Robert Jefferson Breckinridge
Robert Jefferson Breckinridge [1]
an eminent Presbyterian minister, was born at Cabell's Dale, Kentucky, March 8, 1800. He pursued his early studies successively in Princeton, Yale, and Union Colleges, and graduated at the latter in 1819. He then studied law, and practised in Kentucky eight years. In. 1829 he united with the Second Church, Lexington. In October 1832, he was ordained pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, in which charge he remained during thirteen. years, and rose to eminence as an eloquent preacher. In 1845 he accepted the presidency of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, and with the duties of this office he supplied the pulpit of a church in a neighboring village. In 1847 he returned to Kentucky, and became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at Lexington, and was also State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
He resigned this charge and his pastorate in 1853, having been elected by the General Assembly professor of exegetic, didactic, and polemic theology in the seminary at Danville, which office he retained until December 1, 1869, when he resigned. While in Baltimore he edited the Literary and Religious Magazine, and the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century. During hiis visit to Europe, in 1835, he purchased and transmitted to this country a large amount of rare and valuable literature, and through this means he contended successfully for the principles of the Protestant Reformation against the Roman Catholics of Baltimore. He died in, Danville, December 27, 1871. He published, Travels in Europe (2 volumes): — Presbyterian Government not a Hierarchy, but a Commonwealth: — Presbyterian Ordination not a Charm, but an Act of Government: — The Christian Pastor one of the Ascension-gifts of Christ. In 1851 he delivered his elaborate discourse on the Internal Evidences of Christianity, before the University of Virginia; in 1852 he published a tract, On the Use of Instrumental Music in Public Worship; and in 1857-58, his most important work, Theology, Objectively and Subjectively Considered (2 volumes). He was eminently conservative in theology and church polity. See Index to Princeton Review, 1825-1868.
