THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY THEOLOGY

DISCUSSIONS: EVANGELICAL AND THEOLOGICAL

VOLUME 3
by Robert L. Dabney.

Making the Words of the Wise Available to all Inexpensively

Digital Publications Dallas, Texas 2006

DISCUSSIONS

ROBERT L. DABNEY

VOLUME 3

First published 1892 and 1897 under the titles Discussions: Philosophical and Discussions: Secular

Publishers Preface
This volume is now published as a supplement to the authors two volumes, Discussions: Evangelical and Theological, 1890, and reprinted 1967 and 1982. Its present form requires some explanation. Robert Lewis Dabneys Discussions, all edited by his life-long friend C. R. Vaughan, were originally issued in four volumes; the third, which carried the sub-title Philosophical, in 1892, and the fourth, Secular, in 1897. Unlike the first three volumes, all published by the Presbyterian Committee of Publications, Richmond, Virginia, the final volume was published by Crescent Book House, Mexico, Missouri. In Vaughans view all the material in volumes 3 and 4 warranted publication in permanent form but, as he says in his Preface to volume 1, not all was suitable for publication under the name of the denomination to which the two men belonged. The original sub-titles to the third and fourth volumes are somewhat misleading for they contain not a little which is primarily neither philosophical nor secular. There is much in them that is of direct biblical importance, as well as biographical matter of a spiritual nature. At the same time, it has to be admitted that there is a considerable amount of material in volumes three and four relating to political, historical and philosophical themes which can scarcely claim to possess any general importance today. In this present volume we have therefore brought together from the original volumes three and four those articles which, as it appears to us, possess enduring value and relevance. In the last hundred years the cause of historic Christianity has lacked men who, upon the basis of biblical foundations, were able to challenge the assumptions and claims of those schools of thought which were seeking to secularize educated men and women. It was a lack which had profound consequences, for the influence of those schools held sway in considerable measure because the Church at large retreated from the duty of advancing those principles which alone could effectively contest the movement towards unbelief. Robert Lewis Dabney did not flinch in that duty. Perhaps the consciousness of his relative isolation in defending the truth led him to speak at times with an energy needlessly severe and, certainly, as with all uninspired men, he could not always distinguish exactly between his own inherited prejudices of upbringing and the unchanging revelation of Scripture. Nonetheless the massive strength of Dabneys argumentation, over the wide field of subjects covered in this volume, is their close-knit relation to the Bible. All he asks is to

be tested by Scripture. He passionately believed that once the authority of God is rejected in political, social and educational fields, the well-being of men and nations cannot long continue. From the historical material contained an these pages we have omitted Dabneys lecture on Stonewall Jackson for the reason that Dabneys fullest portrait of that military leader and eminent Christian is best obtained from his large volume, The Life and Campaigns of Lieut-Cen. Thomas J Jackson, 1865, a book reprinted as recently as 1976 (Sprinkle Publications, Harrisonburg, Virginia). But we have retained Dabneys Memorial Sermon on Jackson entitled True Courage. In a brief Preface to the final volume of Dabneys Discussions S. B. Ervin wrote, He who has all these volumes has a reservoir of intellectual and spiritual food seldom equalled in the writings of any one man. The reappearance of the material brought together in this volume may substantiate that judgment. Iain Murray The Banner of Truth Trust, 3 Murrayfield Road Edinburgh September 9, 1981

Contents
SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS THE STANDARD OF ORDINATION THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL CIVIC ETHICS GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM IMPOSED UPON VIRGINIA BY THE UNDERWOOD CONSTITUTION SECULARIZED EDUCATION LABOR UNIONS, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE NATURE CANNOT REVOLUTIONIZE NATURE LATEST INFIDELITY, A REPLY TO INGERSOLLS POSITION THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY POPISH LITERATURE AND EDUCATION THE INFLUENCE OF FALSE PHILOSOPHIES UPON CHARACTER AND CONDUCT MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D.D. TRUE COURAGE. A MEMORIAL SERMON ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL T. J. JACKSON, JUNE, 1863 A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON OF THE THIRD VIRGINIA CAVALRY, C.S.A.