The chapter is divided into seven subheadings, Old and New School
Presbyterianism, The North-South Division, The Briggs Case, The Mercersburg Theology,
The Dutch American Reformed, Baptist Calvinists, and Conclusion.
Old and New School Presbyterianism.
The rise of Presbyterians and the decline of Congregationalists during the Second
Great Awakening, Charles Finney,
the issue of slavery, Lyman Beecher,
Albert
Barnes,
and the Old School Traditionalists versus the New School Innovators.
The North-South Division. The slavery issue is
discussed. Geography seemed to play a role in the views held about slavery.
Charles Hodge,
Samuel Davies, James Henley Thornwell, Robert Lewis Dabney, John
Lafayette Girardeau, William S. Plumer, Benjamin Morgan Palmer, Thomas Peck,
Daniel Baker, and Moses Hoge are mentioned.
The Briggs Case. The encroachment of
German liberalism is discussed, with Charles Augustus Briggs at Union Theological
Seminary, New York, rejecting biblical infallibility. B. B. Warfield,
A. A.
Hodge,
and W. G. T. Shedd
stood strong for the faith. Shedd’s History of
Christian Doctrine, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, and Calvinism:
Pure and Mixed are listed.
The Mercersburg Theology. Five paragraphs deal
with theological controversies and Mercersburg College. One of the paragraphs
reviews the career and writings of faculty member Philip Schaff, a well-known
church historian.
The Dutch American Reformed. Two paragraphs
mention 18th-century pastor Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen
and
several 19th-century leaders. These churches and communities were somewhat
isolated from American culture at large because they continued to speak Dutch. They
held to the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of the
Synod of Dort. As America spread westward, more Dutch Reformed communities grew
in Western Michigan and Iowa.
Baptist Calvinists. Four paragraphs deal
with Baptists in America during this century. The first paragraph mentions Baptists
and Methodists, early Baptists such as Roger Williams and Isaac Backus. He
helped found Brown University and was the first major outspoken Calvinistic
Baptist in America. “Baptists in America were relatively untouched by the
English hyper Calvinism of Gill and Brian until the primitive Baptist movement
arose in the nineteenth-century. Otherwise, most American Baptists were very
Calvinistic in their theology.” Mention is made of the Philadelphia Baptist Confession
of 1742 and The New Hampshire Confession of 1833. Baptists in this century
split over the slavery issue, with most if not all the founders of the Southern
Baptist Convention being staunch Calvinists. Named are W. B. Johnson, Patrick H.
Mell, John L. Dagg, Basil Manley, Sr., Basil Manley, Jr.,
John Broadus,
B. H. Carroll,
and James Petigru Boyce.
Mention is
also made of the so-called Landmark Baptists, led by James R. Graves
and James M.
Pendleton.
Conclusion. “Though there were a few
Episcopalians and Congregationalists that shared core Calvinistic convictions
in this period, the main upholders of historic Reformed Theology in nineteenth-century
America were primarily the Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed, some German Reformed,
and most Baptists (with obvious modifications in ecclesiology). The voices of
their leaders still echo today in the hearts of their theological descendants.”
