Who Was Archibald Alexander? Princeton Seminary's First Professor
Archibald Alexander was an American Presbyterian minister who lived from 1772 to 1851. He was converted as a teenager in the Virginia revivals, preached on the frontier, led Hampden-Sydney College, pastored in Philadelphia, and then in 1812 became the first professor of the new Princeton Theological Seminary. He taught there for almost forty years and trained a whole generation of American pastors, among them Charles Hodge. His best-known book, Thoughts on Religious Experience, is still one of the wisest books ever written on how God works in a human soul.
Here's a fuller look at his life, what he taught, and where to start reading him.
A boy in the Valley of Virginia
Alexander was born on April 17, 1772, in Rockbridge County, in the Valley of Virginia. His family were Scots-Irish Presbyterians. At about ten he was sent to study under William Graham at the academy near Lexington that later became Washington and Lee University. Graham was a demanding teacher and a serious thinker, and Alexander owed much of his mind to him.
Awakened in revival
As a teenager Alexander went to work as a tutor in a family's home. There, reading the Puritan John Flavel and talking with older Christians, he began to feel the weight of his sin. A revival was then moving through southern Virginia and the Valley, and in the meetings of those years he came to faith in Christ, around the age of seventeen.
That experience marked him for life. He had seen real conversion, and he had also seen excitement mistaken for grace. Much of his later writing tries to tell the two apart.
He was licensed to preach in 1791 and ordained in 1794. For several years he rode as a preacher among the churches of Charlotte and Prince Edward counties in Virginia.
College president and city pastor
In 1797 Alexander became president of Hampden-Sydney College, a small Presbyterian school in Virginia. He held the post until 1806, with a break along the way. In 1802 he married Janetta Waddel, daughter of James Waddel, a famous blind preacher of Virginia. Their sons included James Waddel Alexander and Joseph Addison Alexander, who both became professors at Princeton.
In 1807 he moved to Philadelphia as pastor of the Pine Street Presbyterian Church, and that same year he was moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. He used that platform to press for a school to train ministers properly.
Forty years at Princeton
When Princeton Theological Seminary opened in 1812, Alexander was its first professor. For a while he was nearly the whole faculty. He taught theology, Bible and pastoral care, and he was known for meeting students on Sunday afternoons for "conferences" on the Christian life, where he spoke from long experience about prayer, temptation, doubt and growth.
He wanted ministers who were both learned and godly. He wrote that faith has nothing to fear from careful thinking:
That faith which is weakened by discussion is mere prejudice, not true faith.
Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration, and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, The Importance of Ascertaining the True Canon
So he wrote books to defend the Bible: his Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration, and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, first published in a shorter form and enlarged in 1836, and The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained, on which books belong in Scripture and why.
But he never thought knowledge was enough by itself:
Men may possess unsanctified knowledge and be nothing the better for it, but they cannot grow in grace without increasing in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thoughts on Religious Experience, Growth in Grace
A pastor to the soul
Alexander's great gift was pastoral. In Thoughts on Religious Experience he drew on fifty years of watching people come to Christ and grow, stumble and come back. He wrote about children's faith, about how temperament and melancholy color a person's feelings, about the danger of trusting dreams, and about how believers face death. He was gentle with the struggling and searching with the self-deceived. He insisted that true faith shows itself in love:
It is necessary to insist on the fact that that faith which does not produce love and other holy affections is not a genuine faith.
Thoughts on Religious Experience, Erroneous Views of Regeneration; the Correct View
He also loved the history of revival. His Biographical Sketches of the Log College tell of William Tennent's simple school in Pennsylvania and the preachers it trained, men who led the Great Awakening among Presbyterians.
In his last years he wrote short tracts for the American Tract Society, plain pieces for ordinary readers that were gathered after his death as Practical Truths. He also prepared a volume of Practical Sermons to be read in families. He died at Princeton on October 22, 1851.
Why he's still read
Alexander stands at the head of what people call "Old Princeton," the line of Reformed theologians that ran through Charles Hodge to B. B. Warfield. But readers today come back to him for something simpler. He knew the human heart, and he knew the gospel, and he could bring the two together with great care. He's a wise guide for anyone who wonders, "Is my faith real?"
His son James W. Alexander wrote his father's life, drawing on his own memories and papers. The Life of Archibald Alexander is the fullest account and is free to read. For the son's own story, see who was James W. Alexander.
Where to start
TheWay Library has eight of his books. Start with Thoughts on Religious Experience. If you'd like something shorter in each sitting, read the short tracts in Practical Truths or a sermon at a time from Practical Sermons. For the Bible's story told straight through, try A History of the Israelitish Nation.
Our guide to Archibald Alexander's books explains all eight, and our collection of Archibald Alexander quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all his books on the Archibald Alexander author page.