Neander refused to adopt the order of the Reformed Church and he would not subscribe to the Heidelberg Catechism. He was censured by the Presbyterium (similar to a presbytery) in October, 1676, and added to the charges concerning his church ministry were accusations regarding his operation of the school. At the school he had developed curriculum and did not seek its approval by the Presbyterium; he rescheduled examinations without approval; and he made repairs on the property without approval. These were the main points against him. So, the Presbyterium presented a declaration to Neander, February 3, 1677, suspending him from directing the school and forbidding him from preaching in the church.

Joachim Neander was born at Bremen, Germany, 1650. His father was a teacher in the local Latin school until he died when Joachim was sixteen years old. After his father’s death, he entered the Reformed University at Bremen to study theology in order to become a minister. At the time, he viewed the ministry as nothing more than a profession that would provide for a good future and job security. However, growing in influence at the time was a movement in Germany called pietism which believed the existing Protestant churches in the land, both Lutheran and Reformed, over emphasized doctrine at the expense of personal experience and practical Christian living.
James I. Good expressed the situation as follows:
Two causes led to the development of Pietism in the Reformed Church in the close of the seventeenth century. The first was a reaction against the dead orthodoxy and formalism that had crept into the Church. The second was the rise of the Cocceianism, or the Federal School of Theology. The two really were one, Cocceianism a reaction against deadness of doctrine, and Pietism a reaction against deadness of life. Through the theological controversies religion had become a matter of the head, rather than of the heart and life (314-315).
Pietism first began among the Lutherans then spread to the Reformed Church. One Sunday in the fall of 1670, Neander went to hear Theodor Untereyck (1635-1693) preach with the intention of making fun of his teaching, however, he instead found himself convicted of his hardness and folly as he came to faith in Christ. After the service he left the church and mentioned to the two friends with him that he had decided to follow Christ. From then on, Neander attended Untereyck’s services and became a follower of his teaching. Neander’s ideas concerning life and the ministry had changed entirely.
The spring of 1671, Neander accepted an offer from some French Reformed (Huguenot) families in Frankfurt to take their five sons about sixty miles south in Germany to the University of Heidelberg. It was not unusual for parents with means to hire someone to oversee their boys and keep them out of trouble while away at college. It was a good opportunity for Neander because he could study according to his own interests as he tutored and chaperoned the boys until they returned to Frankfort in 1673.
Continuing with his pietist interest, the next year Neander participated in private Bible study and prayer meetings in Frankfurt led by Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705). Spener opposed what he believed were the rigid organization and doctrinal inflexibility of Lutheranism while he also condemned the lax morality of many clergy. Neander became more deeply associated with the pietist movement and found in Spener the teaching that continued Untereyck’s influences from his past. Joachim Neander’s most significant work during these years in Frankfort was writing hymns. As the pietist movement grew it increasingly included Reformed as well as Lutheran Germans. The Lutherans sang Neander’s hymns in prayer meetings and as pietism came to influence the Reformed they too sang his hymns as they became less committed to Psalmody.
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One trip from Denver for church planting involved taking the stage to both Central City and Missouri City because several Presbyterians were interested in having churches organized. During the trip other settlements were visited with services held. It was an efficient way to reach what were often settlements located at sites where gold could be panned from streams or obtained from veins in rock. Wherever gold was found, communities of prospectors arose quickly.

Alexander Taylor was born December 4, 1803 to Richard and Isabella (Steel) Rankin in Dandridge, Tennessee. His parents were originally from Augusta County, Virginia and had moved for better opportunities in east Tennessee. Alexander was next to the last child born in a household of eleven sons and one daughter. The Baltimore Sun reported that according to Alexander’s memories of his home life
His mother became a sort of arbiter in all church matters, which were at that time in a greatly agitated state. She was a great theologian, and not afraid to express her opinion, so her house was the center for ministers, elders and all those interested in Presbyterianism and the various questions which occupied the minds of thinking people of that day.
What was the greatly agitated state of the Presbyterian Church during Rankin’s early life? As the eighteenth century turned to the nineteenth, the eastern Tennessee-Kentucky region experienced religious revivals such as the season at Cane Ridge in August 1801. The Synod of Kentucky of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) was formed in 1802 with its constituent presbyteries Transylvania, West Lexington, and Washington having been transferred from the Synod of Virginia. Some members of the Synod believed the revivals represented a unique outpouring of the Holy Spirit showing the work of God, but others thought differently and instead attributed the apparent conversions to the machinations of man and a stirred-up emotional atmosphere. Within the new synod there was polarization as the supporters of revivalism called for reduced educational requirements for ministers and less adherence to the Westminster Standards, particularly its Calvinist soteriology, so that more passionate ministers could be trained more quickly. The desire for more ministers was well founded. In 1803 the General Assembly reported that the Synod of Kentucky had 37 ministers and 3 licentiates with no vacant churches, but the other six synods combined had 62 ministers without call. It would have been good if some of the ministers without call had made their way to the Synod of Kentucky and established churches committed to Scripture and the Westminster Standards in the wake of the Second Great Awakening, but this was unfortunately not the case. The General Assembly sent missionaries to the expanding frontier, but the supply could not keep up with the demand. In the end, the controversy was resolved by division. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was formed in 1810 with ministers that were either expelled or had withdrawn from the Synod of Kentucky. So, the greatly agitated state of the Presbyterian Church into which Alexander Rankin was born had long-term effects on Tennessee and Kentucky Presbyterianism.
He went on to graduate Washington College in Tennessee, 1826. Washington was founded by the first Presbyterian minister to settle in Tennessee, Samuel Doak. Rankin’s education for the ministry was likely provided by a minister at Washington College. Rankin left Tennessee to be ordained an evangelist by the Presbytery of Cincinnati and worked as such until 1837 when he was installed the minister of a church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Fort Wayne Presbyterians had struggled since their earliest days when John Ross first preached in their settlement, but as the city grew Pastor Rankin worked with the existing congregation to bring harmony and he oversaw the addition of new members until he resigned in September 1843. For the next ten years it appears that his ministry involved supplying pulpits and serving brief calls in New York state, possibly in both Old and New School churches. From 1852 to 1859 he pastored the Breckinridge Street Church in Buffalo, New York. When he attended the Old School General Assembly in May 1859, Moderator William L. Breckinridge appointed him to the Committee of Publications and when deliberations about establishing the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the Northwest (later McCormick) took place, he was nominated a candidate for two of the faculty chairs, neither of which he received. But most significant for Rankin was the Assembly’s Board of Domestic Missions appointment to be a missionary to the West. It was a difficult decision but after some consideration he accepted the call, left his family in Buffalo, and made his way to St. Louis to plan the journey to the Kansas Territory and then on to the rapidly growing city of Denver in the Utah Territory.
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Jeffrey McDonald has provided a thought-provoking biography supported by over a thousand footnotes that document sources including Gerstner’s writings, reviews of his writings, recordings, judicatory records, letters, web material, and interviews of his students and colleagues. The nineteen-page bibliography shows a wide variety of sources accessed by McDonald. The book provides another angle on the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the twenties as its influences played out in Gerstner’s era, and it reinforces the significance of Machen and his colleagues’ role affirming supernatural Christianity.

Jeffrey S. McDonald’s John Gerstner and the Renewal of Presbyterian and Reformed Evangelicalism in Modern America, 2017, is an informative biography of a seminary professor serving in an era of crucial events in American Christianity during the last sixty years of the twentieth century. The author is a Presbyterian minister, historian, and author, who in 2015 was instrumental in founding the Presbyterian Scholars Conference. The centennial of J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism last year reminded Presbyterians of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the nineteen-twenties and the founding of Westminster Seminary (WTS, 1929), as well as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC, 1936). However, in later years there were confessional, Reformed evangelicals such as John Gerstner who carried on the apologetic for supernatural Christianity against the theological-scientific naturalism of what evangelicals often describe generically as liberalism. Dr. McDonald shows that Gerstner was influential from the lectern, in the pulpit, and through writing for a variety of publications. He presents Gerstner in the context of Reformed evangelicalism as it developed during the era of the Second World War, through the turbulent nineteen sixties, then beyond the life and gender views wrought by Roe vs. Wade in the seventies, and on to his death at the end of the millennium while through it all defending the faith built upon the supernatural and inerrant Bible. The reviewer purchased the e-version book for this review, but it is also available in hardcopy.
John Henry Jr. was born in Tampa, Florida, November 22, 1914, to John, Sr., and Margie (Wilson) Gerstner. Shortly thereafter the family settled in Philadelphia. He was a good student, edited the school newspaper, enjoyed sports, and participated in debate club. He grew up without Christian influences until high school when he met a girl who was a member of a United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA) congregation. He went with her to services and youth meetings. The UPCNA traced its ancestry to seventeenth-century Scotland through the Associate Synod; it was not the same (at this point in history) as the PCUSA. Unsure about his future he visited Philadelphia School of the Bible where an administrator named J. D. Adams explained the message of the Bible so that Gerstner “finally understood the heart of the gospel message” (21). Intending to become a medical missionary he enrolled in the UPCNA’s Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. Consistent with his medical interests he studied science and worked in a sanatorium for income. As was common among students of the era, he joined the YMCA and was president of the campus chapter. Half-way through college he changed his major to theology, which likely resulted from advice given by his mentor, Professor John Orr, who was a Princeton Seminary alumnus that held the teaching of B. B. Warfield in high regard. It was the Calvinism of Orr’s lectures that steered Gerstner into the Reformed path, particularly as he came to see that regeneration precedes faith. Gerstner graduated in 1936 then continued his UPCNA directed education at Pittsburgh-Xenia (Pitt-Xenia) Theological Seminary. Gerstner was quickly disappointed because he found the academics unchallenging, so he transferred to WTS beginning the fall of 1937. When he graduated with the Batchelor of Divinity and Master of Theology in 1940, the question was what to do next. After considering further study at Princeton Seminary and the University of Chicago, he went to Harvard for doctoral work.
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Robinson’s book, The Church of God as an Essential Element of the Gospel, 1858, has been reprinted by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2009, with an introduction by A. Craig Troxel and a twenty-five page biography by T. E. Peck. Peck was a friend of Robinson and succeeded him at Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore. Robinson also published Discourses on Redemption: As Revealed at Sundry Times and in Divers Manners, Richmond: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1866.

Is it a scowl of anger or grimace of pain that is on the face of Stuart Robinson? His appearance may very well be due to pain. When he was an infant his nurse was tossing him in the air, as adults sometimes do, and watching him giggle, as babies will do, when she accidentally missed him and he fell to the floor. One can only imagine the horror of the nurse as she saw the child she cared for screaming in pain. The injuries were fearful. His right shoulder was dislocated, his hand and thumb were seriously injured, and his head was injured such that the doctor believed, using the terminology of the day, “idiocy,” might be the result. Robinson recovered fully from his head injury but both his arm and hand were disabled for the remainder of his life such that stiffness and awkwardness could be seen in his gestures from the pulpit. Matters were made worse when he broke the same arm in an accident while riding a train from Baltimore to Kentucky. Yes, his facial appearance may very well be due to pain, but then there is the possibility of the scowl of anger, an appearance of antagonism because his character, integrity, and honor as a man and a minister were assailed and slandered such that he sued the source of the defaming words.
Stuart Robinson was of Scotch-Irish stock, born November 14, 1814, to James and Martha (Porter) Robinson in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland. Martha was the daughter of an elder in the Irish Presbyterian Church and her grandfather had been a Presbyterian minister. Stuart’s father was a successful purveyor of linen until he lost his wealth through guaranteeing some loans that did not work out. Thus, as so many residents of Ireland were doing in the era, James took the family first briefly to New York and then on to Virginia where they settled. When Stuart was but six or seven years old his mother died. The household had no relatives in the United States, so Stuart lived with another family, the Troutmans, through an arrangement by his father.
The Troutmans raised Stuart as their own and came to realize he was highly intelligent. They made sure that he attended the best schools possible. As with several of the biographical subjects presented on Presbyterians of the Past, his intellectual gifts were evidenced by an incredible memory. The Troutmans sought the advice of their pastor, Rev. James M. Brown, regarding the best course for study for Stuart. Brown observed the thirteen year old’s abilities, took him into his home, and directed his studies until he was sent to study in an academy in Romney, Virginia, mastered by Rev. William H. Foote. At about the age of sixteen he professed faith in Christ. When it was time to enter college, Robinson joined the freshman class at Amherst in Massachusetts, graduating in 1836. For preparation for the ministry he studied one year in Union Seminary, Virginia; then he taught for two years to earn tuition for more study; and then studied two years in Princeton Seminary but did not receive a certificate of completion.
Stuart Robinson was licensed by Greenbrier Presbytery, 1841, then ordained, October 8, 1842, at Lewisburg, Virginia (currently in West Virginia) to serve the Kanawha Salines Church. He continued in the ministry serving churches in Kentucky, then Baltimore, and then moved back to Kentucky where he taught in Danville Seminary before becoming minister of Second Church, Louisville. Stuart Robinson was known for his preaching gifts, the precision of his sermons, his pointed and no holds barred writing, and a short-fused temper. His memorialist, J. N. Saunders, commented that, “his temper sometimes got the better of him; that his great will was sometimes too imperious, and that he often said things that were unnecessarily severe and wounding” (p. 34). At the time of the lawsuits that will be discussed in the following paragraphs, Robinson had been at Second Church since 1858.
The story of Dr. Robinson’s litigation begins with The Hickman Courier of Hickman, Kentucky, which reported in March 1872 that an important libel suit had been filed by Rev. Stuart Robinson against the proprietors of the Chicago Evening Post seeking damages of 100,000.00. The compensation sought was described as, likely tongue in cheek, “a moderate sum.” Robinson was responding to a thirty-one word article published that January in the Post’s “Personal and Impersonal” column.
Rev. Stuart Robinson of Louisville, who advocated from the pulpit during the war, the shipping of yellow fever infected clothing to Northern cities, narrowly escaped death from small pox last week.
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Henry’s book is a fine work, however, as wonderful as the book is, the Alliance has done a great service by taking Method and putting it in form for daily prayers. The free subscription provides a daily prayer addressing any of a variety of subjects with their lengths running to three or four hundred words. For more on the project “Pray the Bible” program see “Behind the Project” on the Alliance website. If you would like to sign up for the daily emails, go to “Sign up for Daily Emails.”

Several weeks ago I subscribed to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals email series, “Pray the Bible.” The source for this ministry is the more than three-centuries old book by Matthew Henry (1662-1714), A Method for Prayer, with Scripture Expressions, Proper to be Us’d Under each Head. Second Edition with Additions, London: Printed for Nath[aniel] Cliff and Daniel Jackson at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapfide near Mercers Chapel, 1710. A quick scan of a few library catalogs having antiquarian collections shows other editions were published in 1713, 1714, 1724, 1737, 1750, 1781, 1797, 1798, and 1882. Further searching would surely find other printings; I could not find a listing for the first edition which would date to 1710 or earlier. The point of this bibliographic information is that Henry’s book on prayer has enjoyed a long and prolific history including more recent titles using it as edited by O. Palmer Robertson, A Sampler from a Way to Pray, Banner of Truth, 2010, and the version used by the Alliance that was edited by J. Ligon Duncan III, A Method for Prayer-Matthew Henry, Christian Focus, 1994.
Matthew Henry is best known for his commentary on the whole Bible which has enjoyed a long publication history in multivolume and edited single volume editions, and his book on prayer takes his copious Bible knowledge and composes the Christian’s supplications with quotes from Scripture. As God has spoken to His people in the Word, so His people should speak to Him with his Word. Henry’s book is a fine work, however, as wonderful as the book is, the Alliance has done a great service by taking Method and putting it in form for daily prayers. The free subscription provides a daily prayer addressing any of a variety of subjects with their lengths running to three or four hundred words. For more on the project “Pray the Bible” program see “Behind the Project” on the Alliance website. If you would like to sign up for the daily emails, go to “Sign up for Daily Emails.”
The header image shows a building in Chester, England that pre-dates Matthew Henry’s time in the city. It is said that “God’s Providence is Mine Inheritance” painted on its timber-frame beam is because the household survived a visitation of the plague.
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Scripture tells Christians that they are to be in the world but not of the world and church history has shown that a reoccurring problem is knowing at what point the believer crosses the line and becomes not only in the world but of it as well. Dr. Miller made some good points in his case that are worthy of contemplation, but as he addressed objections to his views, his responses increasingly become strained. The presentation of his message at some points during his theater comments is—as much as one can tell from reading the text and not seeing him live in the pulpit—one of reprimand and rebuke (if seen live, his mannerisms and tone of voice might have softened the words). Where Alexander emphasized comfort for Richmond and the nation as expressed in his Bible text regarding weeping, Miller’s passage rebuked the people in a difficult time.

Catastrophes redirect people from the temporal to the eternal. After 911, many confused, disconsolate, and mourning individuals who formerly had little thought of God went to churches seeking answers to their questions. God uses floods, fires, whirlwinds, earthquakes, and other major events to bring his people to faith in Christ. The fire in Richmond’s theater on December 26, 1811, killed over eighty people including Virginia’s governor and it injured many others. It was a horrifying blaze as the flames spread rapidly across dry wood and fabric, but the horror became tragic because people could not escape through the theater’s inadequate passages, a constricted stairway, and too few exit doors. Meredith Henne Baker’s The Richmond Theater Fire recounts the event in all its details; shows how Richmonders chose to memorialize the dead; and then tells how memory of the fire influenced the city and nation in subsequent years. Baker emphasizes how the nearly church-less city of Richmond harvested from its non-religious residents many that became Christians and seeded new congregations or were added to the few existing ones.
Baker recounts the post-fire ministries of Episcopalians, Baptists, and Methodists, and a good bit of the text is dedicated to three Presbyterian ministers that would become particularly important for American theological education. Archibald Alexander was at the time the minister of Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and would in 1812 become the first professor of the Presbyterian seminary at Princeton. Samuel Miller was serving in a collegiate pastorate in New York with John Rodgers. Miller would be appointed Alexander’s colleague at Princeton in 1813. John Holt Rice, at the time pastoring rural congregations in Virginia, would soon become the minister of Richmond’s First Presbyterian Church and then in later years direct Union Seminary in Virginia through some difficult times to bring stability and prepare it for the future.
There were many sermons delivered across the nation following the fire other than those of Alexander, Miller, and Rice, some of them would relate the catastrophe to what were known as worldly amusements. Such amusements included social dancing, card playing, games of chance, and attending the theater, among others. Note that the theater in the era was not always considered a proper place for Christians because theaters could vary in propriety from base dives and gratuitous indecency to more acceptable forms such as the performance presented by Placide and Green Company of Charleston, South Carolina, in the Richmond theater the night of the fire. In the paragraphs that follow, I will look into the perspectives on the fire presented by three Presbyterian ministers considered in Baker’s book.
Alexander’s sermon was delivered in Pine Street Church in Philadelphia, and then published in a pamphlet titled, A Discourse Occasioned by the Burning of the Theatre in the City of Richmond, Virginia. His text was the second half of Romans 12:15, “Weep with them that weep.” After several pages of compassionate comments and encouragement directed to those in mourning, he transitioned into the subject of worldly amusements. Alexander expressed reluctance to broach the topic but since some had asked him to do so, he made a few comments that fill less than two pages. He did not target the theater in particular but worldly amusements in general commenting that they were “unfriendly to piety.” Then, he began an extended section pointing out the brevity of life, the importance of Christian commitment, the need to avoid temptation, and the requirement of heavenly minded thinking. The overall tone of the discourse is pastoral and Alexander is reserved in his comments about entertainment. His primary concern was to bring comfort to his listeners as they lived through the fire’s aftermath, challenge Christians to commit to better service for the Lord, and call the unbelieving to faith.
Samuel Miller delivered his sermon to a group of “young gentlemen” at their request. He was specifically asked to include in his discourse comments about theatrical entertainments. He was, like Alexander, reluctant to do so, but again like Alexander, he addressed the issue. The two verses he selected for exposition were Lamentations 2:1, 13.
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Why was Jesus born the son of a carpenter to work as a carpenter? The question remains answered only in the mind of God. Yet it can be said that the Father’s plan to atone for sin through Christ was perfect, and carpentry provided the perfect home life and work for the Son of God who would take away the sins of his people.

Why was Jesus born the son of a carpenter, to work as a carpenter (Mt 13:55; Mk 6:3)? Some would respond that before the Son of God entered his public ministry he needed to work, and carpentry provided a living as good as any other. However, there are other occupations which look as if they would have been better suited to prepare him for ministry. Fishing would have been fitting work; Jesus called the disciples to become fishers of men, fed multitudes with fish and bread, and compared the kingdom of heaven to a fishing net. He could have been a vintner, growing and processing grapes for wine. Young Jesus turned water into wine, then later said he himself was the vine feeding his disciples, and he cautioned his listeners against putting new vintage into old skins. Shepherding could be called a family tradition, since the Messiah came from the line of Judah, and King David worked among the sheep. Jesus told a parable about seeking the lost lamb, he said he knows his sheep, and—most importantly—he is the sacrificial Lamb of God. Shepherding would seem a better occupation than carpentry.
Christ did not say much about wood or carpentry. He spoke of judging others with the analogy of the eyes having a splinter or a log, and he alluded to carpentry when he told of the man tearing down barns to build bigger ones. Why the Christ was born of the virgin Mary into a carpenter’s household is information the Lord has not condescended to reveal to his image bearers. However, this brief article proposes that the attributes of carpentry uniquely contributed to prepare Christ for his earthly ministry.
When I was a child visiting my grandparents, a man I did not recognize came to the house. My grandmother introduced him to me as her brother. He was a quiet and reserved man, but he none the less extended his hand in gentlemanly fashion and I grasped it. I could feel his calloused leather-like palm and fingers. I was surprised by the texture and lack of suppleness of the skin. Grandmother informed me that her brother had been a carpenter for a number of years. The manual procedures required in his trade had resulted in gloves of skin created by reoccurring contact with the rough surface of wood.
Like my great uncle, the Lord of Glory’s hands had been thickened to some degree over time by tooling wood. Some of the personal encounters Jesus experienced during his ministry might raise a question regarding God’s wisdom in selecting carpentry for a trade. Consider some of the things Jesus did in ministry. His thick-skinned fingers took mud he made from spittle and dirt and gently applied it to the eyes of a blind man to give him sight (Jn 9:6). It was his toughened hands that gently touched the children that came to see him (Mt 19:13-15). Then, following rash Peter’s slash of Malchus’s ear with a sword, the Christ, the anointed one, carefully used his calloused hand to miraculously restore the ear (Jn 18:10; Mt 26:51). The softer hands of a physician, lawyer, or scholar may be thought more appropriate for Jesus’s work, but the toughened hands of the Carpenter exemplified his full humanity as he accomplished the divine work of redemption.
Jesus often argued from the lesser to the greater in his teaching, but his carpenter’s hands show a physical argument from the intuitive, what man expects, to the counterintuitive, what God does. The ways of the Triune God are not man’s ways. Christ’s hands exhibited his mannishness—and their skill came in handy to make a whip for running the moneychangers out of the temple—
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It is good to remember Patrick of Ireland and his contribution to church history, but he should not be remembered through the “carousing and drunkenness” often associated with March 17. Instead, “the Lord Jesus Christ” should be put on in faith with “no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” These words from Romans 13:13,14 confronted Augustine with his own sin leading to his response to Christ in faith. Patrick of Ireland is best remembered through worshipping and serving the Triune God through faith in Christ.

March 17 is remembered as St. Patrick’s Day by the Irish of Ireland and others scattered abroad. The day will likely be celebrated with revelry and little concern for Patrick’s ministry. There are only two extant writings by him, Confession and Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. The first is an autobiographical defense of his integrity as a minister in the face of accusations to the contrary, while the second rebukes a military commander named Coroticus for kidnapping and killing Christians. These two writings provide a more accurate picture of Patrick than do the myths about him and miracles attributed to him. Michael A. G. Haykin observed in Patrick of Ireland: His Life & Impact that the real Patrick is more interesting than the one created over the centuries by tales and fables. When one reads Patrick’s Confession it is obvious that he knew Scripture and used it to teach the Irish about the Triune God and the gracious atonement accomplished by the Son. His emphases on theology and Christology were needed because it was difficult to communicate the doctrines of the Trinity and the Son to individuals worshipping multiple gods because they tended to understand the Trinity as three deities. The authenticity of the tradition is debated as with much information about Patrick, but it is said he used clover with its three leaves united in one sprig to illustrate the three persons of the Trinity united in one God. As with any illustration of the Trinity, it breaks down at some point, but it likely worked well for Patrick’s purpose.
Patrick was born in 390 in Banavem Taberniæ the son of Calpurnius, who was the son of Potitus. Calpurnius was a public official and a “deacon” (diaconum). Patrick’s grandfather was a “presbyter” (presbyteri, translated also “priest” or “elder”). Haykin notes that the precise location of his birthplace is unknown but is likely somewhere along the west coast of England or Scotland. Patrick grew up in the church, but the message of Christ came to ears that were not yet ears to hear, however memories of Bible passages from these years would later bear fruit. He lived with his Roman-British family until the age of sixteen when he was abducted and enslaved in the land that became Ireland. At the time, the Romans called the island Hibernia. Patrick shepherded sheep as a slave, but he was released from enslavement to sin through faith in Christ as he remembered Scripture from his early years. While watching flocks he prayed without ceasing and found the psalms beneficial for petitioning and praising God. He had something in common with another lover of psalms and a shepherd, King David. After about six years, Patrick managed to escape his captors, made his way to a ship, and left Ireland.
In Confession, Patrick said that he was not only a physical slave but also “went into captivity in language.” He added that “today I blush and am exceedingly afraid to lay bare my lack of education” (paragraph 10). Patrick’s self-assessment is consistent with what Michael Haykin observed regarding his limited facility with the Latin language. In the following quote Patrick recounts his experience as he wrestled with whether or not he should return to Ireland as a missionary. Note the bracketed words were inserted by the translator, J.D. White, to help the text flow better.
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It is appropriate that Warfield’s last review included criticism of naturalism given his life spent defending supernaturalism. In between these two reviews is a period of forty-one years during which Warfield evaluated a wide variety of books including subjects as varied as agriculture, ships, and children’s books, along with the biblical-theological-confessional titles one would expect.

The more than two-hundred-fifty-page PDF document available for download at the end of this introduction is a table that includes seven columns of information about each of 1268 book reviews by Benjamin B. Warfield published in the journals issued by Princeton Seminary. A brief text within the table explains the runs and titles of Princeton’s journals and provides details needed for interpreting the table.
Warfield’s first review was published in The Presbyterian Review, April 1880, while he was professor of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny, and it critiques volume one of C. F. G. Heinrici’s Erklärung der Korinthierbriefe. The book is not an expository commentary but instead is concerned with history and the Corinthian people.
His last review considered two titles together and was published the month before his death in The Princeton Theological Review, January 1921. The first of the two titles is Hugo Visscher’s address about science and religion delivered before the four faculties of the Universities of Utrecht during the 284th anniversary of the institution. The second title is a tract by H. W. van der Vaart Smit that evaluated Visscher saying his view “seems to require Christianity to surrender to natural science” and it “appears to abolish all supernaturalism from the fact-basis and fact-content of Christianity.” Warfield maintained an interest in Dutch theology over the years and the Dutch showed their appreciation for his teaching when the Doctor of Sacred Theology was given him by Utrecht in 1913.
It is appropriate that Warfield’s last review included criticism of naturalism given his life spent defending supernaturalism. In between these two reviews is a period of forty-one years during which Warfield evaluated a wide variety of books including subjects as varied as agriculture, ships, and children’s books, along with the biblical-theological-confessional titles one would expect.
Free Download: A Table of B. B. Warfield’s Book Reviews in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review and its Predecessors
Dr. Barry Waugh attends Fellowship PCA in Greer, SC. This article is used with permission.
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Alcohol is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States behind number two, tobacco, and number one, poor diet combined with physical inactivity. How should Christians respond to this situation? Temperance has been and will continue to be a topic of debate, but the ministry of the church is to teach people to be filled with the Spirit through redemption by Christ.

Physician and founding-father Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) published An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors on the Human Body, 1790. The pamphlet brought before the public several problems associated with drinking distilled spirits. As a doctor, Rush presented conclusions made from his observations of the damage spirits can cause the liver, stomach, digestion, physical appearance, and muscle tissue. His experience dealing with alcoholism in the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia included not only treatment of its physical but also neurological aspects, and he pointed out the associated problems it caused for personal finances, family, and society. Much of what he said over two-hundred years ago could be dittoed today, however, Rush was not an alcohol abolitionist but instead proposed temperance in the sense of moderation. Doctor Rush’s Inquiry appealed to readers to consider the negative side of what they drank and his diagram “A Moral and Physical Thermometer” at the end of Inquiry (see at the end of this article) was intended to encourage individuals to modify their practices by showing them graphically the dangers of intemperance. He was concerned too that the increased availability of ardent spirits for social get-togethers often led to inebriation, and in the long term, dependency. Physician Rush believed that if someone wanted to drink beverages with alcohol, fermented juices such as apple cider and punches with minimal levels of alcohol were better than spirits, beer, and wine, but the best refreshment was made of vinegar, water, and molasses. Vinegar’s ability to kill some micro-organisms was observed with microscopes in the seventeenth century and it may have been seen as a disinfecting substitute for alcohol.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the abuse of alcoholic beverages was a horrendous problem that displayed itself with inebriated individuals wandering streets, filling jails, and being treated by doctors. It was not uncommon for church services to be interrupted by inebriates wandering into sanctuaries. On the one hand, they were in the best place they could be to hear about Christ, but on the other hand, it was hard to do things decently and in order with lyrics filling the air such as “Let us drink and be merry, dance and joke and rejoice, with claret and sherry.” Adding to the problem was employers encouraged workers to drink. Believe it or not during industrial expansion in the nineteenth century, bosses offered free shots of whiskey to cajole workers to stay at their jobs till the end of the day. Machinery and drink do not mix, and such a practice undoubtedly caused injuries and death.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) in its report on the state of religion in 1807 commented that it deplored “in many parts, debasing intemperance in the use of ardent spirits” (p. 383). In 1811 the General Assembly thanked Benjamin Rush for his donation of 1000 copies of Inquiry that were “divided among the members of the Assembly in order to be distributed in their congregations” (467). Note that Rush had kept his pamphlet in print for twenty-one years as intemperance continued to be a problem. The next year the Assembly adopted the report of a committee appointed the previous year which encouraged ministers “to deliver public discourses…on the sin and mischiefs of intemperate drinking” and warned congregants of “those habits and indulgences which may tend to produce it.” Further, church sessions needed to be vigilant to give private warning or public censures because intemperance is “so disgraceful to the Christian name,” the distribution of temperance tracts was encouraged and encouragement was given to efforts for reducing in communities “the number of taverns and other places vending liquors” (510-11). In 1818, an action prompted by overture from the Presbytery of New Brunswick was adopted which recommended that ministers and their flocks influence “forming associations for the suppression of vice and the encouragement of good morals” and that “ministers, elders, and deacons…refrain from offering ardent spirits to those who may visit them at their respective houses, except in extraordinary cases” (684). Finally, the same Assembly recommended…
…to the officers and members of our Church to abstain even from the common use of ardent spirits. Such a voluntary privation as this, with its motives publicly avowed will not be without its effect in cautioning our fellow Christians and fellow citizens against the encroachment of intoxication; and we have the more confidence in recommending this course as it has already been tried with success in several sections of our Church (690).
Those who have been reading Presbyterians of the Past for some time will remember that some ministers in biographies were disciplined for intemperance.
The Civil War brought increased problems with alcoholism. The masses of soldiers gathered on battlefields and in forts with hours of idleness awaiting the next engagement often drank to fill the time as they played games of chance. The problem of inebriated soldiers was addressed in sermons by chaplains along with tracts written by pastors and distributed through religious publishers. Alcohol dependency was a significant problem after the Civil War ended and some temperance groups were organized specifically to help veterans.
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