" J.L. Wilson's letter in The Standard, 1832; Religious and Literary Intelligencer, April 5, 1832, etc. 62. See Dr. Wilson's charges quoted in Religious and Literary Intelligencer, February and April, 1832. See also Pittsburgh Herald, 1835, passim. 63. In the middle of the track. 64. Dr. James H. Brooks said this in substance, if not ipsissimis verbis. 65. This quotation is given from memory. 66. Davidson's History Presbyterian church in Kentucky, p. 255. 68. Davidson's History Presbyterian church in Kentucky, p. 239, where the Minutes of the Commission are quoted. "Not only illiterate, but erroneous in sentiment," is the wording. 69. Davidson's History Presbyterian church in Kentucky, p. 255. 72. Baird's Digest, pp. 157, 645. 73. Presbyterian General Assembly Minutes (South), 1866, p. 30. Presbyterian General Assembly Minutes (North), 1873, p. 485. 74. Quoted from the Evangelical Repository, March, 1877. 76. Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I., p. 791. 77. Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I., p. 792. Note. 78. Declaration of 1879. I have a copy in the handwriting of its author, sent me by Dr. Ferguson, of Glasgow. 79. Revivalist, April 17, 1833. 80. Discipline, ch. v. sec. 2. 81. Form of Government, ch. x. sec. 8. |
