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Vital Godliness: A Treatise on Experimental and Practical Piety
(The test of real character is to be sought in each man's ...)
The test of real character is to be sought in each man's experience. He who has never exercised faith, repentance, love, humility, hope, and joy, cannot be profited by his mere theories and speculations on these subjects. All knowledge which is unfelt and inoperative, puffs up the mind and hardens the heart. It is better to have the workings of gracious affections than to be able to define them, or to speak ever so learnedly respecting them. The great use of a large part of divine truth is rightly to affect our minds and hearts, and so to control our practice. It is often doubted whether the present age is remarkable for depth of religious feeling. In many cases ministers preach a low experience. The consequence is painful laxity in pious practice. Among many professors there is a manifest disinclination to converse on vital subjects in experimental and practical piety. This is a great evil. Although hypocrites may babble on such topics, yet true Christians should not thereby be deterred from telling what God has done for their souls, or from diligently seeking to discover and commend the highest style of holy living.
William Swan Plumer was an American Presbyterian clergyman.
Background
He was born on July 26, 1802 at Griersburg (now Darlington), Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. His father, William Plumer, was a native of Maryland and a direct descendant of Francis Plumer, who emigrated from England, was made a freeman in Ipswich, Massachussets, May 14, 1634, and in the fall of that year settled at Newbury. His mother, Catherine (McAllister) Plumer, was a native of Pennsylvania, the daughter of John McAllister, who was of Scotch descent.
While William was still an infant his parents migrated to Kentucky, then to Ohio. His father had a floating store, which he moved from place to place on the Ohio River.
Education
When he was about nineteen he entered the Academy, conducted by Dr. McElhenney, to prepare for college. He graduated from Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), Lexington, Virginia, in 1824, and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1826.
Career
At the age of seventeen young Plumer was teaching school at Malden, in what is now West Virginia.
On June 14, 1826, he was licensed to preach by the New Brunswick Presbytery, New Jersey, and on May 19, 1827, he was ordained by the Orange Presbytery, North Carolina. For several years he did evangelistic work in North Carolina and in Virginia, founding several well-known churches.
Plumer was pastor successively of Tabb Street Presbyterian Church, Petersburg, Virginia. (1831 - 34); the First Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia. (1834 - 47); and the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, Maryland. (1847 - 54). From 1854 to 1862 he was professor of didactic and pastoral theology in the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny, and at the same time served as pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church of that city. He was recalled to the Central Church when he was seventy-six years of age, but declined.
He supplied Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia (1862 - 65), and was pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Pottsville. (1865 - 66). From 1867 to 1880 he was a professor in Columbia Theological Seminary, Columbia.
In the Old School and New School controversy, which divided the American Presbyterian Church into two nearly equal parts in 1837, he was the outstanding leader and debater on the Old School side. The Old School General Assembly elected him moderator. In 1871 he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.
As a rule, his writings were of a devotional nature. He wrote commentaries on Romans and Hebrews, The Law of God, as Contained in the Ten Commandments (1864), Vital Godliness (1864) and published many books of sermons.
During the course of his life he was a contributor to numerous papers. In 1846 he delivered a learned legal address before a committee of the Virginia legislature against a proposed law to incorporate churches, and won his case against the ablest lawyers in Virginia. He retained his vigor even in old age. In 1877 he attended the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance in Edinburgh, and made a profound impression upon that distinguished body. During the summer prior to his death, at the age of seventy-eight, he was in demand as a preacher in the largest churches in Baltimore and other surrounding cities.
He died in Baltimore, survived by two daughters, and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
Achievements
William Swan Plumer was an intellectual leader of the Presbyterian Church. He was the only man in Presbyterian Church who was ever elected twice to the moderatorship of the General Assembly. Plumer was also the author of twenty-five or thirty books and of more than a hundred printed pamphlets. His famous Studies of the Book of Psalms, Being a Critical and Expository Commentary is a volume of more than 1200 pages. While pastor in Richmond he founded The Watchman of the South, a religious paper, and was its sole editor, this paper still lives in The Presbyterian of the S.
Moses D. Hoge, who, as a young man, was Plumer's assistant in Richmond, describes him in his latter years as follows: "His majestic stature, his slow measured step, his easy and graceful carriage, his dark eyes and heavy eyebrows of still darker shade, contrasting with his white hair falling back in heavy masses from his forehead, his snowy beard waving on his breast like a flowing vestment, reminded the beholder of some majestic patriarch or ancient prophet, a living sculpture of heroic mold. "
The Rev. W. H. Ruffner, who knew Plumer intimately, wrote regarding him: "When he was pastor in Richmond, no one could, I think, have hesitated to place him at the head of the Virginia pulpit, and at the head of popular orators. His power of terse, pithy statement was unequalled. "
Connections
In 1829 he was married to a widow, Mrs. Eliza (Garden) Hasell, a native of Charleston, who was of French Huguenot descent, and about fourteen years his senior.
