Archibald Alexander was born during a time of upheaval in the American colonies. He was born in 1772 near Lexington, Virginia. The third of nine children, he grew up in a Christian home with parents who were serious about passing along their faith to each of their children.
Because of his parents’ instruction, Archibald Alexander had already memorized the Westminster Shorter Catechism by the age of seven. This was a great blessing to him later in life as he began to teach theology to others and to grow in his own understanding. The training he received bore much fruit later in life, and when the Lord opened his eyes to the saving work of Christ, the theology he had already absorbed provided the structure for his future ministry. Charles Hodge, one of his students and later one of his colleagues at Princeton Seminary, remarked particularly on the effect of this early knowledge of the Westminster Standards in training his mind to teach theology in a balanced and biblical way.
But despite his early training and Christian upbringing, Alexander did not come to an experiential saving knowledge of Jesus Christ until his teenage years. At the age of ten, Archibald Alexander began formal study under William Graham. From all reports, Graham was an excellent tutor, and he held the same Presbyterian convictions as did Alexander’s parents.
By the age of seventeen, Archibald Alexander became a tutor himself, leaving his father’s house to tutor in the home of General John Posey. It was here, through the kind influence of a godly older lady, that Alexander began to think more deeply about the reality of his faith. According to Alexander’s later memory, it was in 1788 that the Lord opened his eyes to the truths of Jesus Christ, giving him a saving knowledge of faith. This was followed quickly in 1789 by a public profession of his faith to the church.
As so often happens with many new Christians, Alexander’s conversion led him to become a voracious reader of spiritual books, many of those from the time of the English Puritans and from the sermons and writings of the Great Awakening in America. He drank deeply from these wells of wisdom, and they shed new light on the things that he was taught as a younger man.
In 1791, he attended the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It was there that he met the grandmother of his future colleague, Charles Hodge. In that same year, he was licensed to the gospel ministry and began itinerant preaching under the oversight of the synod of Virginia.
He was ordained to pastor several churches in Virginia in 1794 and, in 1796, became the President of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia while still maintaining an active role as a preacher and a pastor.
In 1801, he resigned from that role, partly from exhaustion, and began a journey to New England, which he had long wanted to visit. On the way, while staying with a well-respected minister, he met his wife, Janetta. Though his travels to New England were profitable, he returned to Hampden-Sydney College in 1802 and, in 1806, at the age of thirty-four, was called to be the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
While his labors as a pastor, evangelist, and college leader were fruitful, Alexander is best known for his work at Princeton Seminary. As a pastor in Philadelphia, he had for some years encouraged the establishment of a Presbyterian seminary in the United States. When the General Assembly finally voted to establish a seminary in Princeton, it was not surprising that they appointed Archibald Alexander to be its first professor and principal in 1812.
Just as Archibald Alexander was born in troubling times, so the seminary was established in years of difficulty. The United States was once again at war with Great Britain. Yet despite this, Archibald Alexander ministered with remarkable faithfulness and zeal for the next forty years. A generation of pastors and missionaries were trained under Alexander’s ministry. Even with the addition of Samuel Miller, Charles Hodge, and others to the seminary’s faculty, Alexander was the clear leader. He was a gifted teacher and the author of many books and articles, including the greatest of his works, Thoughts on Religious Experience. But he was best known as a man of deep piety and modesty. Godliness adorned all his labors.
This is perhaps captured best by his friend and colleague, Charles Hodge. He reflected on Archibald Alexander’s influence, writing:
The man who can bring us into communion with God, who can reveal to us the glory or the love of Christ, who can unseal the fountains of penitence, or kindle the expiring embers of faith and hope—the man whom God uses to do us such services as these, is one “for whom some would even dare to die.”
This was the legacy of Alexander’s leadership at the seminary and of his teaching ministry.
Archibald Alexander died on October 22, 1851. He preached his last sermon just over a month before. While on his sickbed, he stated, “My views of theological truth are what they have always been.” His early convictions remained, and he entered the presence of his faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, having served Him well.
Ligonier Ministries