Homiletics: Classification of Divisions - William Paxton (1824 - 1904)

00:00:00 Topical Divisions
00:23:48 Textual Divisions
This lecture comes from Paxton's Homiletics (preaching) class at Princeton Seminary. The 'classification of divisions' refers to different structures for dividing and ordering sermons. He supplies a taxonomy for analysis of both topical and textual sermons. The lecture refers to other lectures from this class which were never published.
When B. B. Warfield delivered the memorial message for William M. Paxton in Miller Chapel at Princeton Seminary he said of his friend and colleague that “Dr. Paxton’s power always lay more in what he was than in what he did, and the best of all sermons was the sermon he preached by his life” (236). What an assessment of his fellow faculty member from the Lion of Princeton. Dr. Warfield had witnessed many of the twenty years Paxton taught and during the course of the memorial message it is clear that his fond memories were multiplied by those of many other Princetonians.
William Miller Paxton was born of Scots-Irish descent in Adams County, Pennsylvania June 7, 1824. His father, Col. James Dunlop Paxton worked manufacturing iron at Maria Furnace and his mother was a daughter of the Hon. William Miller. When Mrs. Paxton suffered an extended period of poor health, Col. Paxton moved the family to be near her family. Young William was educated locally before attending the recently established Pennsylvania College (currently Gettysburg College) where he graduated in 1843 with the intention of studying law. He chose to live at Caledonia Iron Works so he could read law with Judge George Chambers of Chambersburg. However, when William professed faith in Christ and united with the Falling Spring Presbyterian Church in 1845, it appears he concurrently perceived God’s call to the ministry. The next month he was taken under care of the Presbytery of Carlisle before moving to Princeton, New Jersey, for ministerial education.
William Paxton’s fellow students observed their classmate’s practices and commented that he was an industrious and painstakingly persistent student. He worked many hours at his studies and was an especially gifted, organized, and disciplined speaker. Later in life, he said of his student years at the seminary that
The class to which I belonged heard Dr. Archibald Alexander’s lectures upon Didactic Theology as well as those of Dr. Hodge. Dr. Hodge gave us a subject with massive learning, in its logical development, in its beautiful balance and connection with the whole system. Dr. Alexander would take the same subject and pierce it with a javelin, and let the light shine through it. His aim was to make one point and nail it fast (219).
Paxton studied to be a preacher but as Warfield observed he had a particular type of pulpit ministry in mind because “the real end of his study of doctrine was that he might become a doctrinal preacher.” But Paxton did not want to be what he described as “a theological grinder” whose procedure involved crushing and pulverizing truth between two logical millstones, and then presenting it grain by grain as if the bread of heaven was scarce.”(219-20). It was most important in Paxton’s thinking that he communicate Scripture with simplicity and doctrinal precision while maintaining sensitivity to the unique requirements of any congregation to which he preached (i.e. a simpler message for a congregation with less education, etc.).
He was diligent and skilled in his preparation and delivery of sermons, so much so that when he completed studies at Princeton there were several churches that showed interest in calling him as pastor. However, he returned to the area of Pennsylvania he was most familiar with when he went to the Greencastle Church immediately after graduating seminary in 1848 and was ordained and installed in October. He was succeeding T. V. Moore who had recently moved to First Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia. From Greencastle Paxton relocated to the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh beginning in January 1851. During his ministry, church membership nearly doubled. The seminary was struggling for funds, so he provided his services without salary for his entire tenure from 1860 to 1872.
Homiletics: Classification of Divisions - William Paxton (1824 - 1904)
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