I Will Build My Church

Stephen reviewed the following book for the February 2023 Banner of Truth magazine:

I Will Build My Church: Selected Writings on Church Polity, Baptism, and the Sabbath
Thomas Witherow; Jonathan Gibson (ed.)
Westminster Seminary Press, 2021
313 pp., hbk, $29.99
ISBN 9781733627269

Why would anyone read a little-known, nineteenth-century Irish Presbyterian writing about secondary issues? Sinclair Ferguson’s answer in the foreword is that this trilogy really sets out to answer the questions of how God wants us to regulate our church, family and weekly lives. As for being unknown, a new 70-page biographical sketch by the editor fills out the life story of a man trained under Thomas Chalmers, who pastored a small-town church of almost 2,000 people, before becoming the first Church History and Pastoral Theology Professor at Magee College, Derry.

Witherow’s Apostolic Church seeks to bring Prelacy, Independency and Presbyterianism before the bar of Scripture. While he claims to have entered the project with misgivings as to which would triumph, he unsurprisingly finds Presbyterianism to meet all the Apostolic criteria (Independency meeting half, and Prelacy none). His only real departure from historic Presbyterianism is a radical two-office view which sees no place for a distinct ordination for ministers.

The second work, Scriptural Baptism, robustly sets out the paedobaptist position. Witherow writes as a man who had seen the 1859 Revival lead to defections from the Presbyterian Church, and takes no prisoners.
His work on the Sabbath (a published address) is the weakest of the three. Witherow’s Sabbatarian conclusions are biblical, but some of his argumentation is problematic, not least the claim that our Lord breached ‘the inspired interpretation…of the Mosaic law’.

The three works have been lightly edited for readability. The decision to characterise them all as ‘Presbyterian distinctives’ seems odd when only one of them is. While a number of footnotes say that the editor was unable to locate sources for quotations or books, all are easily found using Google.

Overall, this is a very valuable volume and many will feel that Witherow’s arguments have never been answered.

In praise of a weekly 'lockdown day'

Despite concerns about variants, the slow unlocking of the UK continues, as we celebrate reaching level 1 here in Dumfries and Galloway. Yet it turns out that there are actually some parts of lockdown that people want to hold on to. A recent Guardian article said: ‘With the country opening back up, some of us are choosing to shut back down every now and then to focus on ourselves and our family’. The authors then went on to ask: ‘Are you going to miss the positive aspects of lockdown so much that you’re going to create your own personal, regular “lockdown days” just for yourself or your family?’.

In our 24/7 society, where we’re so used to rushing from one commitment to another, there was something refreshing – at least at the start – about that burden being lifted. Of course, it would be easy to overplay it. Even back in April 2020, one Times columnist said he was encountering ‘an almost intolerable level of guff about reconnecting with nature, learning the joys of contemplation, home-cooking, realising how much more there is to life than nine-to-five, putting the rhythm of lovely walks and daily exercise back into life, birdsong, etc’. He went on to make a prophecy which, fourteen months later, has the ring of truth to it: ‘Once people need to be in at work for 9am again, it will take a matter of days to disconnect from nature, skip the Zen, head later for a pub or restaurant, and find there just isn’t time for that leisurely walk’.

 And yet is there nothing from our experience of a slower pace of life that can be redeemed? Or are we simply doomed to return to the tyranny of the urgent?

 Just a few days before the idea of a regular ‘lockdown day’ was floated, the Wall Street Journal published an essay by Sohrab Ahmari entitled ‘What we’ve lost in rejecting the Sabbath’. Ahmari, an Iranian-born author, converted from atheism to Roman Catholicism in 2016 at the age of 30. Writing about the Jewish and Christian practice of setting aside one day a week for rest and worship he argues that ‘in an age of constant activity, we need it more than ever’. Of course, the fact that we live in a 24/7 society is one of the main arguments that people – including many Christians – use when they claim that a weekly day of rest is unrealistic. But for Ahmari, our very busyness means that our need to ‘switch off’ for one day a week is greater than ever.

 He notes: ‘We have banished the Sabbath in the name of “choice.” And some choice we have: Working-class families are denied even a half-day of rest together, yet we are puzzled by astronomical divorce rates, abysmally low rates of family formation, alienation and drug abuse. We have cashiered the Sabbath to minimize labour costs, regardless of the impact on families and communities’.

As for the argument that a weekly, society-wide shutdown would be impossible today, we just need to look at the pandemic. If what we value most is at stake, we can shut the shops, close the restaurants and suspend public transport. As someone wryly commented on Twitter during the first lockdown: ‘‘What if we shut down all non-essential services once a week?’

And yet if we were to do so, a weekly Sabbath (or Lord’s Day) would actually look quite different from the weekly ‘lockdown day’ being proposed. The Guardian article talks about creating your own, personal lockdown days ‘just for yourself or your family’. Days like that are certainly important – but from a Christian point of view, having an exclusively inward focus leads to misery. True joy is found in focusing on God and in community with other people – and that’s what the Biblical idea of the Sabbath is all about. For us as a church, one of the great joys of restrictions being relaxed has been having one another in our homes again. A day that begins and ends in worship – with time in between given over to hospitality and fellowship – is a great and joyous reminder that we were actually made for something far bigger than ourselves and our families. Jesus spent time alone with God, he spent time with his disciples, and yet almost constantly we see him spending time with people, eating with them, enjoying their fellowship and investing in their lives.

A good lockdown legacy would see us regularly silencing the gods of work and entertainment and doing something similar.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 10th June 2021

Reading the Bible every day for 20 years

In a recent sermon, Stephen mentioned the following video by Rev. Matthew Everhard, who was marking 20 years of reading the Bible every single day. You can watch it below:

You can download his Bible reading plan here. Everhard’s YouTube channel contains many other helpful videos — some examples of which are below:

Everhard has lectured on Jonathan Edwards for the RP Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh and also preached at one of their chapel services:

In November his church are hosting a conference with most of the speakers coming from RPTS.

Sir Andrew Agnew - Remember the Sabbath Day

Around four miles from Stranraer is a 60-foot tower with the inscription ‘Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy’.

The monument, towering above Leswalt, was erected in 1850 in honour of Sir Andrew Agnew, seventh baronet of Lochnaw, and friend of former Stranraer minister William Symington. Agnew was elected as MP for Wigtownshire and used his position to bring a bill before Parliament prohibiting all labour on the Lord’s Day, except for works of necessity and mercy. On his fourth attempt, the bill reached the committee stage, before the death of King William IV caused a dissolution of parliament. Agnew’s efforts brought him a bitter personal attack from Charles Dickens.

The Agnew Monument, on the site of an Iron Age Hill Fort (Tor of Craigoch), contains a number of (badly-weathered) inscriptions. The inscription on the south side reads:

"Erected by a few of the Inhabitants of this district and other friends in memory of the late Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw Bart [Baronet]. As a token of the esteem so universally & deservedly entertained for him & the respect in which the memory of his name & character, his life & labours is cherished. 1850.”

Above is the Agnew shield with its motto Consilio non Impetu, and above a curved inscription, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”.

A book-length commemoration of his life (Memoirs of Sir Andrew Agnew) was written the year after his death by Original Secession (and later Free Church) minister Thomas M’Crie. A briefer Memoir of Sir Andrew Agnew was published shortly after his death by James Bridges.

The entry for him by David Hempton in the Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology reads as follows:

“Agnew, Sir Andrew (Lochnaw) (1793-1849), politician and sabbatarian.

The posthumous son of Andrew Agnew, he succeeded to a baronetcy in 1809, attended Edinburgh University and married Magdalene Carnegie in 1816. He entered parliament in 1830 as a member for Wigtownshire, which seat he successfully defended twice, in 1831 and 1832, before failing in his candidature for the Wigtown boroughs in 1837. In politics he was a moderate reformer, but his parliamentary career was dominated by an unremitting campaign for sabbath observance. As the chief parliamentary spokesman for the Lord’s Day Observance Society he introduced four bills designed to prohibit all unnecessary labour on Sunday, the last of which reached the committee stage before Parliament was dissolved on the death of William IV. Although unsuccessful, all four bills occasioned considerable controversy both inside and outside the House of Commons. His opponents, including Charles Dickens, alleged that his measures were exclusively directed against ‘the amusements and recreations of the poor’. In response Sir Andrew stated that he was equally opposed to the casual amusements of the rich and that the poor would be the ultimate beneficiaries of a labour-free Sunday.

Although denied a parliamentary platform after 1837, Sir Andrew continued to promote the sabbatarian cause, particularly in the Scottish railroad industry, where he used his substantial financial influence to win important concessions. Renowned for his perseverance and consistency of purpose, he did as much as anyone to lay the foundations of the so-called Victorian Sunday.”

You can listen to two sermons about the Lord’s Day, taken from our series on the Ten Commandments, below:

Alexander Smellie: Stranraer man, Stranraer minister

Probably the third most famous man to minister in Stranraer after John Livingstone and William Symington, was Alexander Smellie (1857-1923). Generations of Reformed Presbyterians are familiar with his book Men of the Covenant, though Smellie himself was actually a minister of the Original Secession Church.

Smellie was born in Stranraer, where his father James was the Original Secession minister. When Alexander was seven his father accepted a call to Edinburgh. Smellie struggled with a lack of assurance until an encounter with the evangelist D. L. Moody in 1874. A fellow minister commented that ‘through an American evangelist, God spoke to a Seceder boy’.

After completing his theological training, he received a call from the Stranraer congregation in November 1879 and was ordained on 10th March, 1880. His ministry ‘left its impression not only upon the congregation, but upon the community’. We’re told that four characteristics marked his ministry. It was devotional (‘the outflow of a spirit that was careful to keep itself in touch with God and which gave a high tone to the whole service’), evangelical (‘he left his hearers in no doubt about his view of the way of true life’), intellectual (‘old truths were spoken new…he ever kept himself well acquainted with modern trends of though in religion, philosophy and science, and so was able to present the truth in its bearing upon them’) and literary.

His ministry in Stranraer lasted until 1896, during which time he became a regular contributor to the Original Secession Magazine. Eventually he moved to London to edit The Sunday School Chronicle for two years, before returning to Scotland to minister in Thurso and then Carluke. In London he once walked 35 miles to fulfil a preaching engagement rather than use public transport on the Sabbath. He was a regular speaker at the Keswick Convention, as well as similar gatherings elsewhere: Crieff, Dundee, Glasgow and Portstewart. One report of his Keswick Bible Readings in 1919 said: ‘We saw the Lord Jesus as we had never seen him before - more beautiful and loving; and, like Thomas, we could only fall at his blessed feet in adoration and exclaim, “My Lord and my God”’. An example of one of his sermons can be read here.

The University of Edinburgh conferred upon him an honorary Doctorate of Divinity in 1908. The Scotsman described him as ‘one of the best expository preachers of his day, an exceptionally well-read man, and endowed with a rare, happy saintliness’.

J. D. Douglas comments in the Dictionary of Scottish Church History & Theology that ‘Smellie always had the vision of “a re-united Evangelical and Presbyterian Church in Scotland” and retained cordial relations with those in other churches’. This included J. P. Struthers - RP minister in Whithorn and Greenock. Smellie contributed to an issue of the RP Witness marking the centenary of Struthers’ birth, where he described Struthers as ‘extraordinarily tender and unselfish and generous and hopeful for other people, even the most disappointing and feckless…one of the most Christlike men I have known’.

An early Keswick Convention

Smellie died in 1923 following a long illness, having been long predeceased by his only daughter, to whom he dedicated Men of the Covenant - ‘a child whom God leads in green pastures and beside still waters’. His elders in Carluke noted that his last public act in the congregation had been to administer the Lord’s Supper.

After his death, his friend Graham Scroggie commented: ‘He was, perhaps, the greatest devotional writer of his generation…he was read in all sections of the Christian Church, and was loved as widely as he was read’.

His many other books included a biography of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, and a book of daily meditations, In the Hour of Silence. His former congregation in Stranraer had been dissolved shortly before his death and the building on Sun Street sold; since 1922 it has been a Masonic Lodge.

Update: Smellie’s memorial stone, courtesy of Scottish Reformation Tours:

Update 2: A picture of Smellie himself, which accompanies an account of his preaching by Alexander Gammie in Preachers I have heard