More by Samuel Miller on Creeds and Confessions

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It was earlier this year that Log College Press announced the publication of a new edition of Samuel Miller on The Utility and Importance of Creeds and Confessions, a bicentennial tribute (originally published in 1824) to a classic work on an important topic. Meanwhile, we have been reviewing some recently digitized materials, which include The Watchman of the South (edited by William Swan Plumer and The Presbyterian (beginning in 1831, and edited by James Waddel Alexander in 1832-1833). Among the many interesting materials we have located in the pages of these journals is a 5-part series of articles by Samuel Miller titled “Creeds and Confessions” that appeared in first in The Watchman of the South (August-September 1838) and was republished in The Presbyterian (September-October 1838). Written in the midst of the church that split the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) between the Old School and the New School, Miller brings his earlier-published arguments in favor of the imperative both to have sound creeds and confessions, and to maintain an appropriate standard of subscription to the same to bear on the questions that were being discussed with great fervency at the time.

The third article in the series is of particular interest because it examines the question of departures from the orthodox creed in an ecclesiastical context. Appeals to higher judicatories, and review of lower court rulings by the supreme judicatory are addressed by Miller, along with — by way of example — the question of secession in the American political context. The fifth and final article Miller delves into the specifics of what sort of level of confessional subscription is required to achieve its desired purpose of maintaining a defense of the truth, as the church is called to do, while balancing the individual consciences of some who might have scruples about “lesser” points of doctrine addressed in the creed.

Throughout this series Miller writes as a “teacher and watchman on the walls of Zion” who is concerned to protect the body of Christ from dangerous error. He assures the reader that the points he is making in his case for creeds and standards of subscription are just what he has taught for two and a half decades prior at Princeton Theological Seminary — that is, they are no new teachings, but rather he is standing on solid precedent. The historical examples of prior ecclesiastical bodies such as the Council of Nicaea and the Westminster Assembly and their efforts to fence out Arianism and Arminianism are discussed in some measure and referenced to show why confessional boundaries are needed.

Both sets of articles are now available on Log College Press to members of the Dead Presbyterians Society and can be found on the Early Access page. They are presented to the reader in raw form, which means that the title page of each issue precedes the article in question, and there is much contemporary material around Miller’s articles that may also interest the reader who appreciates the historical context of the day (for example, there is discussion of a New School convention held in Farmville, Virginia, including a letter by George Addison Baxter regarding his assessment of that convention).

These articles have never been republished since 1838 to the best of our knowledge and therefore will be of interest both to readers who appreciate the careful and sound theological scholarship of Samuel Miller, and those who share his concern and passion for the church as the repository of Biblical truth. Tolle lege!

An Introduction to the Work of the Westminster Assembly

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To mark the tercentenary of the Westminster Assembly, the Presbyterian Historical Societies of England and America joined together in 1943 to publish a study by Samuel W. Carruthers on The Everyday Work of the Westminster Assembly with a foreword by Thomas C. Pears, Jr. This valuable contribution to Westminster studies has recently been added to Log College Press.

Pears notes: “This is an important work; by all odds the most important on the Westminster Assembly since the publication of the Baird Lectures by Alexander F. Mitchell in 1882.” He adds: “The author, Dr. S.W. Carruthers, is eminently fitted for his task. He is the greatest living authority on the text of the Confession of Faith, having served his apprenticeship in this field under the direction of his father, the late Dr. William Carruthers. In 1937, he published an account of the preparation and printing of the seven leading editions of the Westminster Confession of Faith, together with a critical text of the Confession.”

This study focuses on:

  • Relations with Parliament

  • The Solemn League and Covenant

  • Relations with the Scottish General Assembly

  • Relations with Foreign Churches

  • Procedure

  • Payment of Members

  • Devotional Exercises

  • Fasts and Thanksgivings

  • Sectaries and Heretics

  • The Thirty-nine Articles

  • The Metrical Psalms

  • Supply of Ministers

  • Chaplains

  • Universities

  • Examination of Ministers

  • Personal Matters

Students of church history will appreciate this volume, which was republished in 1994 by Reformed Academic Press. Carruthers and Pears made a tremendous contribution to the knowledge that we have today concerning Westminster and its work. Take note of their labors, and consider the legacy of this synod of most excellent divines (Richard Baxter).

John Murray on the Tercentenary of the Westminster Assembly

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On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the commencement of the Westminster Assembly, which first convened on July 1, 1643, John Murray wrote a series of articles for The Presbyterian Guardian sketching the history of its calling, work and catechisms. Those articles are now available to read at Log College Press.

  • The Calling of the Westminster Assembly, Part 1 (1942)

  • The Work of the Westminster Assembly, Part 1 (1942)

  • A Notable Tercentenary (1943)

  • The Calling of the Westminster Assembly, Part 2 (1943)

  • The Work of the Westminster Assembly, Part 2 (1943)

  • The Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly (1943)

Murray wrote a great deal about the Westminster Assembly and Standards over his long career. His knowledge of the history and his conveyance of that knowledge to readers is extensive and edifying. In his article on the Catechisms, he makes a point that students of this history do well to bear in mind: the Confession and the Catechisms have overlapping but also distinct places in the work of the Assembly.

The Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly were, of course, intended to serve a different purpose from that of the Confession, and any comparison of the Catechisms with the Confession should bear this in mind. It should be said, however, that the formulations of the Catechism, especially of the Larger, are at certain points an improvement over the formulations of the Confession. It is altogether nature that the greater maturity of thought attained at the time of the Catechisms were prepared should have had this effect. For example, the formulation of the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace found in the Larger Catechism is more lucid and felicitous than that found in Chapter VII, Section III, of the Confession. A comparison of this section with Questions 30 to 32 in the Larger Catechism will readily show what is meant. Again, the definition of the sinfulness of the estate into which the fall brought mankind, given in both Catechisms, is in at least one respect more adequate than Chapter VI, Sections I to IV, of the Confession. This concerns the question of the imputation of the guilt of Adam’s first sin, a doctrine distinctly asserted in the Confession (Chapter VI, Section III) but not clearly grounded in the covenant relationship between Adam and posterity, as is done in the Larger Catechism, Question 22, and in the Shorter, Question 16. Well-grounded may be the surmise of William Cunningham that the discussions taking place in France in connection with Placaeus’ doctrine of mediate imputation and the decisions of the Synod of Charenton (1644-1645) had become better known and the implications better understood when the divines prepared the Catechisms. In any case, greater precision is manifest in both Catechisms than appears in the Confession. Examples like these show how necessary it is, in determining the position of the Westminster Assembly, to consult the Catechisms as well as the Confession, and in the matter of the subordinate standards in Presbyterian churches a great deal is to be gained by the inclusion of the Catechisms as well as the Confession.

With such insights as these, Murray guides his readers through the times and significance of the Westminster Assembly and its work. This series of articles by a remarkable scholar and teacher is a wonderful introduction to such an important chapter in church history.

Connections to Samuel Norvell Lapsley

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There is a wonderful web of ties between godly men and women outlined in just a few paragraphs from a memoir of the famous Southern Presbyterian missionary to the African Congo, Samuel Norvell Lapsley (1866-1892). His father, James Woods Lapsley, in Life and Letters of Samuel Norvell Lapsley, Missionary to the Congo Valley, West Africa, 1866-1892 (1893), wrote:

SAMUEL NORVELL LAPSLEY

was born in Selma, Alabama, April 14th, 1866. He came into life with the inestimable advantage of pious parentage and a godly ancestry. He was the third son of James Woods Lapsley and Sara E. Pratt, his wife: he an elder in the church, and both of them children of Presbyterian ministers. On his father's side the blood was that of the Scotch-Irish and Scotch, who came to the Valley of Virginia over one hundred and fifty years ago; he being descended from Michael Woods, of Albemarle, an Irish immigrant, who came up the Valley in 1734; his son-in-law, Joseph Lapsley, coming by way of Pennsylvania a little later, and also from Andrew Woods, of Botetourt, and Mary Poage, his wife, and counting among his ancestors in the last century the Moores, Rayburns, and Armstrongs, who came into the Valley country when it was a wilderness.

His father's father was the Rev. Robert Armstrong Lapsley, D.D., of Nashville, Tenn., a name still greatly revered through Tennessee and Kentucky. And in the old cemetery at Nashville, over the grave of his father's mother, Catherine Rutherford Lapsley, is an inscription telling of her pious life and triumphant death, and of her descent from Samuel Rutherford, of the Westminster Assembly'. Her father was John Moore Walker, son of Joseph Walker, for thirty years a trustee and treasurer of Washington College, now the Washington and Lee University. Joseph Walker's wife was Jane Moore, an aunt of Mary Moore, the heroine of the little book in our Sunday-school libraries, The Captives of Abb’s Valley.1 How the name and character of the brave old Covenanter, Samuel Rutherford, has been held in reverence, is observable from the constant recurrence of his name and that of his wife, Catherine, in the families of his descendants. An instance is that of Samuel Rutherford Lapsley, an uncle of the subject of this Memoir (and for whom he was named), his father's youngest brother, who, in his twentieth year, got his death wound in the front of the battle at Shiloh, April, 1862, struck down with the colors of his regiment in his hands.

On the mother's side the lineage was drawn from New England and the Georgia low-country. His mother's father, the Rev. Horace Southworth Pratt, was from Connecticut, but spent his life in Georgia and Alabama, dying while professor of Belles-lettres in the University of Alabama, in which office he was succeeded by his son. Rev. John W. Pratt, D. D., afterwards pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Va., and of the Second Church in Louisville, Ky. His mother's mother, Isabel Drysdale, was of an old loyalist Episcopal family of the low-country, to which the late Bishop Drysdale, of Louisiana, belonged. Rather than rebel against King George, they fled to the Bahamas, where Mrs. Pratt was born. She was equally eminent for piety, literary taste, and business capacity. For many years a widow, she managed well her children's education and property, and also found time to write and publish a number of books for children.

These brief references to an honored and faithful ancestry are worthy of record, showing the value of family religion, coming down from generation to generation, and testifying to the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God.

1 Mrs. Kay, our venerable aunt, says: "The book, Captives of Abbs Valley [by James Moore Brown], omits one thing that my mother used to tell. She said, as the Indians were taking Cousin Mary away, that she caught up her Bible and carried it with her through her long captivity, and when she was at last released and came back to live at Grandma Walker's she still had that Bible. Grandma was quite a match-maker, and thought very highly of preachers. She married Cousin Mary Moore to the Rev. Samuel Brown, and among their children were five preachers, one of whom was the Rev. Dr. William Brown, of Richmond. She married her daughter, my Aunt Peggy, to Rev. Samuel Houston. Their son, Rev. Samuel Rutherford Houston, was missionary to Greece, and his daughter, Janet, is now a missionary m Mexico."

A testimony to “the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God,” indeed.

250th Anniversary Commemoration of the Westminster Assembly (1897)

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In May 1897, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern Presbyterian Church) convened in Charlotte, North Carolina, in part to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Westminster Assembly. Moderator George T. Goetchius presided over the exercises which were organized by a committee consisting of Rev. Francis R. Beattie, Rev. Charles R. Hemphill and Ruling Elder Henry V. Escott. A memorial volume was published in recognition of the event, which included the text of an introduction, plus eleven addresses. This memorial volume may be read in full at our Compilations page. But now each of the men who delivered their addresses has their own page at Log College Press, including most of their known published writings.

Memorial Volume of the Westminster Assembly Title Page cropped.jpg

  • Francis Robert Beattie (1848-1906) - Beattie edited and wrote the introduction to the memorial volume, which includes an able historical framework to the work of the Assembly as well as a helpful bibliography of secondary source literature. The previous year he authored a valuable exposition of the Westminster Standards which is still in print today, and contains a 1997 biographical sketch by Dr. Morton H. Smith. Born in Canada, he served several years on the faculty of Columbia Theological Seminary in South Carolina, but in 1893 he joined the faculty at what is now Louisville Theological Seminary in Kentucky. He authored a number of works, and also served as an editor at The Presbyterian Quarterly and the Christian Observer.

  • Henry Alexander White (1861-1926) - White served as a long-time Professor of History at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and is known for his biographies. His address was on the social and political historical context of the Westminster Assembly.

  • Robert Price (1830-1916) - Price served as a Professor at Southwestern Presbyterian University in Clarksville, Tennessee (now Rhodes College in Memphis). His address was on the ecclesiastical situation in Great Britain at the time of the Westminster Assembly.

  • Thomas Dwight Witherspoon (1836-1898) - Witherspoon was a beloved pastor in Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky, and had previously served as Moderator of the PCUS General Assembly in 1884. His address on was the details of the Assembly itself - its place of meeting, how it was conducted, and who were the participants.

  • Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898) - Dabney had previously served as Moderator of the PCUS General Assembly in 1870. A minister, chaplain, professor, author, architect, and farmer, Dabney’s broad experience made him one of the most respected theologians in 19th century America. His address was on the doctrinal contents of the Westminster Standards, as well as the necessity and value of creeds.

  • Givens Brown Strickler (1840-1913) - Strickerl had previously served as Moderator of the PCUS General Assembly in 1887, and would later serve as a Professor at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. His address was on the nature and usefulness of catechisms.

  • Eugene Daniel (1849-1935) - Daniel was pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Raleigh, North Carolina. Serving in his capacity as alternate for Benjamin Morgan Palmer, his address was on the theme of the connection between church polity, doctrine and worship in the Westminster Standards.

  • James Doak Tadlock (1825-1899) - Tadlock served as President of King College in Tennessee. His address was on the relationship between the Westminster Standards and other Reformed creeds and confessions.

  • Moses Drury Hoge (1818-1899) - Hoge served as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia for almost 54 years. His address was on the relationship between the Westminster Standards and foreign missions.

  • Samuel Macon Smith (1851-1910) - Smith served as pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South Carolina for many years. His theme was on the relationship of the Westminster Standards to current religious ideas and the needs of the future.

  • John Franklin Cannon (1851-1920) - Cannon served as pastor of the Grand Avenue Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri, and went on to serve as Moderator of the PCUS General Assembly in 1899. His address was on the influence of the Westminster Standards upon the individual, the family and upon society, with particular reference to the Christian Sabbath.

  • William Michael Cox (1859-1940) - Judge Cox of Baldwyn, Mississippi was the only ruling elder to address the assembly in this memorial commemoration. He served as a justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court. His address was on the contribution of Westminster to the cause of civil liberty and civic government.

The combined contributions of each of these men constitute a profound, informative and enduring tribute to the legacy of the Westminster Standards. Students of church history in the early 21st century, and those who love the Presbyterian church standards of the 17th century, will find much to glean in these memorial addresses from the late 19th century. Read them all together or individually, but be sure to take note of this valuable resource for your Westminster studies.

Early American Covenanter Doctrine of the Civil Magistrate's Power Circa Sacra

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The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and sacraments for the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God. — 1646 Westminster Confession 23:3

The Westminster Assembly’s doctrine of church-state relations as outlined in chapter 23 particularly was a testimony against Erastianism, despite the fact that a few members of the Assembly were of the Erastian party. The Assembly’s position was contra-Erastian, and instead, an affirmation of the Presbyterian view that civil and ecclesiastical authorities are to work together, in their proper and distinct spheres, to advance the kingdom of God on earth — a position sometimes referred to as the Establishment Principle — exemplified in the very existence of the Westminster Assembly, which was summoned by the British Parliament to remedy the ecclesiastical situation in that nation.

The principle of national establishment of religion was partially rolled back by the 1788 amendments to the Westminster Standards by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA), and even the present-day Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) — which does affirm the duty of nations and their rulers to covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ to advance his kingdom on the earth — objects in its current Testimony to the portion of WCF 23:3 which follows the colon.

But a paper written in 1834 by William Sloane and affirmed by the RP Synod explains and defends the Westminster view of the relationship of church and state. An Erastian view — in which the civil ruler is the supreme authority in ecclesiastical matters — has reference to the power of the magistrate in sacris, that is, in sacred things. But the title of Sloane’s paper is Argument on the Magistrate’s Power Circa-Sacra, that is, about sacred things, which reflects the historic Presbyterian position (a position sketched notably in William Hetherington’s introduction to Robert Shaw’s Exposition of the Westminster Confession).

Sloane’s paper has recently been added to Log College Press and can be read here. In this published overture, Sloane explains what Scripture and the Confession teach in regards to the duty of magistrates with respect to upholding and defending the church, in contrast to Erastians, Papists and those who believed that the civil magistrate should have nothing to do with religion at all. He responds to common objections against the establishment principle; and argues that as God is the creator of both civil and ecclesiastical government, distinct but coordinate authorities intended to serve God on earth, and that all persons are bound by the second commandment, according to each person’s place and calling, to remove all monuments of idolatry (WLC 108 - which was never altered by the PCUSA, et al.), magistrates have certain duties to protect the church and uphold true religion in society.

For the full argument by William Sloane concerning the magistrate’s power and authority in matters circa sacra, visit his page here. It is a valuable window into the views of the early American Covenanter Church and the confessional position on church-state relations as inherited by them from the Westminster Assembly.

The First Hundred Years of American Presbyterian History

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Much of our knowledge of American Presbyterianism is focused on the 300+ year period dating from the establishment of the first Presbytery in Philadelphia in 1706 under the leadership of Francis Makemie, known as the “Father of American Presbyterianism.” The title of D.G. Hart and John R. Meuther’s Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism, a wonderful book, is illustrative of this focus, which is a natural one given the nature of the event in 1706, and the challenges in documenting Presbyterianism in the earlier colonial era. But the organization of that Presbytery, which is an important historical marker in our timeline, presupposes the existence of Presbyterians and Presbyterian congregations which preceded it, a period which encompasses a full century prior. And there is much that we do know, or may reasonably conclude, about the first hundred years of Presbyterianism in America.

In fact, it is believed that colonial Jamestown, Virginia — the first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in 1607 — included among its company Puritan Anglican ministers of the Presbyterian persuasion, such as Robert Hunt (c. 1568-1608), Alexander Whitaker (1585-1616) and George Keith (c. 1585-?). These were men who did not conform to all of the rites and ceremonies of the Anglican church, but neither did they separate from it. Whitaker — most famous for baptizing Pocahontas and possibly officiating her marriage to John Rolfe — was a cousin to William Gouge, a member of the Westminster Assembly, and his June 18, 1614 letter to Gouge, constitutes the first written description of English ecclesiastical polity in America.

The colony on the James River, in Virginia, was established in 1607, by the Virginia Company of London. This company was to a great extent under the control of English Puritans who remained within the Established Church and were seeking to reform it from within. Some of the colonists sent to Virginia by the company were Puritans. Among these was the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, the “Apostle of Virginia,” son of Dr. William Whitaker, Puritan Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and cousin of Dr. William Gouge, member of the Westminster Assembly of divines. Whitaker organized a congregational presbytery in the colony as may be seen from a letter written by him in June, 1614: “Every Sabbath day we preach in the forenoon, and catechize in the afternoon. Every Saturday, at night, I exercise in Sir Thomas Dale’s house. Our church affairs may be consulted on by the minister and four of the most religious men. Once every month we have communion, and once a year a solemn fast.” — Henry Alexander White, Southern Presbyterian Leaders, p. 12

The Collegiate (Dutch Reformed) Church in New Amsterdam (New York City) in 1619 was the first in America to be organized under the “Presbyterian Plan,” according to Robert L. Welsh, The Presbytery of Seattle, 1858-2005: The “Dream” of a Presbyterian Colony in the West, p. 14. This fact highlights the close relationship between Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian polity. Willem Apollonius (d. 1657), for example, was a “Dutch Presbyterian,” who won the approbation of the Westminster Assembly for his 1644 treatise on church government. The New Castle Presbyterian Church in New Castle, Delaware, one of the oldest Presbyterian congregations in America, had its origins due to the labors of the Dutch Reformed Church.

The first Presbyterian religious service in what is now Delaware appears to have been conducted in New Amstel (New Castle), in 1654, by the Dutch Domine Johannes Theodorus Polhemus, on his way to New Amsterdam from Brazil. The first pastor sent to this church by the Classis (Presbytery) of Amsterdam was Everardus Welius, in 1657. Previous to Welius’ coming Evert Pietersen, sent out as a schoolmaster, had opened there Delaware’s first school, enrolling twenty-five children. This church had a precarious existence, being without a pastor for long periods. After the English took the colony from the Dutch in 1664 some of its services were conducted in English. The last recorded services under Dutch religious auspices were in midsummer 1690, when Domine Rudolphus Varick preached three Sundays, and administered the communion. As was natural the next pastor was not Dutch. He was the Rev. John Wilson, from New England. He arrived in 1698, and preached in the court house, because the old Dutch church building had gone to decay. In 1707 a new church was erected. The New Castle church, therefore, appears to be the oldest Presbyterian church, and its building the oldest fabric still in use as a Presbyterian church, in Delaware. -- John W. Christie, Presbyterianism in Delaware

The Puritan emigration from Old England to New England in the late 1620s and early 1630s included thousands of Presbyterians. John White, the Patriarch of Dorchester, and a Westminster Divine, helped to establish a Presbyterian colony at Salem, Massachusetts in 1629 (C.A. Briggs, American Presbyterianism, p. 93). A Presbyterian group under the leadership of Abraham Pierson and Edward Howell left Lynn, Massachusetts in 1640, landed at Conscience Point, and ultimately established a Presbyterian congregation in Southampton, New York, paving the way for other Presbyterian congregations to be built on Long Island or near there: Southold (1640); Hempstead  (1643); East Hampton (1648); New Castle, Delaware (1651); Newtown (1652); Huntington (1658); Setauket (1660), and Jamaica (1662). The Long Island congregations, some of the oldest Presbyterian congregations in America, did not unite to form the Long Island Presbytery until 1717, but there is no doubt that their Presbyterian beginnings long preceded that date.

The names of John Youngs, Sr. (1598-1672); Richard Denton (1603-1662); Francis Doughty, Jr. (1605-1683); John Moore (1620-1657); Thomas James, Jr. (1621-1696); Nathaniel Brewster (1622-1690); Matthew Hill (?-1679); Zechariah Walker (1637-1699); among others, represent Presbyterian ministries in the middle colonies that all, mostly, predate those of Francis Makemie. The story of the first 100 years of American Presbyterianism spans the Eastern Seaboard, includes many heroic pioneers and brave heroes and heroines of the faith, whose adventures are known in part, and paved the way for the establishment of that first Presbytery in 1706. The 1640 Declaration of the Company by Edward Howell and the Southampton colonists, a document worthy of comparison to the Mayflower Compact, signified the goal of those early Presbyterians:

Our true interest and meaning is that when our Plantation is laid out by those appointed that there shall be a Church gathered and constituted according to the mind of Christ, that there we do freely lay down our power of ordering and disposing of the Plantation and of receiving inhabitants thereof or any other thing that may tend to the good and welfare of the inhabitants at the feet of Christ and His Church.

The English Puritan-Dutch Reformed-Scottish Presbyterian roots of what became a distinctly American form of Presbyterianism over the first century of the colonial era constitute a chapter much larger than what has been written here. But at Log College Press, we aim to shine the spotlight on that first hundred years, as well as on the three centuries since the founding of the first Presbytery. It is a rich history worthy to be more fully explored.

Some authorities consulted in the writing of this post include:

Presbyterianism in Catechetical Form

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A recent acquisition of interest from the library of the late Dr. Morton Smith is a small booklet titled Presbyterianism in Catechetical Form, compiled by Mrs. M.W. Pratt and published by the Presbyterian Committee of Publication in Richmond, Virginia (1893). This work has not yet been uploaded to Log College Press, but it is hoped that we can do so in the future.

Pratt, Mrs. M.W., Presbyterianism in Catechetical Form.jpg

It is written for the Presbyterian in the pews and others who desire to better understand the system of doctrine and polity embraced by our church and articulated in its standards. A particular extract concerning the Westminster Assembly may serve to whet the appetite for this valuable and rare little work.

Question 1. What are the names of the Presbyterian standards of faith and government?
Answer. “The Confession of Faith,” “The Larger and Shorter Catechisms,” and “The Book of Church Order.”

Q. 2. When were the Confession of Faith and Catechisms written?
A. In 1643-1649.

Q. 3. Where?
A. In England, in Westminster Abbey.

Q. 4. By whose order?
A. The British Parliament.

Q. 5. Who composed the Assembly that wrote them?
A. One hundred and forty-two divines, including four from Scotland, thirty-two laymen, including two from Scotland. (Hetherington’s Hist. Westminster, pp. 98, 99.)

Q. 6. Of what denominations were they?
A. Presbyterians and Independents.

Q. 7. Were they learned and good men?
A. Yes; they were among the most learned and godly men who ever adorned the British empire.

Q. 8. What did Richard Baxter of them?
A. That the Christian world since the days of the apostles had never had a Synod of more excellent divines than this and this and the Synod of Dort.

Q. 9. What vow did they take before beginning their work?
A. I do sincerely and solemnly protest, in the presence of Almighty God, that in the Assembly of which I am a member I will not maintain anything in matters of doctrine but what I think in my conscience to be the truth, or in point of discipline but what I consider to conduce most to the glory of God and the good and peace of the church.

Q. 10. How long were they in preparing this work?
A. More than five and a half years.

Q. 11. What did they was their object in thus formulating their doctrine and form of church government?
A. That a scheme of doctrine and form of church government pure and scriptural would be the most excellent means for establishing the rights for which they were contending, and forming the virtues by which freedom is blest.

Q. 12. Has their work proved them wise prophets?
A. Yes, it has done more good for the world than any other books ever written except the Bible.

Q. 13. What country approved and adopted their work?
A. Scotland, in their General Assemblies of 1647-1648.

Q. 14. Were these standards adopted by the church in America?
A. Yes, in Philadelphia, in May, 1788, with a slight change in regard to civil government.

Histories of the Westminster Assembly

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Among the writings of American Presbyterians at Log College Press, we have several significant historical studies of the Westminster Assembly and its members.

  • James Reid, Memoirs of the Lives and Writings of Those Eminent Divines, Who Convened in the Famous Assembly at Westminster, in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. 1 (1811) and Vol. 2 (1815)

  • Thomas Smyth - The History, Character, and Results of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1844)

  • Charles Augustus Briggs - The Documentary History of the Westminster Assembly (1880)

  • William Wirt Henry, Sr. - The Westminster Assembly: The Events Leading Up to It, Personnel of the Body, and Its Method of Work - An Address (1897)

  • Presbyterian Church in the United States - Memorial Volume of the Westminster Assembly (1897)

  • William Henry Roberts, ed. - Addresses at the Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly (1898)

  • John Moffatt Mecklin - The Personnel of the Westminster Assembly (1898)

  • John DeWitt - The Place of the Westminster Assembly in Modern History (1898)

  • Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield - The Making of the Westminster Confession (1901) and The Westminster Assembly and Its Work (1908)

One enduring classic history of the Westminster Assembly was published in 1843 by the Scottish Presbyterian William Maxwell Hetherington. But the first such history published by anyone (so far as this writer knows) was published two years prior - by an American Presbyterian, Archibald Alexander: A History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1841).

As far as we know, no history of the Assembly has ever been separately written….The compiler of the following history has now indicated the sources from which he has derived his materials. He puts in no claim to original research: if he deserves any credit, it is merely for collecting and arranging what he found scattered in the authors named. For many years he sought for information on this subject, with but little success. He has found the same complaint of a want of information, and a desire to obtain it, in many persons; especially in young ministers, and candidates for the ministry, which induced him to undertake the labour of collecting, under suitable heads, such information as was accessible to him; and if it should prove unsatisfactory to some, whose knowledge is more extensive, yet he is persuaded that it will supply a desideratum to many, who will be gratified with the particulars which he has been able to collect.

As James I. Helm wrote in a review of Hetherington and Alexander’s works in 1843, “It is somewhat remarkable that two centuries should have elapsed before any separate history of the Westminster Assembly was given to the public” (The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review vol. 15, no. 4 , October 1843, p. 561).

These studies help to shine a light on a most important time and place in church history. The legacy of the Westminster Assembly and the standards it produced and the men who contributed so much to the well-being of the Church constitute a story that was overdue for the telling in 1841, and remains a story worth getting to know here in the 21st century. Check out these fascinating studies and learn more about the Westminster Assembly and its rich spiritual legacy.

Read History at Log College Press

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As Robert Pollock Kerr once wrote in the September / October 1892 issue of The Union Seminary Magazine:

Read history; but read it in the light of God; and ever feel that the story as it is told is penned on the pages of time by the overruling hand of the Infinite.

Kerr himself was the author of a history of Presbyterianism, a history of the Scottish Covenanters, and The Voice of God in History. He was deeply concerned that people in his own day developed an understanding not only of that which had gone before, but also that they see the hand of God in His Story. In the latter work, he writes:

Next to the knowledge of God, the best study for mankind is men. History, from one standpoint, is a record of the doings of men, and one learns the philosophy of humanity from the story of the race. From another standpoint, history is the study of God; for the Divine Ruler has not left the world to itself, but is continually acting in it, bringing to pass his great designs. God is sovereign, and man free; and history records the divine and human as they move together in the world. In history, then, man learns God and himself. If this be true, there can be no more profitable study. The Bible itself, the Book of books, is history; yes, history; not naked annals, but lines of events as they stand related to certain great fundamental truths, glowing with the interest which attaches to the joys and sorrows of humanity, over shadowed by an infinite love. Real history is the annals, the truths, and pathos of human existence combined; in other words, it is the world's life lived over again.

This being so, there is a great treasury of historical resources to be found at Log College Press. Our topical pages on Church History, Biographies and Autobiographies contain numerous volumes written by a range of authors.

Most recently, we have added to the site (among other works):

If you are in search of weekend reading material, these and many more works are available to bookmark, download and peruse at Log College Press. To see the hand of God at work in history and in the lives of his saints is a blessing which makes the reading that much sweeter to the Christian who knows that same hand at work in his or her own life. There is so much to read out there, but we have tried to dust off old worthies for the modern reader so that these gems will not remain buried in obscurity. Take advantage of this resource, and see what there is for the student of history to read at Log College Press.