A Catechism on Praise

June 21, 2018

Alexander Cameron Blaikie (1804-1885) was the author of a catechism on church government and a catechism on praise in worship. The latter work was originally published in 1849. It is now available to read at Log College Press here.

The Associate Church minister James Patterson Miller, as he was preparing to leave New York on a missionary assignment to Oregon, where he would die tragically in an explosion, once wrote, "I make it a text-book in my Bible classes. As I intend to leave New York, in October 1850, for Oregon, please send me 200 copies for distribution in that territory."

This catechism on praise in worship was republished by the James Begg Society in 2003. It has stood the test of time because it is a concise summary of the principles of historic Presbyterian worship. Take time to download it for further study, and consider what this 19th century Presbyterian minister had to say about the proper principles for Biblical praise in worship.

Jure Divino Presbyterianism

June 9, 2018

"The Southern Presbyterian Church was committed from its initial organization in 1861 to a theory of the church advanced by Thomas Cartwright in England in the latter part of the 16th century, embodied in the Scottish Second Book of Discipline (1581) and championed by James Henley Thornwell and other Southern Presbyterian divines as over against Charles Hodge of Princeton in the 1850's." -- Ernest Trice Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, Vol. 2: 1861-1890, p. 414.

As Thompson goes on to relate, John Lafayette Girardeau summed up the Southern Presbyterian position well, historically known as jure divino Presbyterianism, or divine right Presbyterianism, as he laid it out in a sermon before the General Assembly of 1875:

"There are two supreme obligations which this final charge of the Lord Jesus lays upon the heart of the church. The first is the transcendent duty of universal evangelization. The second is the inculcation and maintenance of the truth which Christ, the prophet of the church, has taught, and the commands which Christ, the king of the church, has enjoined. The call of the gospel is to be addressed to all the sons of men, and when they accept it, and are gathered into the fold of the church, she is to teach them all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. There are obviously a positive and a negative aspect of this charge to the church, — positive, in that she is directed to teach all that Christ has commanded; negative, in that she is implicitly prohibited from teaching anything which He has not commanded. The negative duty is a necessary inference from the command which enforces the positive. Here, then, we have the principle tinctured with the blood of our Puritan, Covenanter and Huguenot forefathers — that what is not commanded, either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures, is prohibited to the church. She can utter no new doctrine, make no new laws, ordain no new forms of government, and invent no new modes of worship. This is but a statement of a fundamental principle of Protestantism, contra-distinguishing it from Rationalism on the one hand and Romanism on the other, — that the Scriptures, as the word of Christ, are the complete and ultimate rule of faith and duty. They are complete, since they furnish as perfect a provision for the spiritual, as does nature for the physical, wants of man, and, therefore, exclude every other rule as unnecessary and superfluous. They are ultimate because, being the word of God, they must pronounce infallibly and supremely upon all questions relating to religious faith and practice. The duty of the church, consequently, to conform herself strictly to the divine word, and her guilt and danger in departing from it would seem to be transparently evident. But the clearest principles, through the blindness, fallibility, and perverseness of the human mind, frequently prove inoperative in actual experience; and the history of the church furnishes lamentable proof that the great, regulative truth of the completeness and supremacy of the Scriptures constitutes no exception to this remark. Because we are Protestants, and Presbyterian Protestants, because the doctrine of the perfection and ultimate authority of the word lies at the root of our system and is embodied in our standards, we are not, therefore, free from the peril attending the failure of the church to conform herself in all things to the revealed will of Christ, and her tendency to rely upon her own folly instead of His wisdom" ("The Discretionary Power of the Church," Sermons, p. 370-371).

What Are the Limits of Church Authority?

March 29, 2018

As we have noted before, few questions are more important than to understand the nature and limits of church power. How do we distinguish between circumstances of worship and prescribed elements? May the Church authorize ceremonies in worship not commanded in Scripture?

The answer is clear from the Westminster Assembly: "God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his Word, or beside it in matters of faith or worship. So that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commandments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience; and the requiring an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also" and "But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture" (Westminster Confession of Faith 20:2; 21:1).

On this topic, we have previously highlighted John Bailey Adger (1810-1899)'s 1884 article on "Church Power." He affirms: "Our doctrine, our discipline, our worship, are all divine and revealed things, to which the Church can add, from which she can take away, nothing. No more discretion has the Church in regulating those who compose her membership. She can make no new laws to bind their conscience. Neither contrary to, nor yet beside the Scripture, can she impose any new duties not imposed on men by the Word. On the other hand, she cannot make anything to be sinful which God himself has not forbidden. In fine, the Church has no lawmaking power, except as to circumstances of time and place, order and decency, which, from the nature of the case, Scripture could not regulate, and which must needs be left, and have therefore been left, to human discretion. All the power which the Church has about laws is declarative and ministerial. Her officers are servants of the Lord, and declare not their own will, but the Lord's, and that only as he makes it known in the Word, which is open to all men, and which every man is entitled to judge of and interpret for himself."

We would also bring your attention two additional works by John Lafayette Girardeau (1825-1898): 1) The Discretionary Power of the Church (a sermon preached in 1875, found in his Sermons, wherein he quotes James Henley Thornwell so profoundly; and 2) Individual Liberty and Church Authority, a sermon preached in 1889.

These works help to clarify that ecclesiastical authority is ministerial and delegated, not authoritative in itself. Adger and Girardeau have correctly and helpfully exposited the nature and limits of church authority, limiting it to what God has authorized, and not going beyond that. Take time to study these works, and to address what a very important question that every Christian must face.

Have you seen this study of Reformation worship?

October 27, 2017

In 1855, Charles Washington Baird (at the age of 27!) wrote Eutaxia: Or, the Presbyterian Liturgies: Historical Sketches, a study of Reformation/Presbyterian liturgies. Anyone interested in Presbyterian worship, or the history of Presbyterian worship, will appreciate Baird's ground-breaking work.

We have a lot of early American Presbyterian resources on psalmody on our website - take a look.

October 7, 2017

(If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

From the time of the introduction of Isaac Watts’ psalm paraphrases into the American Presbyterian church in the mid-18th century (see Julius Melton, Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns Since 1787 [1967, 2001], pp. 11-12), the content of praise in public worship has been a matter of controversy. Though challenged by New School views on worship, the streams of Presbyterianism found among the Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter), Associate Reformed Presbyterian, and United Presbyterian branches throughout the 19th century were all marked by a consistent desire to sing the Psalms of David in worship. A sampling of their literature on the subject is as follows:

1) William Marshall (1740-1802), The Propriety of Singing the Psalms of David in New Testament Worship (1776);

2) Thomas Clark (c. 1720-1792), Plain Reasons, Why Neither Dr. Watts' Imitation of the Psalms, nor His Other Poems, Nor Any Other Human Composition, Ought to be Used in the Praises of the Great God our Saviour (1783, 1828);

3) John Anderson (1748-1830), Vindiciae Cantus Dominici: 1. A Discourse on the Duty of Singing the Book of Psalms in Solemn Worship. 2. A Vindication of the Doctrine Taught in the Preceding Discourse (1800);

4) James Renwick Willson (1780-1853), Review of Harris on Psalmody (1825);

5) Robert Reid (1781-1844), Doctor Watts’ Preface to the Psalms of David (1826);

6) William Sommerville (1800-1876), The Psalms of David Designed for Standing Use in the Church (1835), republished later as The Exclusive Claims of David's Psalms (1855);

7) John Taylor Pressly (1795-1870), Review of Ralston’s Inquiry (1848);

8) Robert James Dodds (1824-1870), A Reply to Morton on Psalmody: To Which is Added a Condensed Argument for the Use of Psalmody (1851);

9) Gilbert McMaster (1778-1854), An Apology for the Book of Psalms (4th ed., 1852);

10) James McLeod Willson (1809-1866) et al., The True Psalmody (1859) (reprinted in 1861, 1883 and available in print today here);

11) John Black Johnston (1802-1882), Psalmody: An Examination of the Authority for Making Uninspired Songs, and For Using Them in the Formal Worship of God (1871);

12) William D. Ralston (1835-1894), Talks on Psalmody in the Matthews Family (1877);