In his first year of study at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, Robert L. Dabney met a man who would become his lifelong friend and counsellor. Described by Thomas Carey Johnson as a 'prince and great man in Israel’, Clement Read Vaughan would become Dabney's most intimate and enduring friend through years of ministry. ¹

Vaughan was born on July 15, 1827 in Charlotte County, Virginia. While we have very little detail about his early life and upbringing, we know that he was educated at Hampden Sydney College. While a student, Vaughan read a volume of sermons by the Reverend Moses Hoge, the first professor of theology at Hampden Sydney. Hoge's messages were alive with the vitality and power of biblical Christianity, and in due time, God was pleased to grant an awakening unto salvation to young Clement. As a result of his conversion and subsequent growth in grace, Vaughan sensed the call of God upon his life to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ, and he entered Union Seminary in 1845 at the age of eighteen.

At this time in the history of Southern Presbyterianism, the emphasis in the church was upon a Christianity that was decidedly orthodox and Calvinistic in character. The doctrines of grace were proclaimed with unction and power, and the 'whole counsel of God' was so expounded and applied from the pulpit that men were brought to acknowledge their sins before a holy God. The gospel compelled men to respond to God's mercies through the provision of Jesus Christ, and to look to him alone for salvation and growth in grace. The doctrine and truths that God was pleased to use in Vaughan's conversion from the reading of Hoge's sermons were not, therefore, merely academic in character or intellectual in nature. They were a summons to eternal life itself.

As a result, when Vaughan entered Union Seminary in 1845, his acquaintance with Calvinistic Christianity was both experiential and doctrinal. His experiences in seminary would only serve to strengthen and enhance this commitment to truth. At this time, Union was solidly 'old school' in its convictions and teaching. A vigorous commitment to the inerrancy and sufficiency to Scripture led to the teaching of doctrine as God's own authorised revelation to man. As such, it was to be believed, subscribed to, and practised. The Westminster Standards were regarded as precisely that, standards which accurately confessed the biblical faith as revealed by a sovereign God.

We may assume that Vaughan was significantly influenced by his teachers while at Union, and that he knew them well. The faculty at that time numbered but three faithful men, and the student body less than two dozen. Samuel B. Wilson was professor of systematic theology, and taught the great truths of the faith with spiritual grace and rigorous application.

It was here that Vaughan met Dabney, and there began a close and growing friendship that would endure until the latter's death in 1898. Their relationship possessed that special quality which allows for free and mutual communication. Of both men it was said that they could freely unburden themselves to each other. As such, the relationship could perhaps be likened to that between David and Jonathan in the degree of intimacy and objectivity that existed between them. Those relationships are few in this world, where men are able to sharpen one another, as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17), and in turn to be mutually affected without giving or receiving personal offence. And yet, that seemed to be the case. Thomas Cary Johnson tells us that after Dabney's introduction to seminary life 'he found in Mr. Vaughan, perhaps, his most congenial companion.' ²

Johnson's record of Dabney's life gives us brief glimpses into this interesting relationship. On one occasion, a letter from Vaughan scolds Dabney, in jest, for writing him a letter which to Vaughan sounded more like 'a surveyor's chart' than a personal communication from a close friend.³ On another occasion, when Dabney's health suffered badly, and brought him into a state of great depression, Vaughan wrote him a letter to say that God 'would not (at that time) take from His vineyard a labourer so well-prepared by His creative hand and His providential superintendence.' ⁴ The subsequent course of Dabney's life and labours abundantly confirmed Vaughan's conviction.

In 1847 Vaughan was licensed by West Hanover Presbytery, and ordained in 1849, when he undertook his pastoral call to the First Presbyterian Church of Lynchburg, Virginia. Here he remained until 1857, when his own poor health forced him to leave the pulpit for an eleven-year period of labour as a planter. ⁵ There is evidence that his pastorate in Lynchburg was fruitful, and that the congregation experienced a powerful work of grace that brought awakening and revival to the people of God. This occurred about the year 1850.

At this time his friend Dabney was pastor of the Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church in Augusta County, Virginia. Both men were deeply committed to the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace, and they hungered for revival among their flocks. They saw God's provision and power as alone sufficient to meet the needs of those who languished in their sins. The burdens of the hour were especially heavy on young Dabney, who was undergoing the kind of depression that only a pastor can understand. In 1850 he had written to Vaughan expressing his great desire for revival to be given to his people. A portion of the reply from Vaughan reveals something of his view and experience of what God had been pleased to effect in his own church, and his encouragement to Dabney to wait upon the Lord and to use the means of grace:

You have my deepest sympathy in your yearning for a revival. It is as natural for a minister who has one single adequate idea of his office as the wish for bread is to the starving stomach. Indeed, my dear brother, the keenness of anxiety that breathes from your letter is one symptom that your desires are to be gratified, if I may reason from the parallel of my own case. For months before there was an expression of interest in my church, my own heart was bursting with the burden of my people's welfare; and to gain relief I was obliged to pray; and the effect of that told upon my preaching with wonderful effect. All you need do, my dear friend, is to pray and trust and preach straight at the conscience ... to strike straight at it with a deep consuming feeling that all is at stake ... It will give you pleasure to know that the state of feeling in my church is still encouraging. A new case of awakening has occurred within a week, apparently without cause, in a quiet way. I am now trying to rouse my church members to self-examination and prayer by preaching closely to their consciences, and by personal appeals to them in pastoral visitation. May the good Lord grant us both a large refreshing from His presence, for Christ's sake...⁶

That Vaughan was able to minister to his friend was never more evident than his gracious and pastoral expressions to Dabney in the death of two of his sons within weeks in 1855. In two letters of consolation, Vaughan expresses shock, sense of loss, and sympathy to the family. He lays before Dabney the hope that 'your consolations (will) be as vivid as your grief, and your solid profit in the sanctification of your nature (will) be richer than both.' ⁷ He reminds him that 'God is in this matter, moving amid the cloud and darkness of a throne which is nevertheless all spotless and full of glory.' ⁸

In the years following the Lynchburg pastorate, Vaughan's health prevented him from undertaking full-time pastoral labours. Nevertheless, he was actively filling pulpits around the South on an interim basis. He served as a college Professor of Philosophy for one year, and was the Chaplain at the University of Virginia from 1879-1881. At this time, he returned to a full-time pastoral call at the New Providence Presbyterian Church in Rockbridge County, Virginia, where he faithfully served until 1891.

At this time, a new opportunity came before him with the passing of Thomas E. Peck, Professor of Theology at Union Seminary, and in 1893 he came to Union as Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology. At an age when many men would be contemplating retirement, Dr Vaughan began a new career as a seminary teacher, and he filled this office ably until he retired from the Seminary in 1896.

His most lengthy project during these years was his editing of the volumes now known as the Collected Discussions of Dr Dabney. The volumes do not contain everything which came from the pen of Dabney, who was a prodigious writer of works theological and otherwise. Rather these volumes contain the more important contributions made by Dabney to reviews and periodicals as well as writings on theology, preaching, church history, and government. This was no small undertaking for Vaughan, just to collect the needed materials, since Dabney had not been careful to preserve many of his writings previously published in pamphlets, newspapers, and reviews.⁹ Much correspondence was involved to secure the needed works, and then further correspondence ensued between editor and author to determine what materials should be included in the Discussions and in what form. Revision and re-writing of several papers was necessary, but this labour was a joy to Dabney, who ever loved to contend for the truth by means of the printed page. It was also a labour of love for Vaughan, who sought to honour his friend and brother in the faith, and to preserve the valuable fruits of his keen biblical and theological insights for future generations. The four volumes appeared between 1890-1897.

In 1894, while still Professor at Union, Vaughan published a volume of his own, entitled The Gifts of the Holy Spirit to Unbelievers and Believers. The volume is a collection of sermons preached in a pastoral setting on the inward work of the Holy Spirit. Vaughan deplored the low spiritual condition of his time and the lack of joy in the lives of believers. It was his desire to make believers realise that the Holy Spirit himself, is God's gift to the church. ¹⁰

After the first half of the book, which deals with the gifts of the Holy Spirit to unbelievers in the restraint of sin and in convicting and awakening influences, the latter portion sets forth the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the redeemed. This is no mere discussion of a scholastic nature. Neither is it a speculative inquiry into the miraculous gifts of the apostolic era. Rather, it is a setting forth of the Holy Spirit himself as the One who abides in, sanctifies, leads, comforts and loves the believer in such measure that he is led to a genuine increase in his joy and hope. Indeed, this is Vaughan's stated objective in writing.¹¹ The chapters on the sealing of the Spirit and the leading of the Spirit are particularly relevant to this glorious end.

Following his retirement, Vaughan moved to Roanoke, Virginia, where he lived until his death in 1911. He continued to be active, writing biblical studies and theological articles for church periodicals. Dr Morton Smith tells us that during this period Vaughan was also engaged in the preparation of his theological lecture notes for future publication. ¹² Although these were never published, they have been preserved in the library at Union Theological Seminary, and Dr Smith has likewise provided us with valuable excerpts from them in his recently-reprinted volume, Studies in Southern Presbyterian Theology.

Perhaps the most enduring quality of Vaughan's life and labours may be found in his deep spirituality and its consistent application in each part of his life and ministry. His commitment to his Redeemer led to a ready submission to the 'whole counsel' of his revealed will in the Scriptures. His Calvinism came from a heart changed by the power of the gospel and a mind fired with a zeal to expound consistently God's precious truth and to apply it correctly.

The value of Vaughan's life and ministry as an example to pastors cannot be overlooked. Since he laboured as a pastor-teacher, his doctrine was not that of the 'ivory tower' theologian, with no application to real life and experience. Rather the opposite was true. His theological writings were forged out of his experience as a working pastor. He sought not academic accolades for himself, but rather that Christ should be known, and that God's people should ever be encouraged and filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

These spiritual virtues, alongside of his discerning mind, and the ability to think carefully regarding the matters before him, made Vaughan an excellent model of what it means to be a genuine theologian. Following in the example of Samuel Davies, his own model of godly excellence as a pastor and theologian, Vaughan was, by the considered estimate of his peers, one of the most able and rigorous teachers of the Reformed faith in his day. He was no mere shadow to the teachings of his friend Dabney, though he was most certainly influenced by them. In his own writings, he demonstrated rather his own ability to think God's thoughts after him and rightly to apply the Word of truth. As it was, he was largely overshadowed by Dabney, his remarkable friend and spiritual brother in the faith. Nevertheless, the life of Vaughan stands as an example and an encouragement to Christians, pastors, and theologians in our day to live and labour with godly joy for the glory and honour of the Saviour.