Discussions of R L Dabney

Discussions of R L Dabney

Volume 3

Author
Category
Discussions of R L Dabney
Look Inside Price £14.00
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Weight 0.71 kg
Dimensions 22.3 × 14.3 × 3.2 cm
ISBN 9780851513508
Binding

Cloth-bound
Format

Book
Page Count

496
Original Pub Date

1892
Banner Pub Date

Jan 1, 1982

ENDORSEMENT

‘R.L. Dabney was the most conspicuous figure and the leading theological guide of the Southern Presbyterian Church, the most prolific theological writer that Church has as yet produced, and for a period of over forty years one of the most distinguished and probably the most impressive teacher of its candidates for the ministry. As a preacher, as a teacher and as a writer equally he achieved greatness, and in the counsels of the State and of the Church alike he was a factor of importance. In the wider theological history of the country and of the epoch he finds a worthy place as one of the younger members of a remarkable company of theologians to whose lot it fell to reassert and reorganize the historical faith of the Reformed Churches in the face of the theological ferment which marked the earlier years of the Nineteenth Century.’
— B.B. WARFIELD

Book Description

Robert Dabney (1820-98), who was for forty years Professor in Union Seminary, Virginia, U.S.A., was in the opinion of Dr. Archibald Alexander, ‘the best teacher of theology in the United States, if not in the world’.

The third volume includes Dabney’s treatment of issues in society which are of perennial concern to the Church of Christ, including Anti-Christian Science, Secularized Education, Strikes and the influence of Roman Catholicism. A number of biographical sketches of great Christians whom Dabney knew also appear, including one of General T. J. (‘Stonewall’) Jackson, to whom Dabney had been Adjutant-General during the Civil War.

Table of Contents Expand ↓

SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS 1
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS 21
THE STANDARD OF ORDINATION 47
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 65
CIVIC ETHICS 100
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE 127
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 152
THE CAUTION ACAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW 173
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 217
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM IMPOSED UPON VIRGINIA BY THE UNDERWOOD CONSTITUTION 238
SECULARIZED EDUCATION 272
LABOR UNIONS, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE 295
NATURE CANNOT REVOLUTIONIZE NATURE 322
LATEST INFIDELITY, A REPLY TO INGERSOLL’S POSITION 328
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY 362
POPISH LITERATURE AND EDUCATION 390
THE INFLUENCE OF FALSE PHILOSOPHIES UPON CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 400
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D.D. 409
TRUE COURAGE. A MEMORIAL SERMON ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL T. J.JACKSON,JUNE, 1863 452
A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON OF THE THIRD VIRGINIA CAVALRY, C.S.A 470
INDEX 487

Testimonials

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  1. David P –

    If Spurgeon was the Prince of Preachers, Dabney was the Paladin. While Dr. Dabney had a tendency to wax polemic, his lectures are eminently well-documented and heavily cited; Turretin, the Westminster Standards and of course the Scriptures. A must have for students of Southern Presbyterian history and Reformed theology.

  2. Richard C Ross –

    I’m not sure what I am to understand by Dabney being referred to as a ‘paladin’ to C. H. Spurgeon, when their positions on crucial matters of Christian theology and ethics were absolutely antithetical: see ‘The Full Harvest’, 99 & 124-126 and Spurgeon’s unmitigated condemnation of slave-holders in the letter of January 1860 to ‘The Christian Watchman and Reflector’, Boston. I stand with Spurgeon. Dabney’s ‘Discussions’ (all three volumes) may indeed be a ‘must for students of Southern Presbyterian history’ but surely only as a ‘cautionary tale’. Dabney is a dangerous author, largely on account of his magisterial ability to present arguments defending the most odious ecclesiastical and political principles with a devastating force of logic. Initially his arguments convince on account of his singular overwhelming rhetorical vigour. He was capable of battering an audience into silence by a colossal belligerence.

    Yet, when his position, on any number of subjects, is weighed and assessed by a Berean principle – not public confrontation but private Scriptural contemplation – many arguments lose the force which berated his audience into stunned compliance.

    I confess to being mystified by the commendations he received from men who command the highest respect. They give every impression of endorsing his entire output and so, one assumes, deliberately turned the blind eye to colossal defects which marred so much excellence.

    Dabney was capable of acting as a belligerent intellectual thug. A quality of his personality most fully exposed in his odious diatribe against black members of the body of Christ enjoying their spiritual birthright. (I refrain from quoting any part of Dabney’s writing on the subject – including his ‘Speech Against the Ecclesiastical Equality of Negros and Their Right to Rule Over White Christians’ – as to do so could be deemed illegal in the UK.) While ‘a little leaven leavens the whole lump’, this lump of leaven leavens the entire bakery. Dabney’s repellent contribution to this fundamental aspect of ecclesiastical polity is directly and intensely relevant; his writings (and those of Thornwell) provide intellectual fodder for advocates of the most abhorrent attitudes and behaviour, philosophies and theologies of various contemporary religious and political movements in the USA and the UK. ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them’. (Romans 16.17)

    I realise, of course, my remarks will appear outrageous. My defence is simply to request you read the whole ‘Speech…’ to which I made reference.

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