William Nevins, part 22: In Memoriam
Samuel Miller, Pastor and Princeton Professor
(1769-1850)
At the beginning of November we looked at the early life of William Nevins. We saw how he attended Yale and was converted during a revival there. Then we watched him pursue theological training at the newly formed Princeton Theological Seminary. During his time at Princeton (1816-1819) he sat under two professors—Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller. A year after graduating, Nevins was ordained and installed as the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Baltimore on October 19, 1820. Upon the request of the presbytery of Baltimore, Samuel Miller traveled from Princeton to preach the installation sermon.
His sermon, which was printed and has been preserved, was based on Romans 1:15-16 and was entitled “The Difficulties and Temptations Which Attend the Preaching of the Gospel in Great Cities.” (As I perused the sermon, I was struck by how his warnings are applicable today. Technological advances have spread problems that were once unique to cities into suburban and even rural places.) Though the entire sermon was printed, Miller was not well enough at the time to preach it in its entirety. He was able to deliver most of his first point (“Peculiar Difficulties and Temptations”), which I have briefly summarized here.
Miller first pointed out how wealth affects the people of a city. Since the wealthy tend to be concentrated in cities, luxury and unbridled self-gratification are frequent hurdles to the gospel ministry. “Splendid living,” outdoing one another in extravagance, and living for pleasure are various conditions of society with which the city pastor is faced. These problems may exist in other areas but are much more prominent in large urban areas. “Amusements are multiplied, and combined, and varied, and reiterated, until they become the chief, and, with many, the sole employment. And even some of those who are not engaged in these pursuits themselves, are so connected by various ties with those who are, that they cannot escape the contagious influence.” “There is, I am persuaded, no harder trial of a Minister’s graces, than to mingle continually with the members of a wealthy, polished, and fashionable congregation, and at the same time to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
Miller’s second caution was against man-centered philosophies. As the wealthy tend to gather in the cities, so do the intelligentsia. But “the pride of knowledge, and the speculations of false science, are diametrically opposed to the humility and simplicity of the Gospel.” Even in the 1820s, Miller named several Christian doctrines that were scorned by “the spirit of false and vain philosophy”. The doctrines of the Trinity, the fall of man, the atonement through the vicarious death of Jesus, and that of the new birth are all perennially in conflict with proud but faulty human wisdom (1 Corinthians 1).
A third challenge faced by city pastors is that “in polished and fashionable society, there is always a peculiar demand for smooth and superficial preaching.” Miller refers to many pastors who thought that they could get their self-indulgent hearers to accept the gospel if they could just smooth it over with rhetoric and flowery language. But he goes on to say that those tactics invariably fail. He says, “this kind of preaching is greatly admired by the people of the world; but it leaves the pious to starve and mourn.”
The final difficulty faced by city pastors was a tendency to apathy. Normally, death is something that God uses to soften and awaken hearts to eternal matters. But in cities, death is so common that people get hardened to it and it no longer shocks them or causes them to consider their own mortality. They also come to accept the worst forms of sin because it is so prevalent. Some of the same egregious sins might happen in the countryside but, being infrequent, they are still seen for the evil that they are. But in the cities there is so much of the worst kinds of sin that callouses begin to grown on consciences.
These were sobering words for a 23-year-old novice pastor to hear. But time would reveal that Nevins was “a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house” (2 Tim. 2:21). Fifteen years after Miller’s sermon, he wrote a letter about the recently deceased Nevins and shared his thoughts on his life and character. He looks at him in his capacities as student, preacher, gentleman, and Christian. What he writes about Nevins is comforting, especially when we realize they are evidences of his having safely navigated pastoral ministry in “a great city.”
Miller begins his letter by reflecting on the close friendship he had with his former student and saying that he has mourned the loss of this friend more than the loss of anyone outside of his own family. His acquaintance with Nevins began in 1816, when Nevins first appeared at Princeton. Those who knew him well in his student years knew that he had seasons of discouragement and darkness, probably due to intestinal ailments that were troublesome to him. Others, who knew him only casually, mostly saw only his cheerful, gregarious side. Miller recalled him as a gifted and diligent student, but especially made note of his wisdom in completing his studies. “Our lamented friend. . .manifested nothing of that spirit of laziness, vanity, or presumption, which has prompted hundreds of our pupils to withdraw prematurely from the studies of the seminary, and engage in the work of the ministry, before they were half prepared for its arduous and responsible labors. He felt the need and importance of mature study; and went through the complete course. . . As the labors of the former class of students, have seldom failed to manifest. . . their lack of the requisite skills, so the subsequent labors of our beloved friend, showed that he had laid a solid foundation.”
Miller then spoke of Nevins as a preacher. He noted how he developed his technique over the years. At first he brought “that love of rhetorical ornament, and that reign of imagination, which had distinguished his compositions in the seminary.” It seems that even Nevins was changed when the revival came to his church in the early 1820s. Following that time, “his preaching became more solemn, direct, pointed, and richly evangelical—more adapted to both awaken the careless, and to edify the pious.” Miller said that during the final seven or eight years of his life, he “considered Dr. Nevins as among the very best preachers in the United States.”
As a gentleman— William Nevins was not a gentleman in the 19th century high society way but in the gentle-man way. “One of the most decisive tests of the character of a Christian gentleman, is a capacity to appear well and respectably in any company, from the highest to the lowest.”
And as a Christian— Ever since Miller had been called on to preach at his ordination, a special bond had existed between the two men and they saw each other regularly. Miller remembered that every time he saw Nevins, he could see some measurable progress in his Christian maturity. “His conversations, his prayers, his plans, and his most unguarded wanderings of thought or feeling, were those of a man who made the advancement of the Redeemer’s kingdom the great object of his pursuit.”
Miller closes his letter with the following paragraph:
“In him, I have lost a dear friend, and the Church an eminently devoted and useful minister of the gospel. But it is all right. ‘Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice. Clouds and darkness are around about him; but righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.’”
