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Hart, D. G. (ed). J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings. (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishers, 2004. Cloth, vii+590ppp. $39.99

Although most seminary students may only remember J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) as the author of the annoying Greek Grammar that was the bane of their studies; he is perhaps best remembered in the wider world as the instigator, and ultimately, one of the founders of Westminster Theological Seminary.

Following Archibald Alexander, Charles and A. A. Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield, Machen is generally regarded as the last in the line of the “Old Princeton” tradition and theology. He was at the center, and, in many respects the flashpoint, of the modernist/liberal ascendancy that began in earnest with the death of Warfield in 1921 culminating in the reorganization of Princeton Theological Seminary in 1929. The reorganization led to Machen, Cornelius Van Til, Oswald Allis, Robert Dick Wilson and others to resign from Princeton and form Westminster. Near the end of his life Machen was also defrocked by the now liberal-dominated PCUSA and he helped found what is now the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC).

Machen was the author of three seminal works, Christianity and Liberalism, What is Christianity and The Virgin Birth. Additionally he authored scores of shorter essays and reviews, some of which this volume compiles together. Originally, this essays in this book were included in a larger three volume set that included: J Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir, God Transcendent, a collection of sermons, and the collection of shorter essays, entitled What is Christianity?, written and compiled by Ned Stonehouse. While the biography and sermons have remained in print the collection of essays dropped away, and this volume, as the editor states, “is an effort to make up for this curiosity in publishing history” (p. 2).

The editor, who has written extensively on Machen’s life and work, provides an introductory chapter, “The Forgotten Machen?” (1-22) which alone would be worth the price of this entire book. It is an excellent and penetrating examination of Machen, particularly in relation to the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of his day and the theological decline of his own denomination.

The essays in this collection are divided into ten different categories. A good many of the articles have to do with the controversies raging in the PCUSA during Machen’s last days at Princeton. Those articles are enlightening about the issues that led to the formation of Westminster Seminary and finally the OPC. Some of the articles are classics, such as the section “The Task of Christian Scholarship” and there are others that, while a little odd sounding, are enlightening to the history of a previous era, such as the essay on the 18th Amendment and the laws enacting Prohibition. His essay on “The Christian and Human Relations” (421-28) is very instructive to this age, particularly as it relates to unsaved friends. He emphasizes that strong friendships with unbelievers are essential in personal evangelism. “Without such friendship, any persuasion that we attempt will usually be mere empty words” (p. 427). Machen was particularly concerned with the interaction between Christianity and culture as several other essays demonstrate. His essays on the Virgin Birth (57-74) and the Resurrection of Christ (75-87) are both classic statements on the subject.

This work contains two lengthy bibliographies for additional reading (16-20 and 571-75). While he points to the complete bibliography of Machen’s works in another (now out of print work), it seems that this volume would have been an appropriate location for that bibliography as well. It also contains a useful, albeit brief, subject and name index.

The reissuing of this collection of Machen’s writings, combined with the additional materials supplied by the editor is a welcome addition to evangelical literature. While Machen’s main works have remained in print since their original publication over 70 years ago, Machen himself is perhaps not as well remembered as his stature warrants. This book will open a door into the life, times and thinking of one of the most fascinating and original Christian thinkers of his day.

Iain H. Murray. Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1994. xxii + 455 pp. $27.95 (cloth).

In a time when the church is often searching for "revival" and passersby can often see signs in front of churches announcing a "revival meeting" and many of the media preachers seem to portray "revival" as something that follows them around from city to city, Iain Murray has produced a marvelously helpful book that will serve to give "revival" and "revivalism" a proper historical and theological perspective.

Murray chronicles the revivals in America from the late colonial period to just prior to the Civil War. He shows how Seasons of revival became "revival meetings." Instead of being "surprising" they may even now be announced in advance, and no one in the previous century had known of ways to secure a revival, a system was now popularized by "revivalists" which came near to guaranteeing results (xviii).

Murray begins his study in the time immediately after the "Great Awakening" in the American Colonies. He presents a picture of the men who were foundational in various smaller revivals and the "Second Great Awakening." Particularly notable is his discussion of the ministry of Samuel Davies, called by Dr. Lloyd-Jones "the greatest preacher America ever produced." Murray chronicles the various revivals in different colonial areas and offers a seemingly endless amount of historical detail. The amount of detail will be a hindrance to the casual reader, as the flow of Murray's work occasionally slows and nearly bogs down in the amount of factual data presented. The flow could have been improved if more of Murray's "sidebars" had been reduced to footnotes. An additional help would have been the inclusion of some detailed maps to give the reader a better sense of the regions and occasionally obscure villages Murray refers to.

Throughout this work Murray attempts to demonstrate that true revival is an act of God's sovereignty in which the Holy Spirit does an unusual work in convicting men of sin and bringing about
their conversion. Regarding the men God used in the various revivals
he states,

A considerable body of men, for a long period before the Great Awakening, preached the same message as they did during the revival but with vastly different consequences�the same men, the same actions, performed with the same abilities, yet the results were so amazingly different! The conclusion must be that the change in the churches after 1798 and 1800 is not explainable in terms of the means used. Nothing was clearer to those who saw the events than that God was sovereignly pleased to bless human instrumentality in such a way that the success could be attributed to Him alone (127-28).

The key thesis of Murray's work is that as Christians began to modify and abandon their Calvinistic theology and replace it with an increasingly Arminian one, the emphasis of revival as a working of a sovereign God shifted to revivalism, something that man could manufacture by the "proper use of ordained means" as promoted by Charles G. Finney (247-48). Though Murray thoroughly evaluates and criticizes Finney and his followers, other "evangelical Arminians" such as Francis Asbury come in for some favorable comments. Murray devotes three chapters to a thorough and highly critical examination of Finney, his theology, methodology and influence. However, the work
ends on a positive note as Murray examines the ministry of James Waddell Alexander (the son of Princeton Seminary founder Archibald Alexander) and the "Layman's Prayer Revival" of 1857-58. Murray presents an impressively documented history of American evangelicalism during the first half of the nineteenth century. Two appendices on revivalism in Great Britain and revivals in the South are very helpful, as is the very thorough index.

This is clearly one of Murray's finest historical efforts and will be an important reference source in the study of revivals.

David B. Calhoun. Princeton Seminary: Faith & Learning 1812�1868, vol. 1. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1995. xvii + 495 pp. $28.95 (cloth).

For over 100 years (1812�1929) Princeton Theological Seminary was perhaps the most significant voice in America for orthodox Christianity and also served as a model for seminary education. The author, a professor of Church History at Covenant Seminary, has written a history of "Old Princeton" in two volumes.

This first volume chronicles the initial fifty-six years of Princeton, from the origins of the school to just after the Civil War. Though this work is painstaking in its detail, the author writes in a clear and refreshing style that is all too uncommon in historical works. The lives of the key personalities, Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, Ashbel Green, and Charles Hodge, are given thorough treatment. Of particular value is the section dealing with the relation of Princeton and the Princeton men to the "Old School-New School" controversies of the 1830s, which resulted in the split of the Presbyterian Church and the demise of the Plan of Union with the Congregational Church.

The author has researched well and skillfully intersperses quotations from personal correspondence and published writings of key figures with his careful presentation. One is immediately struck by the qualities which made the instructors at Princeton so effective in the hand of God: (1) their commitment to the truth of Scripture and sound doctrine, (2) their love for the students, (3) their commitment to sound preaching of the Scripture, (4) their commitment to evangelism, and (5) their commitment to excellence in the classroom.

The work has two excellent appendices, the most interesting being the "Plan for a Theological Seminary" written by Ashbel Green, which became the charter for the seminary and serves to remind the modern reader that "strategic planning" existed before the last twenty years. The other appendix is the author's excellent narrative discussing various bibliographic sources available for the study of Princeton.

David B. Calhoun. Princeton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony, 1869-1929, (Volume 2). Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1996. 560 pp. $29.99 (cloth).

This is the second volume of the author’s history of "Old Princeton." The second volume takes the reader from the period just after the Civil War to the reorganization of Princeton in 1929. During this period there was a slow shift on two fronts: the Presbyterian Church was moving away from its theological foundations and embracing first critical views of Scripture and then a more liberal theology; Princeton Seminary itself was changing as the senior faculty began to retire and die. All of these changes Calhoun chronicles with great skill in both clarity of style and breadth of detail.

This volume contains a nearly 30-page subject index covering both volumes, and as with the first volume, the author has provided evidence of substantial research with over 80 pages of endnotes. There are two appendices, one listing a detailed bibliographic resource for the study of Old Princeton and the key personalities, and another providing a brief biographic sketch of various faculty members who served from 1812-1929.

The death of Charles Hodge in 1878 marked the end of an era at Princeton. Hodge had taught for over 50 years. Shunning any honor to himself or his work he stated:

All that can be said is that God has been pleased to take up a poor little stick and do something with it. What I have done is as nothing compared to what is done by a man who goes to Africa and labors among a heathen tribe, and reduces their language to writing. I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose the shoes of such a man (62).

Upon Charles Hodge's death, his son, A. A. Hodge, became professor of theology, and although not the senior professor, he was "the real power at Princeton Seminary"(100). Calhoun describes the younger Hodge as "a theologian who could preach and a preacher who could teach theology" (ibid). He details how he and the young B. B. Warfield began to defend the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scripture against the higher critical views and liberalism which were already gaining strong footholds in the American denominations. A. A. Hodge's sudden and unexpected death in 1886 (only eight years after his father) was traumatic for both Princeton and the conservative Calvinists within the Presbyterian church. Although Hodge would be succeeded by the brilliant B. B. Warfield as professor of theology, Warfield would never have the impact in the denomination that Hodge had, and his writings, although classics in scholarly defense of the faith, would never have the popular appeal that the younger Hodge's did.

Calhoun insightfully describes the relationship of the seminary to Princeton College and reflects on the negative impact Woodrow Wilson (later president of the United States) had on the college when he became its president. Wilson stated that, "Princeton is a Presbyterian college only because the Presbyterians were wise and progressive enough to found it" (272). Wilson, the first president of the school who was not an ordained Presbyterian minister, during his administration eliminated all the previously required biblical instruction and hired the first non-Christian faculty members. Calhoun rightly describes Wilson's impact on the college (and indirectly the seminary) as a move from "Protestant establishment to established nonbelief" (ibid). Although Calhoun does not expand on this line of inquirey, there is an interesting comparison also to be made between Wilson's role at Princeton College and his later role as president of the United States, after World War I. As the real founder of the ill-fated "League of Nations" Wilson's "ecumenical spirit" was extremely influential in political thhought, and would ulimately lead, for better or worse, the the forming of the United Nations.

Most readers enjoy a book with a happy ending; however, the history of "Old Princeton" does not lend to such an ending. Calhoun describes the increasing tension within the faculty itself as men with varying commitments to the Scripture tried to work together. Calhoun calls the death of Warfield in 1920 "the end of an era" (326). The battle, which would find J. Gresham Machen as a lightning rod, would intensify until the reorganization of 1929 and the departure of Machen, Robert Dick Wilson, Oswald T. Allis, and Cornelius Van Til to form Westminster Theological Seminary.This reviewer highly recommends this volume, as well as the first. Calhoun's final chapter on "The Princeton Theology" (401-29) is an excellent summation of the institution's distinctive theology. Calhoun writes, "Old Princeton ceased to exist in 1929, but through its history and literature it still inspires, instructs and encourages" (428).

Lewis Drummond. Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers. Grand Rapids:
Kregel, 1992. 895 pp. $22.00 (cloth).

The Centenary of the death of Charles Haddon Spurgeon has been the occasion for the release of several Spurgeon-related works. Drummond's Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers is among the more prized of these. Drummond has the most extensive biography of Spurgeon since G. Holden Pike's two-volume set published in 1899. The biography follows an analogy between Spurgeon and the character "Christian" in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, one of Spurgeon's favorite books. So "this new biography of Charles H. Spurgeon picks up pithy poems, places and personalities of Bunyan's classic allegory and makes them the motif of Spurgeon's life and ministry" (13). Each of the thirteen chapter-titles is a quotation from Progress. Drummond follows his plan with effectiveness and clarity.

He has done his homework and has produced a readable and well-documented biography. His thorough discussion of Spurgeon covers both major and minor aspects of his life. The excellent appendices, dealing mainly with the "Downgrade Controversy," reflect expert use of original sources from the Baptist Union and private correspondence. As did Carlile in his 1933 biography, Drummond conclusively shows that Spurgeon clearly possessed all the evidence necessary to prove the existence of modernism among many pastors in the Baptist Union. Spurgeon was "capable of substantiating" (701) the charges, but when S. H. Booth, moderator of the Baptist Union, urged confidentiality on personalities involved in his correspondence with Spurgeon, for better or for worse, Spurgeon honored his request.

A few modifications would improve this already excellent work. Reportedly, Spurgeon preached at the service commemorating the restoration of Bunyan's tomb on May 21, 1801 (346). This date was over thirty years before Spurgeon's birth. The correct year was 1864. Another deficiency is the many long quotations that are poorly identified or not referenced at all (e.g., 326, 382, 532). Also, space conservation was undoubtedly a factor in the already long book, but the use of a "fractional width" format tends to run letters together and make reading sometimes difficult. Perhaps a two-volume work would have been more serviceable.

Drummond deserves praise for the chapter on "Spurgeon's Theology" (chap. 12), the highlight of the book. He writes, "In the pure sense of the word, Spurgeon never wrote any theological works. At any rate, he never systematized his thought in writing. Therefore, to discover his theology of the Bible one must glean it through his sermons and other writings" (615). Spurgeon produced more published works than any other Christian in history, so sorting out his theology is a laborious task, one that this biographer has accomplished admirably. His own personal convictions seem to have prejudiced His conclusions about Spurgeon's doctrine sometimes. For example, he equates "hyper Calvinism" with the doctrine of double predestination (641) without distinguishing between active and passive reprobation, the latter being the clear position of Spurgeon (ibid.). Spurgeon rejected "hyper-Calvinism," which rejects the need to preach the gospel actively to the lost, but he firmly embraced the total sovereignty of God in election. He balanced his position by teaching that God ordains both the end (i.e., salvation of the elect) and the means (i.e., human instrumentality in preaching the gospel). He expressed it this way: "That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. . . . These two truths cannot be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity" (ibid.)

As a challenge to today's world of theological morass and doctrinal compromise, Drummond's biography portrays a man of single-mindedness and theological consistency. The present scene needs more men like Spurgeon`men of vision, energy, and ability, but above all, men who put God's glory and honor and the truth of the Scriptures above all considerations of earthly life.