Somewhere in the PCA, a pastor is preparing for Sunday with a book by British preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Hundreds of American Presbyterians reach for “the Doctor” to help their preaching. Lloyd-Jones, however, reached for an American Presbyterian to help him — Samuel Davies. He urged preachers to read Davies, and he told American audiences Davies was “the greatest preacher you have ever produced in this country.”
In another corner of our denomination, saints will gather for worship on Sunday. They might stand, turn to hymn 82 in the red “Trinity Hymnal” and joyfully sing, “Who is a pard’ning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free? Or who has grace so rich and free?” The hymn, “Great God of Wonders!” was written by Samuel Davies, described as “the first hymn writer of any moment in America.”
On Wednesday night, a church will meet for prayer. After the meeting, you could probably find a precocious covenant child to tell you who spoke the famous words, “Give me liberty, or give me death” -– the great orator of the American Revolution, Patrick Henry. As a boy, Henry’s mother took him to hear Samuel Davies preach. “Henry…declared Davies to be the greatest orator he had ever heard.”
Samuel Davies died in 1761 at the age of 37. He is little known today, even among American Presbyterians like us who share his evangelical convictions. But in his own time, he was a giant: a colleague and correspondent of Whitefield, Edwards, and the Wesleys, known throughout the Atlantic world as a powerful preacher of the awakening gospel. In less than 14 years of ordained ministry, he preached internationally, wrote dozens of spiritual hymns and poems, championed religious toleration, evangelized slaves and native Americans, secured the financial future of Princeton University, and birthed the presbytery that birthed the denomination that birthed the PCA.
Though his name is largely forgotten, Davies’ ministry continues to shape Presbyterianism in America.
Samuel Davies was born to pious parents in the “Welsh Tract” of Newcastle County, Delaware, on November 3, 1723. The family attended a local Baptist church until moving to a Presbyterian church when Samuel was about 9 years old.
He said of his childhood, “I am a son of prayer, like my name-sake Samuel the prophet; and my mother called me Samuel because, she said, I have asked him of the LORD…This early dedication to God has always been a strong inducement to me to devote myself to Him by my own personal act; and the most important blessings of my life I have looked upon as immediate answers to the prayers of a pious mother.”
At 15, in answer to his mother’s prayers, Samuel testified to a change of heart. He was awakened “to solemn thoughtfulness, and anxious concern about his eternal state…and the direful effects of divine displeasure against sin.” A contemporary said that Davies began a habit of secret prayer in the evenings, and that “he feared lest he should perhaps die before morning.” He also prayed, following his mother, that God would prepare and fit him for the ministry.
Such was the ordinary beginning of Samuel Davies’ extraordinary Christian life: a covenant child raised in a loving, God-fearing home, drawn to Christ through praying parents and gospel churches.
Around the time of his spiritual awakening, and after years of schooling in various places, Davies moved to Faggs Manor Classical School in Chester County, Pennsylvania to study under Samuel Blair. Blair’s school was one of the “log colleges,” established by pro-awakening Presbyterians (part of the New School or “New Lights”) to serve the middle colonies as an alternative to Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary. Davies did not have enough money to attend, but a generous unsolicited gift secured his place at Faggs Manor.
Unbeknownst to the young Davies, his years under Blair contained three important threads that would run throughout his ministry. The first thread was the College of New Jersey (later named Princeton University). Blair studied at the original Log College under William Tennent at Neshaminy Creek in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The Log College provided the nucleus of the College of New Jersey, which Davies would go on to serve as international fundraiser and president.
The second was New Light Presbyterianism. American Presbyterians divided in 1741 into two factions — Old Light and New Light -– primarily over attitudes toward the revivals of the First Great Awakening. Blair was a New Light minister, and Davies followed in his footsteps, becoming one of the most renowned New Light preachers in colonial America.
The third thread was Davies’ health. By the end of his studies at Faggs Manor, Davies was in a “very delicate” state. The physical trials he experienced as a student lingered throughout his brief earthly life and led to his untimely death in 1761.
Following his studies, the Presbytery of New Castle licensed Davies on July 30, 1746. He married Sarah Kirkpatrick three months later, on October 23. The presbytery ordained him as an evangelist February 19, 1747, and he preached throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, before visiting Hanover, Virginia, for a six-week supply assignment.
His auspicious beginnings in ministry were quickly and painfully interrupted by tragedy at home. On September 15, 1747, less than one year after his marriage to Sarah, he was “separated from her by Death & bereaved of an abortive Son.” At 23, the infirm minister had buried his young wife and infant child. Davies, bereaved, left Virginia and returned to New Castle in poor health, “in melancholy and consumptive languishments, expecting death.”
Mercifully, his expectations were mistaken. After a year of convalescence and scattered supply preaching, his health began to rally. In 1748, he received a call, signed by more than 100 heads of families, asking him to return to Hanover to serve as their settled pastor. He accepted. His health was so precarious that his parents decided to accompany him to Virginia. Fellow Faggs Manor student John Rodgers also joined him, planning to serve as his assistant.
When Davies arrived, the Church of England was the established church of Virginia. What did this mean? Historian Rhys Isaac explained, “each person, except for those who formally dissented (and they were very few in the settled parts before mid-century), was deemed a member of ‘the Church of England as by law established.’ All were required to attend divine service at least once in four weeks, under penalty of a fine of five shillings or fifty pounds of tobacco, for failure to comply.”
As a Presbyterian, Davies was a dissenter, someone who did not conform to the Church of England establishment. The colony tolerated dissenters and allowed them to preach under certain circumstances, but only with a license from the governor. Davies obtained a license from Governor Gooch to preach in four churches. However, the colonial court refused to give Rodgers a license, leaving Davies to serve this vast field alone.
Davies differed from the prevailing establishment in doctrine, polity, and piety. As a New Light, Davies championed the new birth, the zealous cultivation of holiness, and close personal communion with God. These commitments put him at odds with many in Virginia, where “family prayers were unusual,” Isaac notes. “Custom and the law required attendance once in four weeks at church, but neither were strict concerning regularity, so that the cycle of the week…was marked more certainly by a day of rest and conviviality than by prayerful devotions.”
Isaac observed that among the Anglican gentry, “religious piety was considered appropriate only for the old and for those approaching death,” and “generally speaking none went to the [communion] table, except a few of the more aged.” Isaac concluded, “A fundamental incompatibility existed between the humbling, soul-searching culture of the New Lights and the proud, assertive culture of the gentry and their adherents.” Some Virginians further disliked New Lights for their itinerant preaching, accusing them of sheep stealing from the established church or seeking financial gain from multiple congregations.
Davies the dissenter navigated the official authority and the informal-but-influential social dynamics of the established church for his entire ministry in Virginia. He did not, however, work to overthrow the establishment. Nor did he argue for complete religious freedom (i.e. the absence of any state preference or support for a particular religion or denomination). In fact, he supported the settlement of a Church of England bishop in the colonies, hoping that a bishop might discipline errant Anglican clergy in America.
Rather, Davies was content to work within the confines created by the established church in order to preach the gospel. He said, “in all the sermons I have preached in Virginia, I have not wasted one minute in exclaiming against the peculiarities of the established Church. …I have matters of infinitely greater importance to exert my zeal, and spend my time and strength upon …. ’Tis the conversion and salvation of men I aim to promote; and genuine Christianity, under whatever form it appears, never fails to charm my heart.”
Davies’ willingness to submit to the prevailing church-state arrangement should not be mistaken for passivity. He fought doggedly for the rights of non-conformists, arguing that the 1689 Act of Toleration, which protected dissenters in England, applied in the colonies. If dissenters like him obtained the required licenses and obeyed the appropriate laws, they should be free, he argued, to preach and worship according to conscience. Though not trained in the law, his work on behalf of dissenters gave him a reputation for legal acumen. Upon seeing Davies, one of his opponents reportedly said, “There goes a capital lawyer spoiled.”
Cooperative spirit and legal advocacy were for Davies a means to his primary end: to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the field into which God sent him was white for harvest. Prior to Davies’ arrival, the winds of religious awakening had blown through Hanover. Almost spontaneously, members of the community began to take their souls seriously. They developed a taste for religious reading, including Luther’s commentary on Galatians and the printed sermons of George Whitefield. They met together in the home of a local bricklayer to discuss spiritual matters and to pray. Davies began pastoring the Hanover congregations in May 1748, and the people heard him gladly.
The Lord soon provided another blessing. On October 4, 1748, Davies was again married, this time to Jane Holt, whom he affectionately called “Chara.” The couple had six children, five of whom survived to adulthood. The loving husband and father wrote poems for his wife and children and served as the children’s teacher.
He told his brother-in-law in 1751, “I am as happy as perhaps the Creation can make me: I enjoy all the Necessaries and most of the Conveniences of Life; I have a peaceful Study, as a Refuge from the Hurries and Noise of the World around me; the venerable Dead are waiting in my Library to entertain me…I am peculiarly happy in my Relations, and Providence does not afflict me by afflicting them…I very much question if there can be a more calm, placid and contented Mortal in Virginia.”
One domestic burden did unsettle his calm placidity: his young children’s unbelief. Of the five living children, Davies reported that only one daughter “expressed serious concern in matters of religion.” He wrote, “but I am not so happy as to see them under deep and lasting impressions of religion; and this is the greatest grief they afford me. Grace cannot be communicated by natural descent; and if it could, they would receive but little from me.”
When Samuel Davies died in 1761, his oldest child could not have been older than 12. It may well be that God communicated his grace to Davies’ children after Davies left them for heaven.
Under the blessing of God, Davies’ ministry flourished, and people came from distant parts to hear him preach. In November 1748, he received a license to preach in three more locations, giving him seven preaching stations in five counties across 80 or 90 miles of territory. The Established church had eight clergymen covering the same territory.
Church historian Earnest Trice Thompson wrote, “Davies now had seven preaching points, none closer together than twelve or fifteen miles. Some of his parishioners had to travel thirty or forty miles to reach the nearest meetinghouse. In addition to serving these seven preaching points, Davies made frequent missionary excursions into the territory south and southwest of Hanover. One summer, in a two months period, he rode five hundred miles on horseback, and preached forty times.” He acquired one more license in 1749, making him responsible for eight congregations.
In 1751, Davies estimated about 300 communicants across his various dissenting congregations. Feeling the need for help, he invited another minister to join him in Virginia — Jonathan Edwards. The famous preacher-theologian had recently completed his ministry in Northampton, Massachusetts. But by the time Edwards received Davies’ invitation, he had already begun working among natives at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and he was not able to accept. What might that ministry team have been?
Still, Davies persevered, continuing to minister across Virginia with preaching at the heart of his ministry. His aim in preaching was simple, “to bring perishing sinners to heaven.” He wrote to the Bishop of London, “to preach repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ – To alarm secure impenitents; to reform the profligate; to undeceive the hypocrite; to raise up the hands that hang down, and to strengthen the feeble knees; – These are the doctrines I preach, these are the ends I pursue. …’Tis the conversion and salvation of men I aim to promote.”
This aim in preaching set Davies apart from many of his contemporaries. So did his content. He wrote, “I cannot help thinking that they who generally entertain their hearers with languid harangues on morality or insipid speculations, omitting or but slightly touching upon the glorious doctrines of the gospel… such as the corruption of human nature in its present lapsed state; the nature and necessity of regeneration, and of divine influences to effect it; the nature of saving faith, evangelical repentance …. I cannot, I say, help thinking that they who omit, pervert or but slightly hint at these and the like doctrines, are not likely to do much service to the souls of men.”
Davies did not traverse Virginia to entertain, moralize, or speculate. He preached “to do…service to the souls of men.” Davies understood that to perform such service, he must preach the glorious doctrines of the gospel. Such is the preaching the Holy Spirit loves to bless. And the Spirit’s blessing was evident. A regular visitor to Hanover said, “when I go amongst Mr. Davies people, religion seems to flourish; it is like the suburbs of Heaven.”
Davies’ preaching distinguished itself not only for its content, but also for its delivery. His preaching was described as “plain and pungent, peculiarly adapted to pierce the conscience and affect the heart.” Preaching to his presbytery in 1752, he called the fathers and brothers “to strike a balance between ‘the wild reveries of enthusiasm,’” which marked more extreme New Lights, and “the droning heaviness and serene Stupidity” of Old Lights or Anglicans who opposed revival.
His holy Christian character animated his delivery. Davies longed for a closer walk with God. “As for myself, I am just striving not to live in vain…. I have but little, very little, true religion. My advancements in holiness are extremely small…[and] to maintain a secret walk with God, to be holy as he is holy, this is the labour, this is the work.”
While discouraged by his own spiritual attainments, others were enriched by them. “The appeal of this young minister” one wrote, “stemmed largely from the outward manifestations of his character.”
Davies ministered to young and old, black and white and native. He said of the black church members, “Never have I been so struck with the appearance of an assembly…as when I have glanced my eye to that part of the meetinghouse where they usually sit…with so many black countenances eagerly attentive to every word they hear and frequently bathed in tears.”
By 1755 more than 300 enslaved blacks attended his church. He claimed to have baptized about one hundred of them. He taught them to read using books sent by the Wesleys. Davies himself owned slaves and did not oppose the institution. But he labored to teach them the gospel, even teaching some whose masters “have no religion at all, or are bigots.”
While Davies’ New Light ministry flourished in Virginia, the New-Light-aligned College of New Jersey struggled. The Synod of New York decided to seek financial support for the fledgling school among dissenters in Britain. The Synod selected Gilbert Tennent and Samuel Davies as representatives. Though reluctant to leave his family and church behind, Davies was persuaded of the mission’s importance and agreed to go.
He left tearfully on September 3, 1753, and was away for almost a year and a half. He spent five months in London and then traveled north to Edinburgh, Scotland. There, he implored the Church of Scotland General Assembly, “the Young Daughter of the Church of Scotland, helpless and exposed in this foreign land, cries to her tender and powerful Mother for relief.” The Assembly responded by ordering a collection at every church door in the kingdom and encouraging members to give generously.
In Scotland he met John Witherspoon, later president of the College of New Jersey. He heard Whitefield preach in London. He visited with John and Charles Wesley. It was a fruitful trip. According to one historian, “the mission not only helped to build a college, but it elevated Davies to a position in the first rank of the Anglo American religious leaders of his day…his eloquent and powerful preaching style won him widespread popularity in both England and Scotland and elicited many demands for published editions of his sermons.” After a treacherous return voyage which almost destroyed the ship and its passengers, Davies finally arrived home on February 15, 1755.
The Lord’s hand was upon Davies for good. Later the same year, the churches he served in Virginia formed Hanover Presbytery, the mother presbytery of Southern Presbyterianism. The new presbytery included five ministers who served a territory Davies once covered alone. Its first meeting was held at the Pole Green Church in Hanover County, Virginia on December 3, 1755. The presbytery elected Samuel Davies to serve as moderator.
Davies’ popularity was further enhanced by his patriotic support for the British in the French and Indian War. “Following the defeat of Braddock in the summer of 1755, the frontier counties were constantly exposed to the ravages of savage warfare. Many families were forced to take flight and some congregations… were scattered,” observed Wesley M. Gewehr. “More than once, his vigorous sermons gave his people new courage and shook them from their lethargy, for he made patriotism a part of the Christian’s religion and defending his country, a part of his duty.”
Davies charged his hearers to show themselves “men, Britons, and Christians” in the fight against the French and Indians. He asked, “Can Protestant Christianity expect quarters from heathen savages and French papists?” Sermons like “Religion and Patriotism: The Constituents of a Good Soldier” (1755), “Virginia’s Danger and Remedy” (1756), and “The Curse of Cowardice” (1758), “equated patriotism with Christianity.” Davies the preacher became “the colony’s best recruiting officer,” according to George William Pilcher.
After more than a decade of ministry in Hanover, God opened a different avenue for service, once again with the College of New Jersey. The College had been founded in 1746 by six alumni of Yale and one of Harvard. The original seven trustees soon added Log College men to the board. The college’s first three presidents – Jonathan Dickinson, Aaron Burr Sr., and Jonathan Edwards – had served for only a combined eleven years before each died in office.
The college invited Davies to become the fourth president in 1758, the same year that Old and New Lights reunited to form one Presbyterian church. Despite initial reluctance both from him and his presbytery, Davies eventually accepted. He arrived on campus on July 26, 1759. Sadly, Davies followed his predecessors in more than doctrine and piety. After less than 20 months on the job, he died on February 4, 1761. He was 37 years old.
Before he died, Samuel Davies requested Romans 14:7-8 as the text for his funeral sermon. It reads in part, “For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
He had lived his 37 years for the Lord, and now he was home with him. His mother, whose prayers and example had shaped this mighty gospel minister, received the terrible news of her son’s death with the same pious faith with which she had reared him. “There is the son of my prayers and my hopes” she reportedly said, “my only son, my only earthly supporter; but there is the will of God, and I am satisfied.”
Davies died days before completing his 14th year of ordained ministry. He faced opposition from Old Light Presbyterians and Establishment Anglicans and dealt with the excesses of his fellow New Lights. He buried one wife and two children, almost died at sea, and endured frequent infirmities. Yet his ministry blossomed with conversions, missionary zeal, warm piety, sacrificial mission to diverse audiences, and powerful preaching – not to mention the oratory, fundraising, poems, and hymns.
How did he do it? And how can we, whatever our callings, pursue and promote the same spiritual vibrancy in our beloved Church? Davies answered that question in his farewell sermon to the church at Hanover. He said to his dear congregation, “You have been the joy of my life, under all the discouragements and fatigues of my ministry; and to your prayers I owe the comfort and success I have had among you.”
God used the encouragement of a local church and their fervent prayers for divine blessing to unleash, in less than 14 years, one of the most consequential ministries in American history. The lessons to be learned from Davies’ life are legion. But if we are found on our knees, seeking the face of God and begging his blessing on the church, we will have learned the first, and perhaps the most important.
David T. Irving is the president and an assistant professor of church history and pastoral theology at Reformed Theological Seminary Jackson.
Suggested further reading:
“Revival and Revivalism” by Iain H. Murray
“Samuel Davies: Apostle of Dissent in Colonial Virginia” by George William Pilcher
“Presbyterians in the South, Volume One, 1607-1861” by Ernest Trice Thompson
“The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740-1790” by Wesley M. Gewehr
“Sermons of the Rev. Samuel Davies” (3 vols.) by Samuel Davies