The Natural and Dissoluble Connection Between Learning and Religion

A strenuous supporter at the founding of the University of North Carolina, Rev. McCorkle of Salisbury stressed the connection of learning and religion, and knew that morality formed the basis of education. This put him at odds with Northern Jacobin Thomas Paine and the latter’s affinity for French revolutionaries who were intent upon the destruction of the Church.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
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“The ablest of all the North Carolina theologians, preachers and lecturers of his day was the noted Presbyterian divine, educator, and promoter of higher education, the Rev. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, of Salisbury and Thyatira. During the last decade of the century he published at his own expense upwards of two score sermons and addresses, issued singly or in sets of three or four together. They begin with A Sermon on Sacrifices (Halifax, 1792), include one of a very quaint title, The Angel’s Seal Set Upon God’s Faithful Servants when Hurtful Winds are Blowing in the Church Militant, and end with Three Discourses on the Terms of Christian Communion (Salisbury, 1799).

In his discourse entitled A Charity Sermon (Halifax, 1795), frequently delivered in 1793, in Salisbury and other places in Rowan [county], at the opening of the Presbyterian Synod, and before the General Assembly at Fayetteville, McCorkle gives an exhaustive analysis of the instinct of charity, with numerous quotations and citations: Holy bible, Sallust, Vattel, Becarria, Paley, Jonathan Edwards, Blau, Doddridge, Beattie, Reid. Stating that the sermon was prepared with a “design to solicit Benefactions for the University of North Carolina,” he observes further on:

“The two English universities [Oxford and Cambridge] have been called the eyes of the nation, the lights of the church and state, and prodigious have been their influence both in politics and religion. They have arrived at a mature age. Ours is the infant of a day. It is just raising its feeble hands, and stretching them out. The one it holds out to the church, and the other to the nations. Let the ministers both of justice and mercy take it by the hand. It will one day, by the Patronage of Heaven, reward us all.”

In addressing the General Assembly at Fayetteville, in November, 1793, he made the earnest plea: “The truth is, human science has promoted religion, liberty, national wealth and national glory. Promote her, then, O my country, and she will promote thee. Exalt her, and she will bring thee to honour.”

Upwards of half of McCorkle’s published sermons were directed against the blight of deism, preached by Paine in his Age of Reason and given immense vogue by the French Revolution. I his Four Discourses (Salisbury, 1797) McCorkle makes a detailed argument for the first principles of revelation against those of deism and draws the succinct conclusions:

1. Deism to me is wholly mysterious;

2. In deism I see every possible kind of contradiction;

3. In deism I see nothing but imbecility;

4. Deism is local and partial, and can never be otherwise.

A deeply gratified sense of attainment must have filled the being of this wise and benignant patriarch on that bright October 12, 1793, when the cornerstone of the first university building, the “Old East,” was laid by William Richardson Davie, and he himself preached the dedicatory sermon. Stressing the natural and indissoluble connection between learning and religion, the pious orator quoted the scriptural admonition:

“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

Taking a cue from Jefferson’s revolutionary phrase, “the pursuit of happiness,” McCorkle asserted that the aim of good government and religion is to diffuse the greatest possible degree of happiness, which depends upon national wealth and national glory. The last are attained through liberty and good laws which in their turn “call for the general knowledge in the people, and extensive knowledge in the ministers of the state, and these in fine demand public places of education.”

(North Carolina, The Old North State and the New, Volume I, Archibald Henderson, Lewis Publishing Company, 1941, pp. 608-611)
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Natural Connection Between Learning & Religion