So far the trip has presented few complications. In fact, a stroll after dinner to a nearby park tonight disclosed a pack of cats that were as beautiful as they were feral. The biggest problem so far has been getting health insurance companies to pay for the pills that prevent Malaria. The Mrs.’s insurer ruled specifically that her plan did not cover prophylactic medications. That suggests that a more expensive plan might cover the prescription. But if my wife contracts Malaria, won’t it cost the insurance company more for her annual treatments? So a lower priced plan should actually cover the Malaria medication. By the way, my own plan, which did cover the pills, only knocked about 30 percent off the price.

Which raises the question of why we have health insurance. I’m sure many have heard the comparison that we don’t buy car insurance to pay for tune-ups and oil changes. So why do we need the insurers to monitor all of our regular physical maintenance? I get it about life-threatening medical treatments. None of us can afford the six-figure bill that might come with surgery and chemotherapy. But why should the insurance companies take a cut of the cost of ordinary health care? Why not let people like me pay for doctors appointments and regular prescriptions right out of pocket, directly to my physician or pharmacist, the way we do with auto mechanics and auto supply companies?

Mind you, this is no brief for national health insurance. If the private companies have already mucked up medicine I can’t imagine the feds doing anything but adding to the inconvenience.

Granted, if we only had insurance for life-threatening diseases or injuries people who now don’t have health insurance would continue to use emergency rooms at hospitals for basic treatment. But if that were the case, just imagine what a service Roman Catholic and other religious hospitals could provide (along with a public relations windfall). Instead of having to offer a full range of medical services, they could simply offer medical treatment to the indigent. And their development officers might also be able to raise funds for some kind of insurance that would cover their patients when they have to send them to the hospitals with all the bells and whistles.

American Protestants have only had such schools for a couple hundred years. They are relatively new. And, in the main, the theological life of our churches has declined during the years they’ve been around. I suggest we move toward a seminary model in which thoughtful, seasoned pastors play a greater role on campus (not just in preaching and polity classes) and, correlatively, that seminary professors play a greater role in the educational ministries of their region’s congregations.

Bill Evans jumped on board and praised Sweeney for questioning the seminary model:

. . . the theological seminary has been perhaps the most important engine in the “professionalization” of the clergy–the notion that the Christian ministry is another of the “helping professions” in which ministers are to conform to humanly generated standards of professional “best practices” as established by guardians of the guild (such as the Association of Theological Schools).

Finally, Carl Trueman responds responded with a good point:

Here is my question: could it be that the indifference to and ignorance of the basic elements of the Christian faith are themselves functions of a widespread belief that these things are not important? And if they are not deemed important by Christians, then we must ask ourselves why they are not deemed important. Could it be because the church and her preachers and teachers are not stressing the reasons why these things, these basic elements of faith are important — that human beings are dead in sin, possess no righteousness in themselves and live in imminent danger of falling into the hands of a God who is a consuming fire?

It has always struck me as fascinating that we today lament the biblical ignorance of people in the pews while at the same time we behave in ways likely to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the problem. We reduce the number of Sunday services from two to one, thus halving the amount of preaching people hear; we look to stand-up comics as providing the key to successful communication of a serious message; we warble on endlessly about cultural transformation and about what the world will and will not find plausible in our confession; and, most crucial of all, we soft-pedal on preaching for conviction of sin.

Conciliator that I am known to be, I wonder if all of the pieces are making the same point — namely, that seminaries need to be closer to the church, professors need to be pastors who are called to the work of ministry, and the institutions themselves need to stress the skills necessary for working in congregations and discipling God’s people.

In which case, the culprit here may not be accreditors or the universities that credential seminary faculty but the seminary administrators themselves. In the 1970s conservative Protestant seminaries received a massive infusion of students who were not planning on going into the ministry (I was one of them). Masters degrees other than the M.Div. proliferated, seminary budgets expanded, and academic deans conducted searches for faculty to keep up with all the new students. All of a sudden, the seminary became the place other than the local pastor to receive instruction in the basics of the Christian faith and then go with a Christian W-W into a number of other different occupations — most often graduate school for a Ph.D. in a subject that would position someone to teach at a seminary. In turn, seminaries became used to the revenue stream and now have trouble going back simply to programs designed for prospective ministers.

The seminaries’ production of Christian or biblical counselors only underscores this shift. Rather than looking for counsel from a pastor and a set of elders (not to mention parents and grandparents), believers now look for seminaries to send out a set of credentialed and licenses “professionals” who are redundant to the work of pastors. These counselors (as far as I know) even charge their clients for their services. Can you imagine your pastor or elders passing along a bill to you after a family visit?

In which case, the real problem with seminaries is the crisis of special office more generally. Do Protestants believe that pastors do anything holy or sacred when every Tom, Dick, or Sally has his or her own “kingdom work” or when I, for instance, have a writing “ministry”? Instead of defending the unique work of pastors and the holy ordinances they administer, seminaries welcomed all the hoi polloi (myself included), expanded their programs, and watered down the specialty of special office. One way to restore the seminary’s wits is to go back to training pastors exclusively. But which school will survive in that great day?

The intellect defying mysteries of Christianity do not prevent critics of 2k from pointing out 2k’s apparent inconsistencies. Neo-Calvinism’s condemnation of all dualism fortifies critics in their quest to iron out all of Christianity’s wrinkles and gives them the upper hand in public relations contests since St. Joe the Home Schooler is more likely to trust a simple and direct answer to his questions than one that begins “well, yes and no.”

A recent attempt to catch 2k in the clutches of inconsistency came from Steven Wedgeworth at his new blog, The Calvinist International. He asks whether a seminary that trains pastors belongs to the spiritual or temporal kingdom and follows the reasoning of Ryan McIlhenry from an article in Mid-America Journal of Theology, not a journal that one associates with fans of the Federal Visions (but opposition to 2k makes for strange bed bugs). At a conference at Westminster California, David VanDrunen responded to this question in ways inconceivable to the perplexity challenged. Dissatisfied by VanDrunen’s response, Wedgeworth argues:

. . . VanDrunen attempts to soften things with a general admission of complexity and a denial that “every single plot of ground” can be put into one kingdom or the other, he does not admit the more obvious point: his specific expression of the two kingdoms cannot be coherently applied in the world. This is because he is still attempting to distinguish the kingdoms along the lines of vocation. Churchy callings and, specifically, Bible-teaching, are the business of the spiritual kingdom, whereas more ordinary jobs like committees, administration, and custodianship are the business of the worldly kingdom.

But what business does a common institution have training up the leaders of the spiritual kingdom? Indeed, under the terms of de jure divino Presbyterianism, this would mean that the spiritual kingdom of Christ is in fact dependent upon the worldly kingdom for one of its essential marks. Is VanDrunen now also among the Constantinians?

Notice that VanDrunen’s response was complex. But the actual 2k doctrine, elaborated by Wedgeworth’s interaction with Calvin and Luther, will not admit of such complexity. In which case the proponents of 2k are really not 2k after all.

But once again, history to the rescue. You don’t have to be 2k to understand that the work of seminaries does not fit easily in any of the modern categories of politics, education, or religion. Back in the 1940s the OPC debated whether to adopt Westminster Seminary as a denominational institution. Each of the committee members who studied the matter and rejected the idea of an ecclesiastically overseen seminary — R. B. Kuiper, John Murray, and Paul Woolley — appealed to the neo-Calvinist notion of sphere sovereignty, an indication that they may have been channeling Kuyper more than Machen. And each member recognized that a seminary does not belong to the church, nor to the state, but — get this — to the family, a common institution that belongs to both believers and unbelievers. According John Murray (in his portion of the report):

The teaching of the Word of God given in the family and in the Christian school will indeed, as regards content, coincide with the teaching given by the church, but this coincidence as regards content does not in the least imply that such teaching should be given under the auspices of the church. In like manner a theological seminary should teach the whole counsel of God. A great deal of the teaching must therefore coincide with the teaching given by the church, and, furthermore, a great deal of it is the teaching that may properly be conducted by the church and under its official auspices. It does not follow, however, that the teaching of the Word of God given in a theological seminary must be given under the auspices of the church. The mere fact that, in certain particulars, the type of teaching given is the type of teaching that may and should be given by the church and may also properly be conducted under the official auspices of the church does not rove that such teaching must be conducted under the auspices of the church. This does not follow any more than does the-fact that the teaching of the Word of God given in the home and in the school is in content the same as may and should be given by the church prove that the family and the school should be conducted under the auspices of the church. A theological seminary is an institution which may quite properly be conducted, like other Christian schools, under auspices other than those of the church, and a great deal of its work is of such a character that the church may not properly undertake it.

So if Reformed theologians not known for advocating 2k recognize that the formal academic training of ministers does not easily fall within either the temporal or spiritual kingdoms as designated by the earthly institutions of state and church, is it really a problem that 2kers offer complex answers to questions about to which kingdom Westminster California belongs?

Which leads to one last quibble. My impression of Mr. Wedgeworth is that he is a nice enough fellow and does not intend to bray or holler the way some anti-2k bloggers do. But when he complains that VanDrunen’s “expression of the two kingdoms cannot be coherently applied in the world,” my jaws tighten. When will the critics of 2k acknowledge that the teachings of Calvin or Richard Hooker cannot be applied coherently to our world either, or that 2k looks a whole lot more coherent after the revolutions of the late eighteenth century than do Constantinian politics applied to a mixed body of citizens? Again, for the gazillionth time, the problems of state churches and the demands of diverse populations led all the Reformed churches to drop the Reformation’s teaching about the Christian responsibilities of the magistrate. This may mean that all the Reformed communions are incoherent in their application of 2k theology. But that problem is not the peculiar possession of 2k’s advocates. I’d encourage pastor Wedgeworth to send a letter to NAPARC.

The occasion was a pleasant seminar sponsored by the Meeter Center for Calvin Studies, which brought together scholars from the region to discuss the prospects for Reformation studies and to become better acquainted. No matter how much I may lament the loss of the CRC from the ranks of militantly Reformed Protestants, I continue to be impressed by the scholarly resources the denomination and its constituency are willing to sponsor. The Meeter Center provides scholarships and stipends for scholars and studentds access to their wonderful holdings and collection. A lot of “evangelical” colleges may talk about the life of the mind, but Calvin does embody it in some important ways.

Be that as it may, the mood was generally despondent yesterday as professors and graduate students pined for a day when history and religion departments regularly designated one slot for a historian of the Reformation. Now, Reformation scholars cannot be certain that if they leave or retire the department and administration will not appoint someone to study East Asia or depictions of animals in movies from the 1920s. One comment did put this problem in perspective. As the history and culture of the West declined as a topic that gave coherence to the humanities and social sciences — to be replaced by world history — the import of the Reformation became less obvious. At the same time, at schools like Hillsdale College where a course on Western Heritage is still required of all students, undergraduates have more of an appetite for studying the Reformation. Some are even taking a seminar on Calvin’s Institutes this semester.

I had trouble but I did avoid the temptation yesterday to promote a book I wrote over a decade ago about the place of religion in American higher education. This books goes soem way in explaining the difficulties today’s Reformation historians face. Rather than simply blaming the status of Reformation studies on secularization or multi-culturalism, just as significant was the way by which religion itself became an academic discipline. It did so in the United States at a time when the nation was in the early stages of a Cold War and when recovering the religious and cultural roots of the West seemed to be much more important. It didn’t hurt that mainline Protestants were ready with scholars trained at university divinity schools to staff the new departments. Here is an excerpt from the book (self-promotion alert!):

. . . the teaching and study of religion emerged from the efforts of mainstream Protestant ministers and educators who wanted to retain a religious influence in American higher education. In the first phase of those efforts, from roughly 1900 to 1935, Protestants worked mainly through such extracurricular agencies as the Student Volunteer Movement, the YMCA, and campus chaplains. They also saw that courses in religion, especially the Bible, would be crucial to gaining academic credibility. Consequently, the churches founded Bible chairs at the same time that individuals independent of the churches Protestant set up agencies and schools of religion that would teach students what they needed to know about the Bible and Christianity. This instruction was designed to insure religious literacy and to provide spiritual guidance to the sons and daughters of the church.

In the second phase of religious studies, from 1935 to 1965, a variety of circumstances made Protestant efforts more successful. America’s involvement in international politics, both in World War II and the Cold War, underscored the need for understanding and preserving Western culture at the nation’s colleges and universities. No longer did scientific and technological developments hold the promise they had during the first fifty years of the research university’s dominance of American higher education. Instead, through a renewed interest in liberal or general education the humanities recovered a certain measure of importance in the academy and the culture more generally. Religious studies fit well with the mood propelling the humanities’ resurgence. Not only was Christianity important to European history and likewise Protestantism to the development of the United States, but many educators regarded religion as an important ingredient in the West’s stand for liberal democracy against the tyranny of fascism on the right and communism on the left. The recognition of religion’s importance gave Protestants significant leverage in establishing programs and departments that taught the Bible, theology, and church history, all with the understanding that such instruction contributed to the well-being of students and American society, and fit with the university’s mission of preserving Western civilization.

In the most recent period, after 1965, religion faculty and administrators discovered that the older spiritual and cultural reasons for teaching and studying religion were inadequate in a climate where America’s religious and political ideals were, to put it mildly, contested. . . . Once the close fit between Protestantism and liberal democracy became debatable, religious studies had to find another rationale, one more academic and less dependent on the mainline Protestant churches or the political and economic order that they supported. Religion professors were no longer able to count on the cache of Western civilization, affinities to the humanities or the prestige of the Protestant establishment.

If scholars are worried about the future of Reformation studies just as conservative Protestants are worried about evangelicals’ declining allegiance to the Reformation, perhaps the reason is that both the academy and churches are suffering the side effects of a culture that in the name of tolerance, equality, and open markets has lost its bearings and does not know or care about its heritage.

At the same time, some objections do no deserve a reasonable response. In fact, some who object to 2k have so made up their minds about the idea and its proponents that they will hear nothing in defense of the doctrine; they won’t even read the books written on 2k.

From the perspective of this 2k advocate who also doubles as a historian, two undeniable historical developments exist that 2k critics won’t accept — sort of like denying that the North defeated the South in 1865; you may not like it, but how do you deny what happened at Appomattox?

The first fact is that the critics of 2k do not advocate the execution of adulterers or heretics. This is pertinent because 2k critics fault 2kers for departing from Calvin and his holy Geneva. The problem is that the Baylys, Rabbi Bret, Nelson Kloosterman (and his favorite disciple, Mark Van Der Molen), Doug Wilson, and anonymous respondents at Greenbaggins don’t advocate the laws in Calvin’s Protestant Jerusalem. To the credit of theonomists, they sometimes do advocate the execution of adulterers and even recalcitrant adolescents. But 2k critics do not have the stomach for all of Calvin’s policies and laws. In which case, they have no more claim to Calvin as a standard for religion and politics than 2kers do. Yet, here’s the key. 2kers are honest. They actually admit that they disagree with Calvin. They actually acknowledge the deficiencies of those who try to follow the Old Testament for post-resurrection civil governments.

The second fact of cherry-picking proportions is that all of the Reformed churches that belong to the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council have rejected the teaching of both the Westminster Confession and the Belgic Confession on the civil magistrate. Not only have the mainline churches revised these confessions, but so have the conservative churches. (Ironically, Frame thinks I am unaware of the American revision of WCF in his review of A Secular Faith. This is ironic because if Frame were as aware of the revision as he thinks he is, he would see that 2k is not outside the confession that Presbyterians profess.) These revisions do not necessarily mean that every officer and member of these churches is an advocate of 2k. It does mean that the modern Reformed and Presbyterian churches have come to terms with modern governments and the disestablishment of Christianity in ways inconceivable to Reformed Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. And this means that the critics of 2k are either unaware of how little standing the original WCF chapter 23 or Belgic Art. 36 has in conservative Reformed churches. Or if they know of confessional revision and use the original documents to denounce 2kers, they are dishonest.

Or perhaps they are simply foolish (and impolitely so). One of the additional points I made about the importance of the Reformed churches’ teaching on the magistrate was this:

I have said it before and will say again, even before the Covenanters revised their Constitution and rejected the language of WCF 23.1 which Tfan affirms, even before this, the RPCNA explored a merger with the OPC which had already adopted the American revisions to the WCF. In other words, the RPCNA had a very different view of the civil magistrate than the OPC did and did not let that difference keep them from fraternal relations with the OPC. I do not see that same generosity or acknowledgement of orthodoxy for 2kers from 2k’s critics.

The fanatic of Turretin’s response was this: “Again, this is total ad hominem. Try to focus on your defense of E2k, not at criticizing your critics.”

How this is ad hominem I do not know, though my Latin is rusty. But even if in some fifth or sixth definition of ad hominem my comment qualifies, I do not see how this point is beside the point. 2k critics treat 2k not only as if it is entirely outside the bounds of confessional orthodoxy, but they also react to 2k as if it is a threat to the gospel. They believe it is antinomian, destroys Christian schools, and abandons society to relativism. But the RPCNA, even when they still affirmed the original WCF 23, did not consider teaching on the civil magistrate a deal breaker. Critics of 2k, like John Frame, do.

And some people like Lane Keister wonder why 2kers like me become sarcastically indignant. But for those wanting to keep the debate going, they are welcome here.

But now I see that Mr. Muether has turned on his old friend. Last week I spotted a new book by James McGoldrick, Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History (published by Reformation Heritage Books). This was a shock and horror to someone who has just completed a first draft of a global history of Calvinism. I had thought that I had a corner on the market.

And to make matters worse, Mr. Muether has endorsed the book. He calls it a “remarkable achievement.” He should have written, “don’t bother with this book since Hart’s forthcoming volume is a remarkable achievement.”

I’ll be seeing Muether this week at OPC Christian Education Committee meetings and I’m not planning on buying him a drink. No matter that I cannot remember the last time I picked up a check.

All of this reflection on Princeton’s history has prompted me to speculate on a method for spotting the true followers of Old Princeton. Here it is: if you use a computer or internet password inspired by Old Princeton, you have caught the Princeton bug.

Not that I’m asking anyone to reveal their passwords, but I am curious how many Old Lifers used passwords derived from the seminary or its faculty. I’ll go first. I do.

This analogy occurred to me once again when considering the arguments of John Frame against the so-called Escondido Theology. Greenbaggins has started reviewing Frame’s latest book and has come to the first chapter on the law-gospel distinction. He writes in response to one of Frame’s infelicities:

Frame goes on to say, “They are also motivated by a desire to oppose what they regard as theological corruptions of the Reformation doctrine, particularly the views of N.T. Wright, Norman Shepherd, and the movement called Federal Vision.” I would be a whole lot more comfortable with this sentence had Frame struck out the words “what they regard as.” These distancing words would seem to imply that Frame does not regard Wright, Shepherd, and the FV to be corruptions of the Reformation doctrine. Also, I would think a more charitable way of phrasing this motivation would be that the WSC theologians are motivated by a desire to defend the truth (are they really motivated by opposition, or are they motivated by the truth?).

Greenbaggins contends that the law-gospel distinction has a long pedigree in Reformed circles. It is not merely a Lutheran way of interpreting the Bible, even if Reformed Protestants are not of one mind in distinguishing law and gospel.

Frame notes what he thinks are two failures of the WSC theologians: 1. They fail to notice the problems with the law-gospel distinction. 2. They “fail to understand that the law is not only a terrifying set of commands to drive us to Christ, but is also the gentle voice of the Lord, showing his people that the best blessings of this life come from following his will” (p. 2). WSC theologians fail to notice the problems that Frame points out because they are not problems for the law-gospel distinction. Advocates have noted these objections before and answered them. As to the second point, Frame seems to be accusing the WSC theologians of denying the third use of the law. Whether this is an accurate assessment of Frame’s charge here or not, Frame is off the mark. WSC theologians do not deny the third use of the law any more than Lutherans do (there is an entire section in the Augsburg Confession devoted to the third use of the law).

Greenbaggins’ critique of Frame has not prevented his readers from wondering whether something is still suspect about Westminster California. Some continue to think that the law-gospel distinction has no standing in the Reformed creeds. Others seem to think it may be there but the Southern Californians use it in a radical way. So I’m to imagine that using the law-gospel distinction in opposition to Shepherd, Wright, and the Federal Vision is extreme?

Once again, what seems to happen is that Reformed Protestants understand the Reformed tradition to be as old either as the founding of the Free University or the creation of Westminster Seminary (Philadelphia). These folks continue to be surprised that older members of the Reformed tradition, some of those who defined it, spoke about doctrines like jure divino presbyterianism, or exclusive psalmody, or the priority of justification, or the law-gospel distinction. I too was surprised to learn these doctrines back when my exposure to the Reformed faith came mainly from the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology and Francis Schaeffer. But, you know, I soon discovered that the Reformed faith preceded Princeton Seminary and Jonathan Edwards and went all the way back to the sixteenth century where Protestants talked about law-gospel distinctions. Unlike the democrat who did not like what he found among the Democratic Party, I had no problem trying to take instruction from Reformed Protestants older than Abraham Kuyper and Cornelius Van Til (both of whom Frame claims to follow).

Speaking of following Kuyper and Van Til, these Dutch Protestants were members of a church that confessed the Heidelberg Catechism. And lo and behold, the Heidelberg Catechism makes a distinction between law and gospel.

Question 3. Whence knowest thou thy misery?
Answer: Out of the law of God.

Question 4. What does the law of God require of us?
Answer: Christ teaches us that briefly, Matt. 22:37-40, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first and the great commandment; and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Question 18. Who then is that Mediator, who is in one person both very God, and a real righteous man?
Answer: Our Lord Jesus Christ: “who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”

Question 19. Whence knowest thou this?
Answer: From the holy gospel, which God himself first revealed in Paradise; and afterwards published by the patriarchs and prophets, and represented by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the law; and lastly, has fulfilled it by his only begotten Son.

Some may wonder if this really is a law-gospel distinction (by the way, you can see a similar distinction between Q. 39 in the Shorter Catechism — “The duty which God requireth of man is obedience to his revealed will” and Q. 85 “To escape the wrath and curse of sin, God requires of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, and the diligent use of the outward means whereby he communicates the benefits of redemption.” The section on the law is distinct from the means of grace.). But if you go to Zacharias Ursinus’ commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, it sure looks like he thinks Heidelberg rests upon this basic distinction:

The gospel and the law agree in this, that they are both from God, and that there is something revealed in each concerning the nature, will, and works of God. There is, however, a very great difference between them:

1. In the revelations which they contain; or, as it respects the manner in which the revelation peculiar to each is made known. The law was engraven upon the heart of man in his creation, and is therefore known to all naturally, although no other revelation were given. “The Gentiles have the work of the law written in their hearts.” (Rom. 2: 15.) The gospel is not known naturally, but is divinely revealed to the Church alone through Christ, the Mediator. For no creature could have seen or hoped for that mitigation of the law concerning satisfaction for our sins through another, if the Son of God had not revealed it. “No man knoweth the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.” “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee.” “The Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” (Matt. 11: 27; 16: 17.)

2. In the kind of doctrine, or subject peculiar to each. The law teaches us what we ought to be, and what God requires of us, but it does not give us the ability to perform it, nor does it point out the way by which we may avoid what is forbidden. But the gospel teaches us in what manner we may be made such as the law requires: for it offers unto us the promise of grace, by having the righteousness of Christ imputed to us through faith, and that in such a way as if it were properly ours, teaching us that we are just before God, through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. The law says, “Pay what thou owest.” “Do this, and live.” (Matt. 18: 28. Luke 10: 28.) The gospel says, “Only believe.” (Mark 5: 36.)

3. A the promises. The law promises life to those who are righteous in themselves, or on the condition of righteousness, and perfect obedience. “He that doeth them, shall live in them.” “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” (Lev. 18: 5. Matt. 19: 17.) The gospel, on the other hand, promises life to those who are justified by faith in Christ, or on the condition of the righteousness of Christ, applied unto us by faith. The law and gospel are, however, not opposed to each other in these respects: for although the law requires us to keep the commandments if we would enter into life, yet it does not exclude us from life if another perform these things for us. It does indeed propose a way of satisfaction, 105which is through ourselves, but it does not forbid the other, as has been shown.

4. They differ in their effects. The law, without the gospel, is the letter which killeth, and is the ministration of death: “For by the law is the knowledge of sin.” “The law worketh wrath; and the letter killeth.” (Rom. 3: 20; 4: 15. 2 Cor. 3: 6.) The outward preaching, and simple knowledge of what ought to be done, is known through the letter: for it declares our duty, and that righteousness which God requires; and, whilst it neither gives us the ability to perform it, nor points out the way through which it may be attained, it finds fault with, and condemns our righteousness. But the gospel is the ministration of life, and of the Spirit, that is, it has the operations of the Spirit united with it, and quickens those that are dead in sin, because it is through the gospel that the Holy Spirit works faith and life in the elect. “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation,” etc. (Rom. 1: 16.)

Objection: There is no precept, or commandment belonging to the gospel, but to the law. The preaching of repentance is a precept. Therefore the preaching of repentance does not belong to the gospel. but to the law. Answer: We deny the major, if it is taken generally; for this precept is peculiar to the gospel, which commands us to believe, to embrace the benefits of Christ, and to commence new obedience, or that righteousness which the law requires. If it be objected that the law also commands us to believe in God, we reply that it does this only in general, by requiring us to give credit to all the divine promises, precepts and denunciations, and that with a threatening of punishment, unless we do it. But the gospel commands us expressly and particularly to embrace, by faith, the promise of grace; and also exhorts us by the Holy Spirit, and by the Word, to walk worthy of our heavenly calling. This however it does only in general, not specifying any duty in particular, saying thou shalt do this, or that, but it leaves this to the law; as, on the contrary, it does not say in general, believe all the promises of God, leaving this to the law; but it says in particular, Believe this promise; fly to Christ, and thy sins shall be forgiven thee.

Now since several of Westminster California’s faculty are ministers in a communion that confesses Heidelberg, should it really be that surprising they follow Van Til and Kuyper all the way back to Ursinus and affirm a distinction that the historically challenged consider to be sub-Reformed? Or might it be more plausible to recognize that since members of Westminster California’s faculty work within the Continental Reformed tradition, their appeal to the law-gospel distinction entirely compatible with earlier generations of Reformed Protestants?

This doesn’t settle, of course, whether the law-gospel distinction is correct. But given Frame’s endorsement of a pro-Shepherd account of the Shepherd controversy, I am reserving the right to question what he believes to be at stake in contemporary debates over justification, not to mention other matters of Reformed Protestant conviction.

Our present system is unjust, first, to the people. Here are a handful of Christians surrounded by an increasing mass of the ignorant, the erroneous and the wicked. No one will deny that it is of the last importance that the gospel should be regularly administered among them. This is demanded not only for the benefit of those few Christians, but for the instruction and conversion of the surround population. Now is it just, that the burden of supporting the ministry under these circumstances, should be thrown exclusively on that small and feeble company of believers? Are they alone interested in the support and extension of the kingdom of Christ among them and those around them? It is obvious that on all scriptural principle, and all principles of justice this is a burden to be borne by the whole church, by all on whom the duty rests to uphold and propagate the gospel of Christ. Our present system is unjust, in the second place, towards our ministers. It is not just that one man should be supported in affluence, and another equally devoted to the service of the church, left to struggle for the necessaries of life. As before stated we do not contend for anything so chimerical as equal salaries to all ministers. Even if all received from the church as a whole the same sum, the people would claim and exercise the right to give in addition what they pleased to their own pastor. We can no more make salaries equal, than we can make church edifices of the same size and cost. But while this equality is neither desirable nor practicable, it is obviously unjust that the present inordinate inequality should be allowed to continue. (Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, July 1847, 370)

Tho’ I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of its propriety, and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He us’d to visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his administrations, and I was now and then prevail’d on to do so, once for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday’s leisure in my course of study; but his discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforc’d, their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens.

At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of Philippians, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things.” And I imagin’d, in a sermon on such a text, we could not miss of having some morality. But he confin’d himself to five points only, as meant by the apostle, viz.: 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the publick worship. 4. Partaking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God’s ministers. These might be all good things; but, as they were not the kind of good things that I expected from that text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was disgusted, and attended his preaching no more. I had some years before compos’d a little Liturgy, or form of prayer, for my own private use (viz., in 1728), entitled, Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion. I return’d to the use of this, and went no more to the public assemblies. My conduct might be blameable, but I leave it, without attempting further to excuse it; my present purpose being to relate facts, and not to make apologies for them.

This is not meant to be an expression of guilt by association, as if those who want application in preaching share Franklin’s views about religion more generally. I personally continue to be impressed by Franklin in a host of ways — his industry, his humor and style, his remarkable literary interests, and his statesmanship. But he wasn’t right about everything. People are complicated. That likely includes preaching and revivals (he was a fan, after all, of Whitefield).