An Old Princeton Precedent for Today’s Reformed Writers

It is difficult to argue against the claim that Princeton Theological Seminary of Princeton, New Jersey occupied a—if not the—principal position of influence in shaping American Reformed Christianity in the nineteenth century. The years between its founding in 1812 and the resignation of Dr. J. Gresham Machen in 1929 are commonly referred to as the era of “Old Princeton,” and they are replete with important historical models and precedents for American Protestantism and Evangelicalism today. For just one example among many, consider the writing of Princeton’s second professor, Dr. Samuel Miller (1769-1850).

As a pastor, Miller labored primarily in New York City before taking the call to Princeton.[1] Toward the end of his life, he published a volume to instruct young ministers and seminarians in the practice of public prayer. Thoughts on Public Prayer (1849) is Samuel Miller’s final book-length publication.[2] Due to its subject matter, it remains an important book for any man called to corporately represent (or lead) God’s people in prayer. Taken together with Miller’s other published works—all of which are intensely practical—Thoughts on Public Prayer is a fine example of how the writing of Old Princeton has influenced the state and style of Reformed and Evangelical writing today.[3]

It was Miller’s conviction that a ministerial duty as important as representing and leading God’s people in public prayer requires special focus, preparation, and planning. Thus, he sought to meet a pressing need in the church by writing a volume dealing directly and specifically with issues surrounding corporate prayer during public worship. He did so in six chapters that may be arranged in three parts. The first three chapters provide helpful background information to the practice of public prayer, examine certain surrounding issues, and introduce Miller’s proposed model as a biblical solution to a perceived deficiency in the pastoral practice of his day. Chapters three and four continue with a description and denunciation of faulty practices in corporate prayer. The book then closes with two chapters that describe and commend faithful examples of public prayer.

Miller forcefully highlighted the contrast between right and wrong ways to pray in public worship. One result of Miller’s appeal to antithesis is that much of his book expresses a polemical tone against what he regarded to be faulty practices. As we consider more recent writing in the Reformed tradition, does that sound familiar? However, Miller’s writing is also filled with an energetic urgency. Considering the importance which Miller assigned to the pastoral duty of public prayer, and the observed weakness of public prayer in the church of his day, his tone and style are not out of place.

The sometimes-strident tone in Thoughts on Public Prayer was not at all Miller’s only note. He employed a much softer tone in other publications. Why would this father of Old Princeton have treated some topics with polemical vigor and others with a milder instructional presentation? Certainly, Miller’s deeply held convictions about this or that subject may have influenced his tone. However, a closer look at works published in his lifetime demonstrate that he had his readers in mind. It was his intended audience that determined the shape of his arguments and pitch of his rhetoric. One can compare Miller’s Thoughts on Public Prayer to his earlier published works on Infant Baptism^[4] and The Utility and Importance of Creeds and Confessions.^[5]

Thoughts on Public Prayer was Miller’s last published work, representing the fruit and maturation of decades of ministry. Any perceived stridency is not born out of youthful zeal. It rather reflects his chosen method of persuasion when addressing seminary students and young ministers about a matter of great significance to the church. He had employed a similarly strident tone in his much earlier work on creeds and confessions, also addressed to Princeton Seminary students. However, all stridency is gone for his work defending infant baptism, pulled together from material he taught to a Sunday School class in Freehold, New Jersey.

He more frequently employed strong contrasts and points of antithesis in works addressing seminary students and young ministers than in otherwise comparable material intended for church members. Miller’s uses of contrast, comparison, and antithesis match stylistic features of biblical wisdom literature, befitting his practical and instructional purposes. However, his less polemical instruction sounds eminently scriptural as well. While possessing one unified message and voice, the Bible nevertheless has a variety of different genres, styles, and emphases. Today’s Reformed writers should follow Miller as he followed the Bible, matching their writing to their intended or anticipated readers.

The thrust and style of Miller’s writing also demonstrates that he made the heart his target, whatever the occasion. This comes across in everything he wrote. Theology was practical to Miller, and it should be ever and always practical to us today. Like a concerned father offering biblical wisdom to his impressionable sons, the Princetonian addressed his students with a deep concern for both their ministries and their souls. Those offering doctrinal instruction in the church today would do well to imitate Miller insofar as he himself faithfully adopted biblical rhetoric in his persuasive argumentation.

Particularly in the areas of public worship and public theology, Miller’s example ought to be heeded. Whereas most Christian fathers will never preach to their children from a pulpit, they are commanded to pray with their families, to confess the faith with their children, and to sing praises to God in their homes. Insofar as ministers serve as examples to the men in their congregations, they must equip fathers to lead their families in prayer, profession, and praise.

When a minister stands before a congregation to pray, he not only speaks before God on behalf of the congregation, but he also provides a model of prayer to the families and individuals that make up the flock under his care. Likewise, a congregation’s corporate confession of faith will be only as strong as the conviction of its officers. The effect of doctrinal compromise in the teaching office of the church will make its way into the homes of families.

Considering the relationship between prayer, confession of faith, and spiritual well-being in Christian families, Miller’s use of antithesis and contrast is not only persuasive, but biblical. The identification and subsequent rejection of sinful foolishness always accompanies the promotion of wisdom in faith and practice in the church.

In his addresses before the rising generation of preachers, pastors, and churchmen of his day, Samuel Miller echoed both the message and the style of Proverbs 15:7-9. “The lips of the wise spread knowledge, but the hearts of fools are not so. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight. The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but He loves one who pursues righteousness.” His writing approach is but one—particularly practical—Old Princeton precedent for today’s Reformed writers.

Zachary Groff (MDiv, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary) is Pastor of Antioch Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Woodruff, SC, and he serves as Managing Editor of The Confessional Journal and as Editor-in-Chief of the Presbyterian Polity website.