Samuel Stanhope Smith, Moral Philosophy, and Revivalist Piety
Samuel
Stanhope Smith is an intriguing figure mentioned in The Life of Archibald
Alexander, D.D., First Professor in the Theological Seminary, at Princeton, New
Jersey. Seventh President of the College of New Jersey, which is now known
as Princeton University, Smith was a Presbyterian minister who was known for drawing
upon the ideals of Scottish Enlightenment and Thomas Reid’s Common Sense
philosophy.[1] Yet at the same time, he was emotionally and
professionally committed to the Presbyterian faith and believed that there was
no real opposition between science and religion.[2]
Both Smith and Archibald Alexander, who was the founding professor of the
Princeton Theological Seminary, experienced the Second Great Awakening and
revivalist movement of the early 19th century. However, Alexander was
considered more orthodox and a moderate Presbyterian pietist than his older
counterpart, Smith.[3] It
is within this context that Smith’s moral philosophy and Alexander’s revivalist
piety clashed.[4]
Smith
was born on March 16, 1750 in Pequea, Pennsylvania to the Reverend Robert
Smith, a celebrated Presbyterian preacher and superintendent of the Pequea Academy,
and Elizabeth Blair, daughter of Reverend Samuel Blair and sister to two preachers.[5]
He attended The College of New Jersey where he excelled in mathematics and
languages and graduated valedictorian in 1769.[6]
After graduation, he continued his seminary studies with his father and then
with John Witherspoon, University President and Presbyterian minister. During
this time, he began to develop the moral philosophy for which he was known.[7]
He taught and preached until 1795 when he eventually succeeded Witherspoon as
president.[8]
In
Princeton and the Republic, 1768-1822: The Search for a Christian
Enlightenment in the Era of Samuel Stanhope Smith, Mark Noll described
Stanhope Smith’s moral philosophy as being founded on four principles:
that philosophy in a Newtonian mode yielded rewards as rich for
the moral world as the physical world; that human nature was a source of
experience from which moral laws could be formed; that moral principles
influenced social life directly; and that the results of moral principles could
be harmonized with an enlightened interpretation of biblical religion.[9]
Noll
also identified that Smith’s Lectures on Moral and Political Philosophy
provided ample support for the first three principles and his Sermons allowed
for the notion that reason and biblical religion were not necessarily in
opposition to each other.[10]
Smith was aware that his ideas were upsetting to revivalists and the
Presbyterian orthodoxy. In his other publications, Lectures on the Evidences
of the Christian Religion and A Comprehensive View of the Leading and
Most Important Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, he defended the
idea of revelation, which some viewed as an attempt to contradict his critics
about his lack of orthodoxy.[11]
Smith
is first mentioned in chapter four of The Life of Archibald Alexander as
the brother of Dr. Robert Smith.[12]
Later, Alexander recalled meeting Dr. Smith at a Presbyterian General Assembly
in Philadelphia in 1791 and described him as “a person whom I must still
consider the most elegant I ever saw. The beauty of his countenance, the clear
and vivid complexion, the symmetry of his form and the exquisite finish of his
dress, were such as to strike the beholder at first sight.”[13]
He met him again during commencement at Princeton several years later and
commented “The tones of his elocution had a thrilling peculiarity, and this was
more remarkable in his preaching, where it is well known that he imitated the
elaborate polish and oratorical glow of the French school.”[14]
Despite
his admiration of Smith’s elegance and demeanor, Alexander and others in the
Presbyterian Church were critical of Smith’s moral philosophy that emphasized
tenets of rationality and the Enlightenment. Alexander and other revivalists indirectly
criticized Smith by faulting Princeton for emphasizing the physical sciences,
an education that Alexander said appeared “to be little adapted to introduce a youth to the
duty of the sacred Scriptures” and furnished few preachers.[15]
In doing so, Alexander was calling for revived piety and theological training
in higher education, which he did not think Smith was providing at Princeton
with his moral philosophy and emphasis on scientific study.[16]
In 1812, Smith submitted his resignation as president, in part because of the
opposition he experienced from the Presbyterian Church.[17] Despite this clash over piety, Alexander admired him to the end and wrote that although “The days of Dr.
Smith’s activity were nearly ended,…. [h]e was celebrated for his acquaintance
with elegant letters, for the eloquences of his pulpit discourses, and for the
matchless courtliness of his manners.”[18]
[1]. Charles
Bradford Bow. “Samuel Stanhope Smith and Common Sense Philosophy at Princeton,”
Journal of Scottish Philosophy 8, no. 2 (September 2010): 192,
https://doi.org/10.3366/jsp.2010.0006.
[2]. William H.
Hudnut, “Samuel Stanhope Smith: Enlightened Conservative,” Journal of the
History of Ideas 17, no. 4 (1956): 540, https://doi.org/10.2307/2707787.
[3]. L. Gordon
Tait, review of Facing the Enlightenment and Pietism: Archibald Alexander
and the Founding of Princeton Theological Seminary, by Lefferts A.
Loetscher, Church History 53, no. 3 (1984): 404,
https://doi.org/10.2307/3166302.
[4]. Charles
Bradford Bow, “‘Jacobins’ at
Princeton: Student Riots, Religious Revivalism, and the Decline of
Enlightenment, 1800-1817," Modern Intellectual History
13, no. 1 (04, 2016): 118,
http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/docview/1771799608?accountid=12085.
[5]. "An
Account of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith," The
Analectic Magazine 1 (1820), 444-445; McLachlan, Princetonians, 1748-1768.
[6]. “An Account
of the Life and Writings," The Analectic Magazine, 446-447.
[12]. James W. Alexander,
The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D., First Professor in the Theological
Seminary, at Princeton, New Jersey (Philadelphia, Presbyterian Board of
Publication, 1855), 53, http://archive.org/details/lifeofarchibalda185500alex.
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