Thomas Sproull was an American clergyman of the Reformed Presbyterian Church and theological teacher. He wrote many articles, chiefly in support of the distinctive tenets of the Reformed Presbyterians, and a series of sketches of their early history in America.
Background
Thomas was born on September 15, 1803 near Lucesco, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Thither his parents, Robert and Mary (Dunlap) Sproull, north of Ireland people and Covenanters, had moved from Franklin County in 1796.
The Sproulls maintained covenanting principles alone in their neighborhood for twenty years, until they were joined by David Houston. From these families there sprang an influential Reformed Presbyterian or Covenanter congregation.
Education
Because of his parents' poverty he had in boyhood only an elementary education. From the age of twenty-three he studied for two years with Jonathan Gill, minister of the church at Lucesco, and then entered the senior class of the Western University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1829.
Career
On April 4, 1832, Sproull was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Pittsburgh, and on the same day of 1833 he was ordained as a home missionary.
At the founding of the theological seminary of the Church in Allegheny in 1838 Sproull was chosen professor of theology, and served until 1845, the institution then being moved to Cincinnati.
In 1856 it was reestablished in Allegheny and he again became professor. Twelve years later, when he resigned his office because of pastoral duties, the Synod asked him to leave his church and devote himself to the seminary; to this request he acceded. He was made professor emeritus in 1874, but carried on some teaching for seventeen years longer.
His theology appears in his Prelections on Theology (1882) as Calvinism according to Covenanter traditions. He was a leader of his Church in all its affairs. In 1847 he was moderator of its Synod. For two years he was one of the editors of the Christian Witness, an early anti-slavery paper published 1836-40.
He was editor of the Reformed Presbyterian from 1855 to 1863, and then of the Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter until 1874.
In 1859 he was appointed to compose a declaration of the Church regarding slavery and secret societies. While he held rigidly to the peculiar witness of his Church, his gracious Christian influence was widely acknowledged. After teaching until he was eighty-eight, he spent his last days in Allegheny.
His labor in the Seminary continued until within one year of his death, which occurred March 21, 1892.
Achievements
Works
Other Work
Author: Prelections on Theology, 1882.
Religion
At the General Synod of 1833 the Reformed Presbyterian Church divided into Old School and New School - Synod and General Synod. The New School allowed church members to vote and hold civil office, thus departing from the disapproving attitude toward the government of the United States maintained by the Church. Sproull, who was present at this meeting, sided with the Old School. The Pittsburgh Reformed Presbyterian Church having joined the New School, a small Old School Church was formed in Allegheny (North Pittsburgh), over which he was installed pastor on May 12, 1834.
Views
He was especially interested in its missionary work in China and in behalf of negroes and Indians.
Connections
He was married on July 1, 1834, to Magdeline Wallace of Pittsburgh, and had three sons who were Reformed Presbyterian ministers.