Robert Jefferson Breckinridge - Religious Conversion and Ministry

Religious Conversion and Ministry

Throughout his time in the General Assembly, Breckinridge had battled with typhoid fever. In an 1828 letter to his wife, who was visiting relatives in Virginia, he recounted that he had been bedridden and near death for two months. Finally, in February 1829, the illness subsided. Only then could he be told about the death of his daughter, Louisiana, which had occurred a month earlier. The illness, combined with the news of the death of his daughter, caused Breckinridge turn to religion. In spring 1829, he made a public profession of his faith, and in 1831, he hosted a revival meeting on his farm during which he decided to pursue ministerial training under the West Lexington Presbytery. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister on April 5, 1832.

Breckinridge served as a Ruling Elder at the Presbyterian General Assembly of 1832, then relocated to Princeton, New Jersey to study under Samuel Miller at Princeton Theological Seminary. In November 1832, he succeeded his brother John as pastor of Second Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, Maryland. His tenure saw numerous converts, but he was put at odds with his brother and Samuel Miller over practices employed in his church. His counselors were also concerned that he was wavering on his belief in the doctrine of limited atonement. Eventually, he was persuaded back into the doctrines of the orthodox Calvinism and became one of the leaders of the Old School Presbyterian movement.

Now solidly in the Presbyterian fold, Breckinridge began to follow in the footsteps of his brother John, criticizing Roman Catholicism in a number of his speeches and publications. He sponsored and edited two "thoroughly Protestant" journals – the Baltimore Literary and Religious magazine and the Spirit of the XIX Century. A year-long tour of Europe with his wife that began in April 1836 deepened his disdain for the denomination; he opined that most of the continent's ills could be traced back to Catholic "superstitions." A particularly harsh missive against a Catholic who worked in the county almshouse drew an indictment for libel in 1840. The trial ended in a hung jury that voted 10–2 in favor of acquittal. Though displeased that he could not obtain a unanimous acquittal, Breckinridge continued undaunted. In 1841, he published several of his anti-Catholic articles as Papism in the XIX Century in the United States.

Breckinridge was equally controversial in internal church politics. He rebuked the Synod of the Western Reserve for de-emphasizing and effectively abandoning the office of Ruling Elder. He also condemned the governance of Presbyterian missionaries by anyone other than the Presbyterian church. In 1834, he was the chief author of the Act and Testimony, a document summarizing the contentions between the Old and New Schools. The New School resented Breckinridge and those who signed the Act and Testimony, and even some in the Old School camp had hoped for a more moderate course. The differences between the Old and New Schools widened over the teachings of Albert Barnes, and the New School members were ejected from the Presbyterian Church in 1837. Because of his leadership in the Old School-New School controversy, Breckinridge was rewarded by being elected moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1841.