Duffield, George. Spiritual Life: or, Regeneration, illustrated in a Series of Disquisitions, relative to its Author, Subject, Nature, Means, &c. Carlisle, [PA]: Printed by George Fleming, 1832. First Edition. [10409]
Full brown leather with red leather spine title label, joints cracked with the front cover weakly attached, rear end papers good and holding the back cover in place. 8 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches, small black label on spine with "T. Creigh" in gilt and encircled by gilt wreath. His signature also on the ffep & title page. Bottom of title page margin torn with loss, not touching any text. xii., 613 pp., errata leaf at end. Text has light to moderate foxing throughout, some words corrected in brown ink, occasional marginalia. Rear paste-down full of notes in pencil. Fair. Hardcover.
The previous owner, Thomas Creigh (1808-1880), born in Carlisle, Pa; a Presbyterian minister educated at Dickinson College of his hometown, and afterwards at Princeton Seminary. He bought this book at the beginning of his public ministry, as pastor of the Mercersburg Presbyterian Church.
The dedication is to Duffield's parishioners, in which he apologizes for previously preaching Calvinism, or "a philosophy imbibed in his theological education," which he says he has for some years repudiated. This 613-page theological work claims to follow facts, and not theories, based upon divine revelation.
This book was deemed controversial and was investigated by the Presbytery of Carlisle. It was a key factor in the split of the Presbyterian Church into New School and Old School factions. Duffield herein rejects the Calvinistic theory of regeneration and proposes a theory that he deemed to be more biblical. He himself, in his defense to Presbytery, claimed to still adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith. It appears to us that Duffield is following the path first promoted one hundred years before this book was written, a path that takes nature as equal or almost equal with written revelation, and attempts to understand the scriptures by the light of nature, rejecting anything that is deemed unreasonable. This path eventually led the New England Congregational churches to substitute morality for regeneration, and Unitarianism for Trinitarianism.
"...in illustrating the facts which it has pleased God to make known to us in the sacred scriptures, we shall deem it perfectly lawful to avail ourselves of all the light which may be obtained through the analogy of His works. While we magnify revelation...we are nevertheless far from exalting it as contrary to the established order of nature. There is a beautiful harmony between them, as being alike the offspring of the same bounteous parent, and they serve often to illustrate each other...it is perfectly reasonable to expect that the same God who presides over both, and is the author of both, should have maintained an essential concord between them. He does not frame His moral constitutions at variance with His physical." pp. 4-5.
Duffield insists upon the superiority of the scriptures, but opens the door to understanding them from the material world. This same door, once opened in the 18th century with a Lockean key, reduced the authority of the Bible among the Congregational clergy, which within two generations saw the loss of Harvard College and most parishes to Unitarianism.
George Duffield, D.D. (1794-1868), b. Strasburg, Pennsylvania.; d. Detroit, Michigan. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and studied theology with Rev. John M. Mason of NYC; Duffield was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Pennsylvania in 1815, and was for nineteen years the pastor of a church at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “There he wrote and published a book entitled ‘Regeneration,’ which caused some of the controversy leading to the Old School - New School controversy that split the church in 1837.”
Duffield at first was sympathetic towards the revivalist Charles Finney and his methods, and was Finney’s successor at the Broadway Tabernacle Church in New York City. After Duffield’s move to the First Presbyterian Church of Detroit, Duffield began to oppose Finney in print, in which both men exchanged views critical of the other.
In 1842 Duffield published Dissertations on the Prophecies relative to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, in which he took a strong premillennial position regarding prophecies.
“He was for many years pastor of Presbyterian Churches in Philadelphia, New York, and Detroit, and was an active leader of the New School movement.” – M’Clintock & Strong.
