Interesting People

Timothy Dwight IV

THERE smiled the smooth Divine, unused to wound
The sinner’s heart with hell’s alarming sound.
No terrors on his gentle tongue attend;
No grating truths the nicest ear offend.
That strange new-birth, that methodistic grace,
Nor in his heart nor sermons found a place.
Plato’s fine tales he clumsily retold,
Trite, fireside, moral seesaws, dull as old,—
His Christ and Bible placed at good remove,
Guilt hell-deserving, and forgiving love.
’T was best, he said, mankind should cease to sin:
Good fame required it; so did peace within.
Their honors, well he knew, would ne’er be driven;
But hoped they still would please to go to heaven.
Each week he paid his visitation dues;
Coaxed, jested, laughed; rehearsed the private news;
Smoked with each goody, thought her cheese excelled;
Her pipe he lighted, and her baby held.
Or placed in some great town, with lacquered shoes,
Trim wig, and trimmer gown, and glistening hose,  
He bowed, talked politics, learned manners mild,
Most meekly questioned, and most smoothly smiled;
At rich men’s jests laughed loud, their stories praised,
Their wives’ new patterns gazed, and gazed, and gazed;
Most daintily on pampered turkeys dined,
Nor shrunk with fasting, nor with study pined:
Yet from their churches saw his brethren driven,
Who thundered truth, and spoke the voice of heaven,
Chilled trembling guilt in Satan’s headlong path,
Charmed the feet back, and roused the ear of death.
“Let fools,” he cried, “starve on, while prudent I
Snug in my nest shall live, and snug shall die.”

That was written by Timothy Dwight IV, (1752-1817). There’s a short biographical pie here about this Yale President and Christian preacher. He was successful at both, this bio telling us that he was liked by the students and that “He also ushered in several religious revivals associated with the Second Great Awakening (c. 1795–1835).”

Harvard was started by and for preachers, over a hundred years later Yale had a preacher for a president. We’ve certainly come a long way, on a very broad path.

Back to the subject – it is a pleasure to run across such interesting people, learning about those who followed God’s narrow way through a strait gate in more recent years than biblical times. It appears that there were preachers a couple of hundred years ago who felt it would offend their congregation to teach all the word of God. It appears there were those who would pick and choose which verses to take as fact and which to ignore.

Some times that ignorance was because such studies would refute what was built upon a single verse. Other times, certain verses were ignored by those whose sins were specifically described in those verses. Paul was not afraid to face the question of how much to preach:

For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. (Acts 20:27 KJV)

Can we follow Paul’s advice to Timothy?

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:2-4 KJV)