Gardiner Spring

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Gardiner Spring (February 24, 1785, - August 18, 1873) was a Christian minister and prolific author of books on Christian theology.

Spring was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the eldest child of Rev. Samuel D. Spring, a chaplain in the American Revolutionary Army and a colleague and friend of President James Madison and Vice President Aaron Burr.

In his autobiography he calls himself a willful, selfish boy “who would brook no control.” He was tutored as a boy by Massachusetts Chief Justice Samuel Holden Parsons (1737-1789) attended Berwick Academy in Maine, and at the age of 15, entered Yale College. There, he was a classmate of John C. Calhoun and delivered the valedictory address at his commencement in 1805.

In 1806 he married Miss Susan Barney and moved to Bermuda where he worked as a teacher while studying law. He began to teach, and established an English school in Bermuda. He was admitted to the Bar in 1808, but abandoned the profession, against the wishes of his wife, after hearing a powerful sermon preached by Rev. John Mason of New Haven, Connecticut.

He attended Andover Theological Seminary from 1809 - 1810, and was called to preach at the Brick Presbyterian Church on Brookman Street in New York City in 1810. His entire ministerial career of 63 years was served at this post. He had declined other calls to the ministory in Masssachusetts and New Haven, Connecticut because they were not unanimous.

In 1861, during a conference of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Spring proposed several resolutions, which came to be known as the Gardiner Spring Resolutions of 1861, that required pastors and members of the church to swear political allegiance to the Federal government. The resolutions passed after several votes.

The resolutions, coming just one month after the start of the Civil War, effectively split the church into northern and southern denominations.

Spring was asked to assume the presidencies of Dartmouth and Hamilton Colleges, but declined these and other offers.

His style of preaching was said to be vigorous, simple, and interesting. He ignored everything vapory, florid, or whatever might produce transient excitement, basing his preaching altogether on the simple truth.

He wrote several books, including, "The Attraction of the Cross," "The Mercy Seat; or Thoughts Suggested by the Lord's Prayer," "First Things," " The Glory of Christ," "The Power of the Pulpit," "Short Sermons to the People," "The Obligations of the World to the Bible," "Memoirs of the Late Hannah L. Murray," "The Restoration of Israel," "Dissertation on the Rule of Faith," "The Doctrine of Election," "Essays on Christian Character," "The Mission of Sorrow," "Fragments from the Study of a Pastor," "The Bible, Not Man," "Pulpit Ministrations; or, Sabbath Readings, &c.,"

In 1866, after the 81-year-old was relieved of giving weekly sermons, he produced a two-volume autobiography, “Personal Reminiscences of the Life and Times of Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York."

He died in New York August 18, 1873 at the age of 89.

References

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