History of the presbytery of Philadelphia, and of the Philadelphia Central

Preface

" Remember the days of old," was the exhortation of Moses to Israel, as though he had said, *' Look back, call up the former scenes and personages, treasure them as means of personal improvement, celebrate them as illustrations of God's care, interposition, and kindness — the evidences of His fidelity to all generations as the covenant-keeping Jehovah, read over the authentic accounts, preserve the knowledge of the heroism, the devotion, the faith, and the piety of your worthies, forget not the escape from Egypt, the Red Sea deliverance, the national establishment in Canaan, and the various achievements of your ancestors under the most trying conditions."

Our General Assembly but acted in the spirit of the great Lawgiver's appeal to the Hebrews, when it resolved to signalize its approaching Centennial Celebration by calling for the preparation of histories of the Congregations, Presbyteries, and Synods under its care. A church so eminent as ours for learning, piety, zeal, and success in the furtherance of Christ's cause and kingdom, is bound by solemn obligation to God, to the world, and to itself, to see that its aims and achievements are not left to float down the stream of time through misty traditions, or, perhaps, by reason of fragmentary, scattered,

VI PREFACE.

and inaccessible records, to pass into gradual and absolute oblivion. To no denomination of Christians does the counsel come with stronger reason or deeper emphasis: "Walk about Zion, and go round about her, tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following."

A peculiar interest attaches to the " Presbytery of Philadelphia," which, as the first organized court of the denomination in this country, is to be regarded by American Presbyterians as 'Hhe mother of us all." As the appointed historiographer of this venerable body, as well as of the "Presbytery of Philadelphia Central," which is one with it in spirit, effort, and aim, the author — whilst duly appreciating the honor conferred — has faithfully endeavored to meet his high responsibility, by making all practicable research, and by availing himself freely of such aid, within his reach, as would tend to make the volume as complete and satisfactory as possible. As the existence of the First Presbytery covers so many ages, and the details of its development are of such general interest, a wider scope has been given to its annals than would otherwise have been deemed either necessary or proper. The Poll of its Members, prepared by the Rev. Willard M. Pice, D.D., and kindly furnished by him for our use, is gratefully acknowledged as- a valuable contribution to the history.

And now, Lord, "let thy w^ork appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us : and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us : yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it."

PREFACE.

Vll

The following Statistical Table, prepared by the Rev. William Henry Roberts, D.D., Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, and containing in brief the record of the growth and progress of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America for nearly two hundred and fifty years, will be found interesting and useful for reference. Prior to 1789 accurate figures appear to be unattainable.

The Growth of the Preshyterian Churchy 1640-1887, hy Periods.

Additions

Couimuni-

Benevolent

Years.

Ministers.

Churches.

on Confession.

cants.

Contributions.

5?

2?

f

10?

18?

...

12?

22?

...

1,500 ?

40?

...

3,000 ?

80?

...

5,000 ?

200?

10,000 ?

18,000?

$852

20,000 ?

(?) 2,500

...

8,021

72,096

12,861

11,748

173,327

184,192

11,580

220,557

281,989

S.

6,377

126,583

134,439

4,691

106,000

Not given

1849{0

S.

8,976

200,830

369,371

10,190

139,047

Not given

1859 1^ s.

23,945

279,630

764,668

10,705

137,950

266,574 s.

15,389

258,963

1,346,179

9,707

172,560

753,953

32,003

446,561

2,023,956

26,838

578,671

2,262,871

53,886

697,835

3,196,458

Note — The strength of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (South), which met first in General Assembly

Vlll PREFACE.

at Augusta, Georgia, December 4, 1861, was, in 1887, 1116 ministers, 2236 churches, and 150,398 communicants. The Presbyterian Church (North) has within the same territory 567 ministers, 826 churches, and 60,275 communicants.

HISTORY

PRESBYTERY OF PHILADELPHIA

Chapter I. Introductory — The Presbyterian System

Basis of Faith.

Presbyterianism, as a system of religious faith, while claiming a Scriptural origin and basis, yet recognizes the Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms as an epitomized embodiment of the great credenda which underlie its existence and constitute the source of its power. It does not regard that venerable body of divines as the inventor of its doctrinal standards, but only as their systematizer — ever pressing back with the Reformers to Christ and the Bible for the only infallible rule and authority of faith and practice. To say that these standards are invaluable for their condensation, clearness of definition and statement, logical arrangement, and unshrinking fidelity to the truth which they undertake to summarize and substantiate, would be merely an affirmation of what those who have given them the

10 PRESBYTEEY

most intelligent, candid, and thorough examination are the readiest to acknowledge.

Order.

The title Presbyterian comes from the Greek word Presbuteros^ which signifies elder, intimating that the government of the Church in the i^ew Testament was by Presbyteries, that is, by association of ministers and elders — the former so called because they preached as w^ell as ruled, and the latter commissioned to govern, whence they derived their name, but both possessed of equal powers, without any superiority among them, either in office or order. Presbyterians believe that the authority of their ministers to preach the gospel, to administer the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, is derived from the Holy Ghost by the imposition of the hands of the Presbytery. They affirm, however, that there is no order in the Church, as established by Christ and his Apostles, superior to that of Presbyters, that all ministers, being ambassadors of Christ, are equal by their commission, that Presbyter {Presbuteros) and Bishop {PJpiscopos), though different w^ords, are of the same import.

"Presbyterians admit," says an able writer, "that in the course of time the word ' Bishop' assumed a very different meaning, and when it could no longer be said, as Yice-Principal Hatch declares in his ' Bampton Leetures/ that ' the early Bishop stood to his Presbyters in the relation of a chairman to the ordinary members of a committee,' or, as Presbyterians would say, as the Moderator to the members of a Church Session or Presbytery over which he presides. Without making any reflection on the polity of others, Presbyterians have reason to be gratified at the frequent admissions made by others as to the Scriptural character of their own, and they have special occasion to admire the candor with which men eminent for learning and piety, and loyal to their own system of Church government, such as Usher and Whately, Hallam and Macaulay, Dean Howson and Dr. Jacob, Dean Stanley and Canon Farrar, Sir Peter King and Bishop Lightfoot, have expressed themselves with regard to the constitution of the Primitive Church, echoing back the voice of Jerome from the fourth century, when he says, ' A Presbyter is the same, therefore, as a Bishop ;' and before there arose preferences in religion, and it was said among the people, ' I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas,' the churches were governed by a common council of Presbyters. , . . . If it be supposed this is not the sense of the Scriptures, but my own opinion, that Bishops and Presbyters are one,' and that one is the name of age and the other of office, read again the

words of the Apostle to the Philippians These

things are recorded that we may show that the ancient

Presbyters were the same as the Bishops, but by little and little, that the roots of dissension might be torn up, the whole trouble was devolved on one."

Government.

Such is Presbyterianism as a system of Church government. Its core is the eldership — the whole eldership being the organ for the exercise of the power of the Church, and a portion of it, specially ordained thereto, being appointed to discharge the duties of the pulpit and the pastoral office. There is no j^rimus inter pares — no first among equals — but all are ^^(^[res in Christo j^^^if'to — all equals in Christ, w^ho is tbe first. The whole Church is compacted into unity by a system of courts — lower, higher, and highest — the lowest being subordinate to the next higher, and all to the highest.

Unity.

Dr. Thornwell has thus forcibly stated the unity ivhich i^ secured by the system of representative assemblies in the Presbyterian Church. " The government of the Church is not intrusted to individuals, nor to the mass of believers, but to councils. Every judicial and legislative function is* performed by courts alone. Government is not administered by a single individual, that would be monarchy; nor by a privileged class, that would be oligarchy ; nor immediately by the people, that would be democracy ; but it is administered by rexDresentative assemblies. These constitute a bond which brings all the parts together into unity, and gives to the Church the property of indefinite expansibility. ' A single congregation is governed by the Parochial Presbytery, several associated congregations by the Classical Presbytery, the whole Church by a Presbytery of representative Presbyters from all its bounds,' the General Assembly. This principle of representation is capable of embodying any number of believers. Whole continents may be made one body. There is but one Church, a set of congregations bound together by the nexus of one parliament. Each congregation has every element of the Universal Church, and the Universal Church has no attribute which may not be found in one congregation. There is no organic difference between the Church Session and the largest General Assembly. Only two Churches on earth realize this idea of Church unity — Pome and our own. But these are the poles apart as to the system by which they realize it. Pome, with her infallible Pope at the head, and with graded authorities extending over the whole earth, one class subservient to another, secures a terrible unity, bending all abjectly to one throne. Our system, on the other hand, secures unity with the most perfect freedom."

Of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, the late distinguished Roman Catholic, Archbishop Hughes, wrote as follows: "Though it is my privilege to regard the authority exercised by the General Assembly as usurpation, still, I must say, with every man acquainted with the mode in which it is organized, that, for the purposes of popular and political government, its structure is little inferior to that of Congress itself. It acts on the principle of a radiating centre, and is without equal or rival among the other denominations of the country."

Scriptural Origin.

At the close of his admirable little volume. What is Freshyterianism f Dr. Charles Hodge says: "It must strike every one that it is no device of man. It is not an external framework, having no connection with the inward life of the Church. It is a real growth. It is the outward expression of the inward law of the Church's being. If we teach that the people should have a substantial part in the government of the Church, it is not merely because we deem it healthful and expedient, but because the Holy Ghost dwells in the people of God, and gives the ability and confers the right to govern. If we teach that Presbyters are the highest permanent officers of the Church, it is because those gifts by which the Apostles and Prophets were raised above Presbyters have, in fact,

OP PHILADELPHIA. 15

ceased. If we teach, that the separate congregations of believers are not independent, it is because the Church is in fact one body, all the parts of which are mutually dependent.

" If this is so — if there is an outward form of the Church which corresponds with its inward life, a form which is the natural expression and product of that life, then that form must be most conducive to its progress and development. Men may, by art, force a tree to grow in any fantastic shape a perverted taste may choose. But it is at the sacrifice of its vigor and productiveness. To reach its perfection, it must be left to unfold itself according to the law of its nature. It is so with the Church. If the people possess the gifts and graces which qualify and entitle them to take part in the government, then the exercise of that right tends to the development of those gifts and graces, and the denial of the right tends to their depression. In all the forms of despotism, whether civil or ecclesiastical, the people are degraded, and in all forms of Scriptural liberty they are proportionably elevated. Every system which demands intelligence tends to produce it. Every man feels that it is not only one of the greatest advantages of our republican institutions that they tend to the education and elevation of the people, but that their successful operation, demanding popular intelligence and virtue, renders it necessary that constant exertion shonlcl be directed to the attainment of that end. As republican institutions cannot exist among the ignorant and vicious, so Presbyterianism must find the people enlightened and virtuous, or make them so.

" It is the combination of the principles of liberty and order in the Presbyterian system, the union of the rights of the people with subjection to legitimate authority, that has made it the parent and guardian of civil liberty in every part of the world. This, however, is merely an incidental advantage. The Church organization has higher aims. It is designed for the extension and establishment of the gospel, and for the edification of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, and that polity must be best adapted to this end which is most congenial with the inward nature of the Church. It is on this ground we rest our preference for Presbyterianism. We do not regard it as a skilful product of human wisdom, but as a divine institution, founded on the word of God, and as the genuine product of the inward life of the Church."

Orthodoxy.

Presbyterian ism has ever been distinguished for the stress it has laid upon sound doctrine. It repudiates Rationalism, which would reduce all the truths and dictates of religion to the standard of human reason. Its symbol is the open Bible. Its watchword is " to the law and to the testimony." It has been wont to lend an attentive ear to the voice of the Spirit uttered in the Word.* It regards the Scriptures as the supreme standard of religious truth. Its testimony on this point is clear and distinct.

' ' The Word of God, wliicli is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him." Shorter Catechism, Ques. 2.

"The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men." Conf. of Faith, Ch. 1, Sec. vi.

"Whatever notions of an exaggerated sort," says Isaac Taylor,t " may belong to some Calvinists, Calvinism, as distinguished from Arminianism, encircles or involves great truths, which, whether dimly or clearly discovered .... will never be abandoned while the Bible continues to be devoutly read, and which, if they might indeed be subverted, would drag to the same ruin every doctrine of revealed religion. . . .

* Ezek. 3:17; 2 Tim. 1:13; 1 Tim. 4 : 6. f The profound author of the " Natural History of Enthusiasm," and the "Physical Theory of the Future Life."

Surely, whoever is competent to take a calm, an independent, and a truly philanthropic survey of the Christian system, and can calculate also the balancings of opinion, the antitheses of belief, will grant that if Calvinism, in the modern sense of the term, were quite exploded, a long time could not elapse before evangelical Arminianism would find itself driven helplessly into the gulf that had yawned to receive its rival, and to this catastrophe must quickly succeed the triumph of the dead rationalism of !N"eology, and then that of Atheism."*

Moral Influence.

There can be no better criterion of a system of religious doctrines than the effects which the belief of them produces. Grapes do not grow on bramble bushes. Illustrious natures do not form themselves on narrow and cruel theories. " A good tree cannot bringforth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree briog forth good fruit." Of this test Calvinism has no reason to be either ashamed or afraid.

The historian Froude, who has no particular love for Calvinism, bears this testimony in its favor : —

" When all else has failed, when patriotism has covered its face, and human courage has broken down,

* Essay upon Edwards on the Will.

when intellect has yielded, as Gibbon says, ' with a smile or a sigh,' content to philosophize in the closet and abroad worship with the vulgar, when emotion and sentiment and tender imaginative piety have become the handmaids of superstition and have dreamt themselves into forgetfulness that there is any difference between lies and truth, the slavish form of belief called Calvinism, in one or other of its many forms, has borne ever an inflexible front to illusion and mendacity, and has preferred to be ground to powder like flint, rather than bend before violence, or melt uyder enervating temptation."

Again, Mr. Froude, after referring to the "singular attractions which Calvinism in past ages has possessed for some of the greatest men that havaever lived," and mentioning, in illustration of what he afiirms, William the Silent, Luther, Knox, Andrew Melville, the Regent Murray, Coligny, Cromwell, Milton, and Bunyan, says of them : —

" These were men possessed of all the qualities which give nobility and grandeur to human nature — men whose life was as upright as their intellect was commanding and their public aims untainted with selfishness, unalterably just where duty required them to be; stern, but with the tenderness of a woman .in their hearts, frank, true, cheerful, humorous, as unlike some fanatics as it is possible to imagine any one, and able in some way to sound the key-note to which every brave and faithful heart in Europe instantly vibrates."

Beyond all question Calvinism, instead of being unfriendly to morality, as its enemies allege, is unequalled by any other system in intensifying to the last degree ideas of moral excellence and purity of character. There never was a system since the world stood which puts upon man such motives to holiness, or which builds batteries which sweep the whole ground of sin with such horrible artillery. " Men may talk as much as they please," says an eminent divine, " against the Calvinists and Puritans and Presbyterians, but you will find that when they want to make an investment they have no objection to Calvinism or Puritanism or Presbyterianism. They know that where these systems prevail, where the doctrine of men's obligation to God and man is taught and practised, there their capital may be safely invested." " They tell us," he continues, "that Calvinism plies men with hammer and chiseL It does^ and the result is monumental marble. Other systems leave men soft and dirty, Calvinism makes them of white marble, to endure forever."

" The destruction of the former (the Huguenots and Jansenists, who were Calvinists) by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes," says Lecky, " was the destruction of the most solid, the most modest, the most virtuous, the most generally enlightened element in the

French nation, and it prepared the way for the inevitable degradation of the national character, and the last serious bulwark was removed that might have broken the force of that torrent of skepticism and vice which a century later laid prostrate in merited ruin both the altar and the throne."*

" Look, too, at Scotland before and after Knox and his co-laborers effected the Scottish Reformation. Arminianism, as exemplified in the Church of Rome, has had the training of that people for centuries, and what had it made of them ? Something less than human. Gross darkness covered the land and brooded like an eternal nightmare upon all the faculties of the people. Poverty, squalor, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness were the prevailing characteristics of society. But see the quick and marvelous change effected when once the free doctrines learned by Knox at Geneva flashed in upon their minds. It was as the sun rising in his fullness at midnight. And in their later history, so long as they remained untainted with other beliefs, their morality was the wonder of the world." The celebrated Dr. Chalmers says: "It may be suspected that although a theology is the minister of peace, it cannot be the minister of holiness. 'Now, to those who have this suspicion, and who would represent the doctrine of justification by faith — that article, as Luther

* Eng. Hist. Eighteenth Century, i. 264, 265.

calls it, of a standing or falling church — as adverse to the interests of virtue, I would put one question and ask them to resolve it. How comes it that Scotland, which, of all the countries of Europe, is the most signalized hy the rigid Calvinism of her pulpits, should also he the most signalized bv the moral glory that sits on the aspect of her general population ? How, in the name of mystery, should it happen that such a theology as ours is conjoined with perhaps the yet most unvitiated peasantry among the nations of Christendom? The allegation against our churches is, that in the argumentation of our abstract and speculative controversies the people are so little schooled to the performance of good works. And how, then, is it that in our courts of justice, when compared with the calendars of our sister kingdom, there should be so vastly less to do with their evil works ? It is certainly a most important experience that in that country where there is the most of Calvinism there should be the least of crime, that what may be called the most doctrinal nation of Europe should, at the same time, be the least depraved, and that the land wherein people are most deeply imbued with the principles of salvation by grace should be the least distempered either by their week-day profligacies or their Sabbath profanations."*

* Sermon, "The Respect due to Antiquity." — Calvinism in History,

The same thing is true all the world over. We may examine all the history of Christian people and of religious systems, and we will not find any more eminent than this for piety and morality. In charity, in liberality, in industry, in temperance, in purity of life, it stands without a superior — perhaps without an equal. To be convinced how it has uniformly raised the moral standard of both individuals and communities, exalting the sovereignty of God, and emphasizing the moral law, we have, in addition to the proofs already given, to compare the Waldenses with the other Italians, Geneva under Calvin's rule with its condition before or since, the English Puritans with the courtiers of Charles 11. , and finally all the sections of America settled by the Puritans and the Presbyterians of Scotland, France, and Holland, with those settled by men of other faiths, North America with South America.

Catholicity.

" The term Catholic indicates the common features of Christianity — those characteristics of the religion of Jesus Christ which are to be found semper ubique et ab omnibus. This universality is not absolute, for there are those who bear the Christian name who are not Christians at all. It is a general and relative universality wherever the true religion of Jesus Christ is

24 PRESl^YTERY

found, wherever Christianity as such exists, and in all real Christians.

" The Christian Church, from the earliest times, has been troubled by error, heresy, and spurious forms of Christianity. Some of these are essential, and destroy the marks of the true Church; others are unessential, and indicate more or less important variations from the true doctrine and practice. We must distinguish between Orthodoxy and Catholicity. Orthodoxy represents the whole sphere of Christian doctrine, Catholicity represents only the common features of Christianity. The Presbyterian Churches are in this respect pre-eminently Catholic. They adhere to all the doctrinal achievements of the ancient Church — the Catholic doctrines of the Trinity, the Person of Christ, and the office of the Holy Spirit. They do not adopt the peculiarities of the Greek or the Roman or any other branch of the Christian Church, whether in doctrine or practice, for these peculiarities are not Catholic. Presbyterianism is truest to Catholicity in that it insists upon those things which are truly Catholic, and declines to mingle with those other things w^hich are not Catholic."*

" While Presbyterianism asserts that the Scriptures reveal a system of Church government, as well as of

* American Presbyterianism.

doctrine, it by no means makes the former of equal importance with the latter. Much less in claiming a polity of divine ordering does it unchurch those who hold different views of ecclesiastical government. This principle is distinctly recognized in our Standards, wherein it is declared : —

" ' The visible unity of the body of Christ, though obscured, is not destroyed by its division into different denominations of professing Christians, but all those who maintain the Word and Sacraments in their fundamental integrity are to be recognized as true branches of the Church of Christ.'

" 'The visible Church consists of all those throughout the world who profess the true religion, together with their children, and is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God.'

" ' The communion of Saints is to be extended to all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.'

" The Westminster Assembly of Divines was held in 1643, but in the^ ' Book of Discipline of the Kirk of Scotland,' in 1581, it is declared, ' Beside these assemblies there is another more general kind of Assembly of the Church of Christ in the world, representing the universal Church which is the body of Christ.' There is nothing in the system of Presbyterians which warrants intolerance or exclusive claims to covenant mercy. They recognize all who are united by faith to Christ as members of His mystical body. They admit that as one who ' holds the Head' may be a true Christian, notwithstanding a defective creed, so a Church may be a 3

Church of Christ, notwithstandiDg a defective organization. They do not deny that the ordination of ministers may he valid even when it is irregular. They receive ministers of other evangelical churches into their own without requiring a second ordination, just as the Church of England (before the days of Laud) received ministers from the Presbyterian churches of the Continent for a hundred years after the Reformation.

" The Presbyterian is not a broad Church in the sense of sacrificing any cardinal principle for the sake of conciliating those to whom it is unpalatable, bat it is broad enough to recognize the fact that a true Christian unity may exist where there is little outward uniformity, and that this unity not only may but must exist among all whose lives are hid with Christ in God. Cherishing such sentiments as these, they can, therefore, without doing any violence to their principles or preferences, in the most cordial way, unite with Christians of other names in the publication and circulation of the Scriptures, they can labor with others in the promotion of genuine revivals of religion, they can invite others to the Sacramental table, and sit at theirs, and thus, while ever ready to defend their orthodox creed and Scriptural form of government, they demonstrate their regard for the communion of saints, by extending the hand of fellowship to ministers of other denominations.

by laboring witli thera in every good word and work, and in rejoicing in the success of all who are toiling to advance the Kingdom of Truth and Righteousness in the world."*

Zeal for the Truth.

The Presbyterian Church has been pre-eminently a witnessing and a wrestling Church. She was so in the Apostolic period, and has been from the time of her restoration among the Alpine mountains by the Lake of Geneva, on the sunny plains of France, in Holland wrested from the sea, among the hills and glens of Scotland, and in the northern provinces of Ireland. She has wrestled with flesh and blood, with the principalities and powers of earth, and with spiritual wickedness in high places. She has borne aloft the banner of the Covenant, and raised her voice of testimony for God's truth and Christ's kingly crown, both as witness and martyr, and has watered the soil of many lands with the blood of her sons and danghters. To this may be added our Church's ardent love for the cause of Missions. In this it is not alone. ]^o Church of Christ can forget His command to " disciple all nations." But this can be fairly claimed on behalf of the Calvinistic Churches — they have been — alike in priority and extent of enterprise and devotion — leaders