THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN POLITY OF JAMES HENLEY THORNWELL


by

Albert H. Freundt, Jr.

James H. Thornwell was born in 1812 in South Carolina. He studied at South Carolina College and, briefly, at Andover and at Harvard. In the first sixteen years of his ministry, his three periods of a pastor were interspersed with two as a professor at the South Carolina College. From 185i to 1855 he was president of the College, and from 1855 until his death in 1862 he was the professor of theology at Columbia Theological Seminary. He succeeded Charles Hodge as Moderator of the Old School General Assembly in 1847--the youngest man ever to have held that office. He was a conspicuous leader in the organization of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederacy. His "Address to Ail the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the Earth," adopted by the first Southern General Assembly, summarized brilliantly the viewpoint of the Southerners over the ecclesiastical separation.

His death at the age of 49 brought to an end a career of greater promise; nonetheless, his fame as a great preacher and his brilliance as an orthodox theologian were recognized internationally. His Collected Writings were published in four volumes (1871- 1873) by his seminary colleagues. His Life and Letters were published by his friend B. M. Palmer (1875). It is not as a theologian that his reputation and influence continue, but rather as an ecclesiologist and church statesman. Despite his early death, he taught his views on polity long enough and to enough men that the views and practices he advocated (which constitute the fourth volume of his Collected Writings) virtually became the position and the procedures of the Southern Presbyterian Church for the greater part of a century. They must still be reckoned with, for they are still to a degree embodied in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. and in the National Presbyterian Church.

In their famous debate on the floor of the 1860 General Assembly, Charles Hodge characterized the views of Thornwell as "hyper, hyper, HYPER-High Church Presbyterianism." Thornwell responded that Hodge's principles were "no, no, NO Presbyterianism, no, no, NO Churchism!" (Thornwell, IV, 228, 232).

Thornwellian polity, it seems to me, must indeed be recognized as an expression of a kind of High Church Presbyterianism. It was in part the kind of reaction which had its counterparts in other denominations. Al1 these forms of High Churchism sought to resist influences tending to Americanize the Churches, to mold them all after the puritan-pietist- evangelical tradition inherited from the revivals and the subsequent interdenominational cooperation in voluntary benevolent societies--influences that tended to make all of the American denominations resemble each other more than they did their own sister Churches across the Atlantic.

In several of these denominations attempts were made after about 1830 to preserve or to restore their own distinctive confessional positions, as in Lutheranism and in OldSchool Presbyterianism. In the German Reformed Church, Nevin, with some help from Schaff, sought to revive what he understood to be the Reformed doctrine of The Mystical Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper and to oppose the individualism promoted by The Anxious Bench and other new measures developed in frontier evangelism. We are all aware of High Church views emerging in the life of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 19th Century. Even Anti-missionary and Landmark Baptists developed as their own peculiar views what can only be termed High Church doctrines unique to their own traditions.

As I view Thornwell's principles they were developed in controversy in church courts, they were a High Church Presbyterianism, they sought to define Presbyterianism in terms of its distinctives rather than the principles shared with other polities, they were grounded upon what he conceived to be New Testament prescriptions, forms, and offices, and they attributed divine right not merely to general principles but also to certain particularities of Presbyterianism. They were reactions against the breakdown of denominational distinctives subsequent to the Second Great Awakening and the rise of interdenominational and nondenominational societies and boards, and against the confusion of Presbyterian polity he traced to the period of union between Presbyterians and Congregationalists.

His views were not the only ones present in Southern Presbyterianism, either before or after the 1861 division. Thomas Smyth of Charleston, for example, advocated views similar to those of Charles Hodge. Also, some strains of Congregationalism were present from early times, fed into the denomination from such sources as the Midway Church in Liberty County, Georgia, which sent over fifty men into the ministry of the Presbyterian Church.

The views of Thornwell, moreover, were not his alone. The principles he enunciated were shared by Robert J. Breckenridge, but as embodied in the Southern Church, they were Thornwell's. As Dr. William Childs Robinson has pointed out: When the Presbyterian Church South was organized it adopted the old Constitution of the mother Church. But by overtures, by revisions of the book of Church Order, by adopting the Book of Discipline formulated by Thornwell for the Old School Church, the Presbyterian Church in the United States has become in a large measure the embodiment of the Thornwellian Polity" (Columbia Theological Seminary, pp. 70,71).

It seems to me that the views of Thornwell can be seen most clearly against the views of Hodge. Hodge avocated a jure divino theory of Presbyterianism which he lodged in its general principles only.

These, he stated, were:

  1. That the people have a right to a substantive part in the government of the Church.
  2. That presbyters, who minister in word and doctrine, are the highest government officers of the Church, and all belong to the same order.
  3. That the outward and visible Church is, or should be, one, in the sense that a smaller part is subject to a larger, and a larger to the whole. It is not holding one of these principles that makes a man a Presbyterian, but his holding them all (What Is Presbyterianism?, pp. 6,7).

Thornwell rejected these principles as containing anything that was distinctly Presbyterian. They contain, he said, a little of everything, but nothing distinctive. The participation of the people in the government is Congregational. The parity of the clergy is accepted by all Evangelical Churches, except the Episcopal. The unity of the Church is vehemently asserted by the Church of Rome.

A definition which Thornwell offered for Presbyterianism is "the government of the Church by parliamentary assemblies, composed of two classes of Elders, and Elders only, and so arranged as to realize the visible unity of the whole Church" (Thornwell, p. 267). It will be seen at once, I believe, that Thornwell's definition is more specific and is incapable of application to non-Presbyterian bodies.

The cardinal principles that he saw entering into such a definition were:

  1. The unity of the visible Church under the Headship of Christ alone. "The Church of Rome undertakes to exhibit the body in its unity with an earthly head, to exhibit Christ as well as His members; the Presbyterian Church exhibits in visible unity on earth the body only, and connects it with a heavenly Head" (p. 136).
  2. The realization of this unity of the Visible Church by representative assemblies. "The government of the Church is not entrusted to individuals, nor to the mass of believers, but to councils. Every judicial and legislative function is performed by courts alone. . . . These constitute a bond which brings all the parts together into unity. . . . The principle of representation [in these courts] is the bond of union and the medium of common action" (pp. 136,137).
  3. The elements which make up these representative assemblies are Elders, who are rulers chosen freely by the people.

Thornwell understood Scripture as teaching that the terms Pastor, Bishop, and Presbyter are different names for the same office (p. 110). "Presbyter as a title of office means a ruler and nothing more than a ruler" (p. 104). All ministers of the Word are Presbyters, but not all Presbyters are ministers of the Word (p. 114).

On the basis of I Timothy 5:17, he distinguished between two classes within the one office of Presbyter: one class which has been appointed to preach and rule, and another only to rule. Preachers are Elders, not because they preach or administer the sacraments, but because with the other class of Elders they rule (p. 105). The eldership, as such, never includes teaching: this is always a superadded function, and it is not in consequence of his eldership that he preaches. Laboring in the word and doctrine is to do something more than the Presbyterate as such requires (p. 119).

Thornwell did not, like Hodge, limit the term Presbyter to the Minister and introduce a non-Biblical office, the Elder, in order to give the people a part in the government of the Church. All government is by church officers only. The Elder is the equivalent of the Biblical Presbyter; he is not a lower class in a hierarchy. He shares the same office and ruling function with the preacher, but not the preacher's teaching function. The preacher and the Ruling Elder, as Presbyters, are both clergymen and are both laymen (p. 277). They are both elected rulers. They are both equally representative of the people and representative of God. The people as such do not participate in government. Their power is exercised in the choice of their rulers, the Presbyters of both kinds, who exercise the government of the Church. It is not sufficient to maintain the parity of Ministers of the Word. The parity of all Presbyters must be asserted.

The power is primarily in the body and is exercised through organized courts. The ChurCh possesses all the powers and capacities potentially, and by election exercises them. Church power is developed organically by assigning men to the offices with which its exercise is connected (pp. 138,139).

In this connection we note Thornwell's great opposition to two decisions of the 1843 General Assembly: that Ruling Elders are not necessary to constitute a quorum of the Presbytery, and that they are not entitled to lay hands on Ministers at ordination. In regard to the quorum question he maintained the necessity of the double representation in all church courts, which had the advantages in two classes of Presbyters that are enjoyed in bicameral forms of civil government. "The combination of the two principles--the government of the Church by representative assemblies, and the double representation which obtains in them, may be styled the analogy of our system, and whatever is inconsistent with either of them, though there may be no positive statute to forbid it, is inconsistent with our Constitution" (p. 67). "It is remarkable, too," Thornwell noted, "that the officers whose presence is rendered unnecessary are precisely the officers whose sole business it is to rule" (p. 69).

With respect to the laying on of hands, Thornwell denied that ordination was a sacramental act passing on the power of order. It is an act or series of acts of government and belongs to the power of jurisdiction. It is the act of a court given in recognition of a divine call. The people express their approbation by election, and the court by examination, prayer, and the laying on of hands (pp. 78,130). A Ruling Elder is strictly a Presbyter and entitled to participate in all acts in which Presbyters as such can bear a part. If he has a right to vote in the case, he has a right to impose hands. Both are expressions of the same judgment (p. 95). He quoted Breckenridge to the effect that the whole work of ordination was that of a Presbytery, and the Presbytery that should impose hands is the same as that which is involved in all the other acts connected with ordination (p. 81).

In connection with the sole Headship of Jesus Christ, Thornwell deduced other principles:

  1. Presbyterianism is a jure divino form of Church government. Inasmuch as the officers of the Church, their positions, rights, authority, gifts, and equipment are the immediate appointment and institution of Christ, and the polity of the Church in its regulative and constitutive principles are revealed in Scripture (and nothing is to be introduced but what is con, handed), Presbyterian Church government in its main features and in its form is of divine right.
  2. The Scriptures are the only and sufficient rule of the Church's practice as well as its faith.

The Church possesses no discretionary powers. Her poweris ministerial and declarative only. She is limited to the structures, officers, and programs which Christ the Head has instituted, and what is not commanded is forbidden.

In constrast to Hodge, Thornwell held that Christ has laid down the forms as well as the general principles of Church government. The Church does not have freedom of discretion in selecting the modes of her operation.

Christ, for example, committed the task of missions to the Church. He has constituted the visible organization of the Church, its courts and its officers and equipped them for the missionary enterprise.

The Church is to obey. She has no warrant to commit her trust to Boards or to other virtually independent agents and substitutes to act indirectly for the Church. Boards, whether appointed by the Church or not, have authority, organization, and officers separate from those of the Presbyterian system of government. The Church must conduct her own enterprises directly through committees or other instruments that are truly acting for the Church, executing her own policies, and responsible to the Church in her ecclesiastical capacity. She cannot delegate her own responsibilities.

Every court of the Church is a missionary organization and should put forth its own energies and resources in fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The Church's role is exclusively spiritual. That is to say, the Church is not a society of universal good. "The Church is a kingdom not of this world; . . . her authority is only ministerial and declarative; . . . the power which is given to her is to be exercised for spiritual ends only" (p. 477). She is to gather and edify the saints. The Church has not commission to deal with political, economic, and societal issues as such, nor to league herself with civil and secular institutions or enterprises--even with voluntary benevolent societies. She is to confine her sphere of labors to those things which Christ has commissioned her to do.


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