What's New at Log College Press? - December 20, 2022

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At the close of 2022, Log College Press is staying very active as we continue to expand the site and make accessible even more literature from early American Presbyterians.

Last month, in November 2022, we added 582 new works to the site. There are currently over 17,000 free works available at LCP. Today we are highlighting some of the new free PDFs available as found on our Recent Additions and Early Access pages, two features provided to members of the Dead Presbyterians Society.

Some highlights at the Early Access page:

  • Two works by Thomas Cleland, A Familiar Dialogue Between Calvinus and Arminius (1805, 1830); and The Socini-Arian Detected: A Series of Letters to Barton W. Stone, on Some Important Subjects of Theological Discussion, Referred to in His "Address" to the Christian Churches in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio (1815);

  • Abraham Brooks Van Zandt, God's Voice to the Nation: A Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Zachary Taylor, President of the United States (1850);

  • Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (1955); and Christianity and Barthianism (1962);

  • John Murray, The Reformed Faith and Modern Substitutes (1935-1936); and The Application of Redemption (1952-1954) [a series of many articles which served as the basis for his 1955 book Redemption Accomplished and Applied];

  • Geerhardus Vos, A Song of the Nativity (1924, 1972) [a Christmas poem]; and

  • early sermons by Francis James Grimké, Our Duty to the Poor — How We Observed It on Christmas (1881); Wendell Phillips: A Sermon Delivered Sunday, Feb. 24, 1884, at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C. (1884); Our Future as a People (1890), each of which was contributed by a reader.

Some highlights at the Recent Addtiions page:

Also, be sure also to check out the quotes we have been adding at our blog for DPS members: Though Dead They Still Speak, including John Holmes Agnew: The Lord Loves the Gates of Zion; B.B. Warfield on Theological Study as a Religious Exercise and on What it Means to Glorify and Enjoy God; William H. Green on How the Child of God May Rightly Undergo Frowning Providences; John Murray: To the Calvinist Who Once Struggled With the Arminian Idea of Free Will; E.C. Wines: Christ is the Fountain of the Promises; James Gallaher on the Difference Between Calvinism and Fatalism; William S. Plumer's Suggested Guidelines for Making Family Worship More Profitable; Elizabeth Prentiss on Dying Grace; and T. De Witt Talmage: The Sabbath a Taste of Heaven.

We appreciate hearing from our readers if they find matters needing correction, or if they have questions about authors or works on the site, or if they have suggestions for additions to the site. Your feedback helps the experience of other readers as well.

Meanwhile, please feel free to browse the many resources available to our readers in print and in digital format. There is a lot to explore, and many Presbyterian voices from the past to hear. We look forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for Log College Press in 2023. Thank you, as always, for your interest and support, dear friends, and best wishes to you in the New Year!

The Keys Psalter

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Until the 1860’s, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) employed the 1650 Scottish Metrical Psalter (SMP) in its worship. But it was felt at that time that there was a need for a revised psalter.

In 1863, the RPCNA Synod minutes show that a communication was received from William W. Keys proposing the publication of a new edition of the Psalter with music settings appropriate to each Psalm. The Psalter project had apparently been initiated in 1860 (as the Preface tells us). The proposal was referred to a committee initially made up of T.P. Stevenson, A.C. Todd, N.R. Johnston and D.H. Coulter. The Psalter — known as the Keys Psalter — was published that year, and the following year Synod minutes show that Psalter had earned the endorsement of the special committee.

So in 1864, Synod recommended the Keys Psalter, which combined words and music on the same page and modernized some of the Scottish Psalter’s words (William J. Edgar, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, 1871-1920, p. 23).

The Committee gave its report as follows (which was adopted):

Feeling the need and importance of earnest effort for the improvement of the service of song-in our church, and the desirableness of greater uniformity in the service among our congregations; appreciating, also, from our own examination, and on the testimony of competent judges, the manifold excellencies of this work, especially its retention of time honored-melodies and generally judicious adaptations of music to the sentiments of the Psalms; and believing that the employment of this book will prove a strong support in the advocacy of Scriptural Psalmody, and also a means of extending the use of the songs of inspiration throughout the churches; therefore,

Resolved, That we recommend the use of this book in all our congregations, as well adapted for the attainment of the specified ends.

We would further recommend, in this connection, that all our sessions be urged to take measures for the improvement of the service of praise in their respective congregations, and that to this end, they encourage the formation of singing classes, and attendance upon them. D. M'Allister, Chairman.

The Keys Psalter had help from some notable names, including

  • French-American composer Leopold Meignen (1793-1873) - who served as a bandmaster in Napoleon’s army before coming to the United States, and who contributed several tunes to the Keys Psalter; and

  • James M. Willson, Keys’ pastor until 1862, when Willson left First RPC in Philadelphia to fill the chair of Theology at RPTS, who helped divide Psalms into smaller sections with assigned tunes.

The tune “Keys,” composed by Dr. Leopold Meignen, is assigned to Psalms 33 and 98.

The tune “Keys,” composed by Dr. Leopold Meignen, is assigned to Psalms 33 and 98.

Keys in his Preface spoke to what he saw as the prime benefit of this new edition of The Psalms of David.

The superiority of this book over any other Psalm-Book heretofore published consists in the music being printed along with each Psalm, or portion of Psalm, throughout the entire book.

The advantage of this is two-fold: 1st. The precentor is not compelled to hurriedly select a tune at the same time that he is searching for the Psalm which has been announced. He knows that having found the Psalm, suitable music to be sung to it is there also, and all he has to think of is to have the tune properly pitched. 2d. There is no doubt or hesitation on the part of the congregation in commencing to sing, as all know precisely what tune is to be sung, and are prepared to commence as soon as the first note is given.

In a Preface to the second edition (published a month after the first), Keys quotes an endorsement from William Blackwood:

Every congregation in the country in which the 'Old Psalms' are used, will thank the author and publisher for this beautiful and admirably designed volume. * * * The airs are selected with taste and judgment. The harmony is delightful; and the general circulation of this book in churches would unquestionably promote in a very powerful manner the extension of congregational singing of a very high order. Every Psalm, and, in many of the longer ones, the portions of them suitable for a service, are provided with a proper air; and thus the book may be used in the pew, the lecture-room, or in the family, as well as by a precentor or leader.

Keys Tune 2.jpg

The Keys Psalter is one of a series of editions approved by the RPCNA besides the old 1650 SMP, and it was followed by an 1889 split-leaf edition, and further editions in 1911, 1919, 1929, 1950, 1973 and 2009. Many of those later revisions took into account the work by Keys. For example, the tune Arlington, paired with Psalm 1, is also associated with Psalm 1 in the 1950 and 1973 editions (the former mentions the Keys Psalter in the Preface).

The Keys Psalter is an important step along the trajectory of psalmody in the RPCNA. Many editions were published in its heyday (at least 15 by 1874). Editions published in 1864 and 1865 are now available to peruse on Log College Press. We have little biographical information as of yet regarding William Wallace Keys, but we have learned when he lived (1832-1892), and where (primarily Philadelphia, although he died in Connecticut), and we take note of his arrangement of the tunes Kilmarnock and Wilson, as well as his driving passion to bring together words and music for the improvement of psalmody in the church. This was his motto, as shown on the cover of the Keys Psalter: “'I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also" — 1 Cor. 14:15.

I trust my efforts have been well directed and that the book may tend to the honour and glory of God, and to the delight of his people, by causing all who use it to "sing with the spirit and the understanding," and "with a loud noise skilfully." If so, then my design will be accomplished. — W.W. Keys

An Action Sermon by David McAllister

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In 1891, the Eighth Street Reformed Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania observed its 25th anniversary. Rev. David McAllister was serving as pastor at the time. In a memorial volume recently added to Log College Press, Quarter-Centennial of the Pittsburgh Congregation of the Covenanter Church, 1866 to 1891, in which, among other discourses and sermons are found, there is an action sermon which he delivered which we take note of today.

An action sermon is a term for “the sermon preached at the communion service” (Hughes Oliphant Old, Holy Communion in the Piety of the Reformed Church, p. 648), as was customary in the Scottish Presbyterian tradition. And as was also customary, the text McAllister chose for the occasion was taken from the Song of Solomon, chap. 2, ver. 16: “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.” The title of his sermon was “The Relations of Covenanting and Communion.”

McAllister says of this verse, “This is the endearing expression of the bride, the church, concerning her husband, the Lord and Saviour. It is also the language of each believing soul concerning Christ.”

The marriage tie is thus the human relationship which our Lord has specially honored by making it a most eminent figure of the bond of union between himself and his people. This Song of songs and Song of love draws aside the curtain from the privacies and confidences and intimacies of that union which makes of twain one flesh and one true moral personality. The sensual mind looks upon the revelation and sees nothing but the reflection of its own carnality. But the spiritual mind looks upon the sacred mysteries, and sees shadowed forth, in all the emblems and tokens of pure and hallowed wedded love, the obligations and privileges of the covenant relation between Christ and those whom he chooses and possess as his own.

No wonder, then, that this Song of songs is so intimately associated with communion seasons. Perhaps no part of the Bible, unless it be the accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper as given by Paul in 1st Corinthians, and by the different evangelists, is so often the subject of sacrament meditations. How appropriate did we all feel the passage of Scripture to be the other evening, when in our preparation for this day’s festivity, we meditated in our prayer meeting on the “Banqueting House and the Banner of Love!” And now, as we draw near the banquet itself, how fitting is it that we should say in the language of our text, “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies!”

This affectionate declaration of the bride is the avowal of the covenant relation between the Bridegroom and herself. Her Beloved is hers and she is his. This declaration also affirms the fellowship or communion between the Bridegroom and all the individual members who constitute his bride, the church. They are the lilies, transformed in purity of character into the likeness of the Beloved, “the Lily of the valleys,” and therefore among them he delights to feed. In most intimate communion he feasts with all those who are in the covenant with himself. Let us bring together, then, these thoughts of covenanting and communion, and seek to trace the connection between them.

McAllister goes on to do just that, affirming that

  1. “The covenant relation constitutes the union which is essential to all true communion”;

  2. “Covenanting pledges the exclusive possession which promotes and intensifies communion”;

  3. “Covenant engagements serve to remove hindrances to communion”;

  4. “Covenanting quickens the gracious exercises in which communion positively consists”; and

  5. “By covenanting the believer is brought into special fullness of fellowship with Christ as the Covenant Head of all his people.”

The essence of McAllister’s argument in this sacramental sermon is that the covenant relationship between Christ and his church, portrayed in the Song of Solomon, is expressed most suitably in the public covenanting that pledges his church to love and serve him which, as he describes it, is both an inward and spiritual communion with the Lord, and a personal engagement and public identification with Christ and his kingdom on earth by means of solemn vows and holy conduct, walking in the faith of Christ by the lively work of the Holy Spirit.

There are three practical lessons with which McAllister leaves his hearers concerning the connection between covenanting and communion:

  1. “It teaches us to seek a firmer hold by faith upon the provisions of the covenant of grace”;

  2. “It suggests to us how we may make our whole life a season of communion with our Lord”; and

  3. “Our subject to-day points us to the perfect union and communion of the heavenly home.”

Though there are many hindrances in this life to the fullest and highest expression of the covenant relationship of believers to Christ, yet resting on the knowledge that “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” every believer may take comfort in knowing that

…the interruption and marring of the believer’s of the church’s communion with the Lord shall have an end. Christ shall perfect his work in every believing soul. The eternal day shall break. The shadows of sin and sorrow shall forever flee away. Over every mountain which separates his own from Christ he will come, and finally separate them from all that can hinder their communion with himself. His own in covenant relation, he will make them every one his own in every faculty and purpose and desires and activity. And then the marriage supper of the Lamb in all its fullness of glory and happiness will have come, and the bride, made ready for it, will know through the eternal ages the inexhaustible meaning of the words: “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.”

What sweet communion indeed!

The principles for which they contended: David McAllister

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Reformed Presbyterian minister David McAllister’s Poets and Poetry of the Covenant is a worthy homage to the heroic faith of the Scottish Covenanters in verse, which we have highlighted on this blog previously, but its prose introduction should not be overlooked. It is a helpful overview of what the Covenanters stood for, and what inspired so many powerful poetic tributes.

Let us briefly sketch the leading principles for which the heroes and martyrs of these songs of the Covenant contended:

1. The supreme authority of God's Word in all the relations of human life. In the church, as one of their own number said, "they took their pattern, not from Rome, not even from Geneva, but from the blessed Word of God." They held that the state was bound to regulate all its affairs by the same law of ultimate authority. The Bible was to them a national as well as an ecclesiastical law-book. Kings and noblemen and lowlier citizens were all under its obligations in the sphere of political and civil life. And the family, too, needed God's Word, as the daily guide of the domestic circle. The place of the Bible in Covenanter families; the singing of a portion of Bible Psalmody and the reading of a chapter of the Scriptures every morning and evening at the household altar, with the entire membership of the family gathered about, brought all domestic affairs under the acknowledged authority and educative influence of the divine law. Even when the father and the older sons were driven by the blood-hounds of persecution to hidings in dens and caves of the earth, or amid the solitudes of the mountains and moors, the mother or an elder daughter would keep the fire of the household altar brightly burning in the sorrowing yet not darkened home.

At the very basis of all this was the recognized right and responsibility of every individual to interpret the divine law for himself. Social bodies had to reach their interpretations for themselves; but no interpretation of God's Word by either church or state could overturn the Protestant principle, or rather the principle of the true Christian religion, that every man must give account of himself to God. But with the authority of God himself acknowledged as supreme for all, in every relation of life, a firm foundation was laid for the balance of liberty and law. Rights of conscience on the one hand, and a just and righteous authority in both church and state, on the other hand, here find their full security. Not the will of any man, pope, or king, or president; not the will of any body of men, presbytery, general assembly, house of commons, house of representatives, or senate; not the will of the millions that make up the sovereign people of the mightiest nation on earth, can be, according to this old Covenanter and Scriptural principle, of supreme and ultimate authority in any of the relations of human life. Church courts and civil legislatures may help wisely and opportunely to interpret and apply the law which God himself has given, and secure its beneficent effects; but over all human legislators is the Divine Lawgiver whose authoritative will is revealed for man's every need in the Holy Scriptures. Only by such a Law and such a Lawgiver can individual and family and church and state be regulated in harmony with each other and for the good of all.

2. The kingship of Jesus Christ. This followed of necessity from the acceptance of the former principle. Taking the Bible as of ultimate and supreme authority, the Covenanters learned that Jesus Christ has been made Head over all things; that he is King of nations as well as King of Zion, and this in truth and reality, and not in some figurative and shadowy and unreal way. The Bible they accepted as the law-book of this King. And they sought to have Christ himself practically acknowledged and honored as King in both church and state. And no principle could be such a safeguard for the independence of the church. Both the popish idea, which would enslave the church to a frail human pontiff, blasphemously claiming for himself the infallibility which alone could justify the submission of men's consciences to his sovereign will; and the Erastian idea, which would subject the church to the civil ruler or the civil power, the sphere of which is entirely separate and distinct from that of the church, are cut up by the very roots by the application of this principle of the kingship of Jesus Christ. And in like manner the truth of his kingship over the state is the most effective means of saving the political being from the tyranny of popish claims of supremacy over nations and their rulers, and of securing for all citizens and subjects of civil government the most free and just and enlightened system of legislation possible — that which is based upon Christ's own "perfect law of liberty." Whatever views the old Covenanters held in favor of the union of the church under Christ her King with the state under the same divine Ruler, they would never surrender the independence of the former to the latter, nor justify any assumption of tyrannical power by either the one or the other. The essential principle which they maintained, and which holds in every land to-day, is the subjection of both church and state, each as a moral agent, with moral character and accountability, and each in its own distinct and independent and yet interrelated sphere of moral conduct, under the moral law of God himself, administered by Christ as at once Head of Zion and Governor among the nations.

3. The duty of social public covenanting on the part of both the church and the nation. This principle of a religious covenant was derived also from the Scriptures, and this was the principle and practice which gave the Covenanters their name. Chief among the points to be carefully noted in the duty of covenanting are the following:

(1.) The covenant engagements are public. The oath of the compact or covenant is openly sworn. The engagements and oaths of a secret society are at the farthest possible remove from those of a true covenant. The former are deeds of darkness. They are a travesty upon all that is sacred and holy. They dread the light, by which their sacrilegious and even blasphemous character would be exposed. But a church's or a nation's covenant is an open and a public document, and the men and women who take upon themselves its comprehensive engagements with the solemnity of an appeal to God can challenge in broad daylight the investigation of the world.

(2.) Such a covenant as the National Covenants of Scotland of 1580, 1590, and again of 1638, is virtually a written compact or constitution of civil government. This document prepared the way for the formulated fundamental laws of political organizations, of which the written constitutions of the American colonies and commonwealths and of the government of the United States itself are the most illustrious examples. A national covenant is a bond of loyalty between citizens among themselves, and between them and the rulers who exercise authority over them. It is framed in view of enemies and dangers to the nation's welfare and life. And in the days of the old Covenanters, the arch enemy of civil and religious liberty was Popery, of which Prelacy was in many respects an imitator. The covenant was a mutual bond, therefore, of loyal and zealous vigilance against the wiles and assaults of the common enemy. Such an open and avowed bond of patriotism and loyalty is what true Americans need to-day, rather than the secret combinations of the lodges, against the same old enemy of all free institutions in both church and state.

(3.) It is pre-eminently a religious engagement. It accepts God's revealed will as the standard of duty, keeps the glory of God and the honor of Christ as King continually in view, and makes the Omniscient Jehovah, the Searcher of Hearts, a witness and party to the entire transaction. The engagement is entered into in the Lord's name, and with an avowed determination on the part of the covenanters, in the words of the deed of 1638, "to be good examples to others of all godliness, soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty we owe to God and man."

This principle of public covenanting by nations and by churches is the most practical and far-reaching of social principles, and will, when accepted and carried into effect by Christians generally, do much toward settling all the great problems of church and state.

A Conventicle in Snow Time: David McAllister

A Conventicle in Snow Time

A DEEP-TONED, bitter, sullen wind was sweeping,
Across the upland waste;
Each living thing its covert close was keeping,
Or sought it in its haste.

Yet, when the swirling, drifted snow was filling
Each cave and sheltered nook,
A solemn, plaintive strain of praise came thrilling
Up from an ice-bound brook.

A remnant, sore-bested, had come together,
To mourn, and watch, and pray,
Unmindful of the wind and dreary weather
Of that wild, wrathful day.

A valiant and a famous standard-bearer
Was lately done to death; —
One, who of many perils was a sharer,
Had spent his latest breath.

It was a time of sorrow, dread, and grieving,
To those heart-stricken men;
And they had met, their burdened souls relieving,
Up in that stormy glen.

A youth of comely form and mien arising,
The gospel message told.
In fervour nought withholding, nought disguising,
Like faithful seer of old.

All in the wintry wind and snow-drift standing,
With cold and frost distrest,
His earnest voice, the heart and ear commanding,
Moved every captive breast.

For higher gifts of hope and faith he pleaded —
For greater love and zeal;
Not vainly uttered; not unfelt, unheeded,
Passed the sublime appeal!

On him and all around the snow was falling,
Yet there they held their place.
Though, overhead, the winter-blast appalling
Pursued its rapid chase.

From morn to darkling eve they clung together,
Unwilling to depart;
The saintly love they bore to one another
Had bound them heart to heart.

And yet, a higher sentiment withheld them
From courting selfish rest;
The love of Him whose friendly eye beheld them
Unworthy thought represt.

Oh, boast not men whose heartless, cruel mission
Was tracking such as these,
To gratify a tyrant’s wrong ambition —
His bigot whims to please!

And, tell us not of chivalry and daring,
Or deeds of valour done;
When, at the price of cruelty unsparing,
The palm of fame was won!

Swift come the season, when the deep devotion
Of those who braved the rage
Of banded furies, roused to fell commotion,
Shall every heart engage!

Be not far hence, bright day, when holier feeling
The world wide shall control,
And love unstinted, to the heart appealing,
Shall mould each kindred soul.

For, wheresoever PIETY is cherished,
And loved by young and old,
The grand old memories of martyrs perished
Are treasured and extolled!

— David McAllister, Poets and Poetry of the Covenant, pp. 212-214