American Calvinism Speaks -- By: Leslie W. Sloat

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 07:1 (Nov 1944)
Article: American Calvinism Speaks
Author: Leslie W. Sloat


American Calvinism Speaks

Leslie W. Sloat

THE term “evangelism” has come in recent times to be used in a rather limited sense. It is commonly thought to signify only that type of soteriological preaching that has as its immediate object the bringing of the hearer to a point where he makes a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour.

Properly speaking, however, evangelism is the total work of making the truth of God, which He has revealed in the Scriptures, known to men. Taking the word in this sense, we make bold to assert that Calvinism has been characterized throughout its history by a sincere evangelism. The writings of John Calvin, his Commentaries and Institutes, as well as his other works, are pure literary evangelism. The Westminster divines and the Puritan fathers of England produced a great body of literature concerning which the same may be said. We would also express our conviction that this Calvinistic literary evangelism has been productive of more real fruitage, over a longer period of time, than the more emotional and far less solid “evangelism” of our own day. Our Calvinistic forebears cast their bread upon the waters, and their descendants have found it again after many days, and have risen up to call them blessed.

It is not surprising, therefore, to recall that in America, too, Calvinism has boldly spoken out the Word of God, in rebuke, exhortation and instruction, that men of God might be “perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work”.

There is one particular body of American Calvinistic literature which, we think, stands head and shoulders above any other, both in the consistency of its adherence to historic Reformed thought, and in the clarity of its application of that thought to the problems of contemporary living. We refer

to the body of literature which, in the form of a series of periodicals, issued from Princeton Theological Seminary, beginning in 1825 and continuing practically without interruption down to 1929. With this literature are associated those names without peer in American Calvinistic thought — Charles Hodge, Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, James W. and Joseph Addison Alexander, A. A. Hodge, Benjamin B. Warfield, Geerhardus Vos, and J. Gresham Machen — to mention some of the most notable, though there were many others. It is apparent that any one who would be familiar with American Calvinism in action should not be unacquainted with the materials contained in these volumes. We purpose in what follows to present a brief historical account of the journals, commonly referred to in their earlier years as the “Princeton Reviews”, for the purpose of informing our readers concer...

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