Volume 4. Number 3. October 2, 1826, pp. 273-281.

• To Mr. D.--A Sceptic.--Replication.--No. II. by Alexander Campbell, pp. 273-275.
• Ecclesiastical Tyranny by Alexander Campbell, pp. 275-277.
• A New Association by Alexander Campbell, pp. 277-278.
  • Parable of the Iron Bedstead by Alexander Campbell, pp. 277-278.
• Review of Miller and Duncan by Alexander Campbell, pp. 278-280.
• Star of the South by Alexander Campbell, p. 280.
• The New Testament by Alexander Campbell, p. 280.

      DEAR SIR:--I HAVE, as you see, affixed the epithet sceptic to your address. I mean no censure or reproach in so using this term. You are, in one sense of the term, a sceptic; you are incredulous and distrustful in the christian religion; but you tell us your difficulties. You say, like Thomas, unless I see so and so, I will not believe. Thomas, however, wanted evidence to establish a certain fact, without distrusting any sentence or sentiment in the ancient revelations. Your scepticism is founded upon imaginary difficulties; or rather by some ill directed genius you would make a lever and a fulcrum of imaginary difficulties, by which you would hurl either the bible or hell out of the universe. You would like a bible that had no hell in it; a bible that made men deserving of eternal happiness, because they were incapable of being made deserving of eternal misery. But to proceed--

      In my last I paid some attention to your first great difficulty. Such remarks were made upon it as, I conceive, prove it to be an unreasonable difficulty. One in which imagination, wild and uncontrolled, was wholly concerned, and in which reason has nothing to do. I now proceed to consider the next sentence in your letter. It is this:--"my view of the character of Deity induced me to believe he would not (have created any being, and placed him in such a situation in which it was possible for him to make himself deserving of eternal torment,) and from this I was led strongly to doubt the Divinity of the bible." In this sentence you proceed upon a principle which is inadmissible. You represent yourself as having certain views of the character of Deity so independent of the bible, as that you are constrained rather to reject the bible than your "views of the character of Deity!" Your views of the character of Deity are not then derived from the bible; for it would be absurd, as you will admit, for a person who derived all the light he ever enjoyed from the sun, to say, that his views of light were such as to induce him to believe that the sun could not be the fountain of it, because it was not clearer, without intermission, or omnipresent, &c. &c. Your views then of the character of Deity are so correct, that rather than abandon them you would abandon the bible. You doubt the divinity of the bible because, as you understand it, it opposes or clashes with your views of the Divine character. Very well, indeed! In my last I demonstrated in part that you could not know that there is but one Self-existent, independent and eternal God, but from the bible. But here you advance one step farther than even lord Herbert, who, by seeing one miracle, was enabled to disbelieve all miracles! You have got a character of Deity some where that annihilates the divinity of the bible. Tell me, my friend, where did you obtain this character? From the exercise of your five senses, which some call the exercise of reason. Your five senses must be many millions of times more acute and penetrating than mine. One glance of your eye scales not only the summit of Chimborazo, but the loftiest gem that sparkles on the summit of Mount Zion. Nay, it surveys the comet's flight, and pierces down to the chambers of Leviathan in the depths of ocean, and thence draw a character of Deity. Your ear discriminates the winds that whistle on the peaks of the planet Jupiter, from those that roar on the cliffs of the Georgium Sidus. And so with all your senses. [273]

      But tell me gravely, if your senses are not better than mine, how you came by this divine character. Just from what has presented itself to you in the township in which you were born, and in which you live, in the state of Ohio. A sublime character for the Deity it must be, which you could manufacture from the township of ------, in the state of ------, by working your five senses under the guidance of reason for twenty years. Yet it is so finished that you would prefer it to all the bible reveals. Nay, you would rather deny the divinity of the bible than abandon your views of the character of Deity!

      I shall try what sort of a character I could form of Deity from my five senses controlled by reason, after I was told that there is but one God. I suppose myself in the possession of the truth that there is but one God, without ever hearing a word of a single attribute he possessed, and then I set about to form a character for him; or, which is the same thing, to endeavor by the exercise of my five senses on the things around me, guided my reason, to attain correct views of his character.

      I began my enquiries on the first of April, 1800, when I was five years old. That morning I was told for the first time there was a God who made all things. What sort of a being he was nobody would tell me. I went to work to find him out. I was told he had made all things; but not knowing how long since, I could not tell any thing about him from the things made, because 1 could not tell how much they might have been changed since he made them. I stumbled at the threshold and fell into despair just at the beginning of my enquiries. I went back to my guide and told him he must tell me one item more before I could learn any thing about this one God.--But before I thought, I had proposed a dozen of questions. Where did he live? Did he concern himself any more with the world after he made it? Has he committed it to other agents? Who are they? Is the sun one, the moon another, the winds a third, the clouds a fourth? Has he done creating yet? Does he not make more water, more wind, more earth, more animals, &c. &c. &c. Thus I had thronged upon the ear of my preceptor a score of questions. He replied, I told you there is one God who made all things, and that is enough to introduce him to your acquaintance, if you reason right; but as you are a little stupid, I will tell you that he made all things six thousand years ago, and still governs them; but I will tell you no more until you have found out his character yourself. I made a second effort. By the end of April, I had seen the peach-trees and the apple-trees all in blossom, and the young fruit, of which I was very fond, began to exhibit itself as the blossoms fell off. But up came the north wind one night and something called frost came behind it, and in one night all the fruit was destroy ed. I looked with great fury in my eyes at this monstrous hard-hearted north wind which prostrated all my hopes. I blessed the south wind and cursed the north. But on reflection, said I, there is but one God, who made all things and governs all. Now he must have sent the south wind for these two weeks past, and cherished all these millions of blossoms, and then he must have sent up Mr. Boreas with his cold blasts and swept them all to ruin. Thought I, he is a very changeable and whimsical being this who puts himself to so much trouble to make young apples and peaches, and then, in a moment, or fit of passion, because I lied the other day, turn right round and destroy them every one; and how unjust he is to make all my brothers and sisters, my uncles and aunts to want apples and peaches a whole year because I told a lie. Enraged by my own reasonings, I ran to my cages, and nests of young birds, and found them all frozen to death. Thinks I, what a cruel God this is who has killed all these dear little innocent birds just because he got angry at me. I thought, the other day, he was very good, when every thing was blooming and smiling around me; but now he appears most whimsical, notionate, cruel, and unjust. I was going back to my informant with a score of new questions, but he frowned me from his presence and said he would not tell me one word more: if I could not make out, for myself, a character for the Deity, said he, you must wait till you grow older and can reason better. So my enquiries stopped, and I settled down in the opinion that God was either not almighty; that winds and rains were stronger than he, or that he was the most notionate, irrational, and whimsical being in the universe: sometimes kind and sometimes cruel, as he pleased.

      Early impressions and first views have a great influence upon the reasoning powers in subsequent life; and these first impressions of the character of Deity, drawn from the destruction of the apples and peaches, and the destruction of my young birds and chickens, remained for many years. If others could have reasoned better or had other data to reason upon, they might have come to different conclusions; but these were the best I could command. I began to read geography at the age of thirteen, and astronomy came in my way. When I read of different climates and their effects upon the human family, I thought that God was either not the wisest being, the most powerful, nor the most impartial. I thought if he made the whole earth he might have made it alike fertile, salubrious, and comfortable, if he had been omniscient and omnipotent. If he could and did not, I thought he was very partial and unjust, arbitrary and unreasonable.

both told a strange story, and reflected much upon their Maker. I saw a good deal of order in the revolutions of the heavenly bodies: but I saw, or thought I saw, a good deal of disorder, of doing and undoing. Astronomers had told me that some stars had disappeared from the heavens, having been struck and consumed by blazing comets, and I began to fear that one of those comets might, in a fit of anger, strike our wooden country and burn it up. That if other stars had shone for thousands of years and were consumed, I could find no reason why our planet might not be subject to a similar fate, from some freak of a mad comet. And as the Deity allowed a system of destruction to follow up a system of providence and preservation, I could not tell but this was his darling pleasure to be always creating and always destroying. I read something in geography of different nations having different gods; gods of the hills and of the vallies, of the mountains and of the plains, of the seas and of the rivers, of the winds and of the other elements; and thought this explained many difficulties--I was just reconciling my difficulties growing out of the destruction of my apples and peaches and chickens, upon the hypothesis that there was a plurality of gods; that they had been quarrelling amongst themselves; that the god of the north wind had, in a rencontre, gained a triumph over the god of the south +275 wind, &c. But while I was thus meditating, I opened a page in the travels of Curosus, who was describing an Asiatic islander carving a branch of the bread-tree into a little pocket God; which he was to invoke when he became hungry. This occurrence drove me into scepticism upon the doctrine of a plurality of gods: and so I resumed my early prepossessions in favor of but one God.

      In the midst of my excursions in quest of the Divine character, I was struck dumb with an occurrence in my own neighborhood. I had been just concluding that God was perhaps a benevolent being, when I was told of the death of an idiot who had lived twenty years in idiotism and worn to a skeleton by epilepsy, while his brothers and sisters were all compos mentis, intelligent, healthy, and affluent. Thought I, this is a proof that God is partial and unreasonably cruel, for it had been a maxim with me that he that is unjust in a little is unjust, as well as he that is unjust in much: and if God could for twenty years thus punish one of a family and bless all the rest, I could neither tell what he was in himself or what he might or could do.

      If I have reasoned wrong, it was the best I could reason on the data before me; and while I found others reasoning differently on the same data, and on different data, I was led to question whether there was any such thing as a reasonable being, and thus in attempting to find out by reason, a character for God, I was likely to find no character for man: but that he was a central point of contradictions.--So Inquisitas tells his story.

      Now, my friend, your views of the divine character independent of the divinity of the bible, are not worth one grain of sand. And every system of scepticism founded upon the divine attributes, and of religion at variance with the bible facts, is a mere spider's web woven out of its own bowels, and designed only to catch flies.

      I know our colleges are schools of scepticism, and that pure deism is taught in one department in every college in Europe and America, where-ever natural religion is taught. But so much for your view of the divine character at present, on account of which you are compelled to reject the divinity of the bible. In this you resemble a child who says it would rather have the light of a glow-worm than that of the sun.

	Your friend,
	THE EDITOR.

      I HAVE had the pleasure and the pain of visiting three associations since writing our last number. To the first, viz. the Stillwater, Ohio, I went as a spectator. To the second, viz. the Mahoning, Ohio, I went as a messenger; and to the Redstone, Pennsylvania, I went as a corresponding messenger from the Mahoning. My visit to the Stillwater and Mahoning associations was altogether agreeable. There was no vain jangling about creeds and forms; no controversy about who should be pope and cardinals. There was no interference with the inalienable rights, nor encroachment upon the liberties of the brethren, considered as individuals or as congregations. All was harmony and peace. I never witnessed greater harmony or more brotherly love at any public meeting than at these two meetings, especially the latter. I returned home edified and refreshed. After the respite of a day, I set out for the Redstone. As I approached its horizon, the sky began to gather blackness, the reverberation of distant thunders and the reflected glare of forked lightnings from the regions of the Laurel Hill portended a tremendous war of elements, if not a crash of worlds. Three clouds of ominous aspect surcharged with wind, one from the east, one from the north and one from the south, seemed to concentrate not far from the Old Fortification. As they approximated towards each other, they rolled out great volumes of hydrogen gas, which ignited by some electric sparks, exhibited a frightful aspect, and seemed to threaten a fiery desolation, and to hurl ruin far and wide. But to our great and agreeable disappointment it eventuated in a mere explosion of wind, which injured no green nor living thing. It purified the air, and was succeeded by a grateful and cheering calm. After having stated these meteorological observations, I proceed to give a faithful description of the meeting itself. And that our readers may have the premises before them, I will state a few historic facts.

      One man whom I will not name, in the true spirit of Diotrephes, has for at least fifteen years past, lorded over the faith of the whole association, or sought to do it. He was converted under the ministry of a Methodist, and became all at once a Methodistic preacher; and having burned out somewhere near the tropic of capricorn, the cinder was carried to the arctic circle, and became a Calvinistic Baptist, of the supralapsarian order. As is usually the case with men of little information and strong passions, when converted from one extreme they run into the opposite; so with this zealous divine. And as he was extremely lax in his faith in former times, he has bound himself with a seven fold cord never to have any communion with those who will not say they believe in the whole "Philadelphia Confession of Faith." He forms a league with two others, offensive and defensive. One of them of no standing in church or state, and the other I know nothing about, save that he has a remarkable red face, and cannot speak only at times. I mean no insinuation against his moral character; for of this I know nothing. I choose to represent each of the triumvirate by their most remarkable traits; for I do not know that I shall ever write their names in this work. These three brothers combined their efforts for the last two years to carry one point: in plain English, that one of them should be Pope, and the other two his Cardinals, the one Cardinal of the Right, and the other Cardinal of the Left. The reason of this combination was, that for a few years past the two first had fallen into their proper ranks, and could not rise to any notice but in the cause of orthodoxy. Who that has his eyes open has not seen that men of the lowest intellect and of the lowest moral endowments are the most zealous in the cause of orthodoxy? and that the reason is, they are conscious that unless they can raise a clamor about orthodoxy they are likely to pass off the stage as they ought? I have always found those of the most orthodox scent the slowest in the race, and the loudest in the sound. The foremost hound makes the least noise about the course, but those hindmost are always sounding to here! or to there! Having given this faithful and honest introduction to these triumvirate which is as much too circumstantial, as it is too long, I proceed to the history of the manoeuvre and intrigue by which they made themselves Pope and Cardinals.

      The physical forces which they could bring into the "advisory council" they knew were inadequate to their object. For of twenty-three or twenty-four churches composing the association they were conscious that a majority would be [275] against them. According to the constitution of the association each church could legally send three messengers which could have a seat and a vote in their resolves. After exploring the ground and doing every thing which could be done to increase their physical forces, it was found to amount to ten congregations; that is, they could not find ten whole congregations in the association to come into their views, but they could find a majority in their favor in the whole fractional parts of these ten churches. So that they were entitled to a representation of thirty voters. These thirty voters out of seventy-two which would have been a full representation of the whole association, have now to constitute themselves into the whole association. Orthodoxy must now lend its aid, and the good old constitution must be revived, though it has always been a dead letter; for not one association that ever met was regulated by it for two hours at a time. But in the constitution it is written that the churches in writing their letters shall refer to the Philadelphia Confession of Faith. They must make a bow to it in limine. This matter has been for years discussed in this association; and the more it has been examined the less it has been relished. The children in many places now see the absurdity of their fathers and mothers declaring their faith to be expressed in the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, which not one in ten of them ever saw; and not one in a hundred of them could understand if they did see it; and which not one church in America believes to be the system of truth taught in the holy scriptures; for some one chapter in it is rejected by every church in America. However, it will answer a good purpose to carry this point. So it was resolved by the triumvirate to cut off from thirty-six to forty-two voters, that the thirty above referred to might be the association. And so it came to pass; for soon as the letters were read, every one that did not mention the Philadelphia Confession of Faith was handed back to the messenger, and all the voters included in the letter were rejected from the list. So that thus, in direct violation of this dead-and-alive constitution, which says, "the letters when read shall be delivered to the moderator or clerk," the representatives of thirteen or fourteen churches were denied a seat and a vote in the association; and thus the friends of the would-be Pope and Cardinals have the association to themselves. Then the thirty voters appoint their own officers. One becomes a captain of twenty-nine individuals, and there is room for two under officers to preside over thirteen each. After having elected their own officers and invited only such of the strangers to a seat as would answer their views, they proceed to the greater excommunication, having by the lesser excommunication already despatched about the three fifths of the whole body. And here I am constrained to say, that in all my own experience and reading I have found no parallel to the procedure of these thirty voters. No inquisitorial process was ever so informal, and none more shameless and remorseless. The only thing to which I could compare it was the tyranny of Robespierre during the reign of terror in the French revolution.

      An instance or two must suffice:--The first church on the list to be given over to Satan was that in Washington. The guillotine was now erected and the instruments were all prepared for execution. The Pope and his two Cardinals in succession belabored this church for about one hour, calling them Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Antinomian, and every thing that is bad, because they had in their letter refused to call any man Pope or Master on earth. Not one word were they allowed to say for themselves. They did not even ask the messengers of this church if they had any thing to say why the sentence of the law should not be executed upon them. By a species of what is sometimes called legerdemain, or, in the Welsh dialect, hocus pocus, one messenger, or perhaps two, had been introduced to a seat out of the forty-two excluded voters, before this case of the Washington church came to judgment. One of these messengers attempted to call a halt to their procedure, but it was all in vain. The church was doomed to destruction, and a majority of thirty hands lifted up to heaven gave their head to the guillotine and their mortal remains to Satan. Next was brought up to trial Maple Creek Church, with its good old Bishop, Henry Spears. The good old man mounts the scaffold with a serene countenance, and after the triumvirate had shed a few crocodile tears over the old man and his church, whom they said they loved as their own souls, and against whose faith they had not one objection, save they had omitted to mention these words, "Philadelphia Confession of Faith." I say, out of a flow of unusual clemency they asked the good old than if he had any thing to say why he should not be beheaded and his carcase given over to Satan. He mildly having answered in the negative, the signal was given and he was despatched without a groan. Next came the venerable old Matthias Luse and his church on Pigeon Creek. In addition to the crime of not having mentioned the "Philadelphia Confession of Faith," it was alleged by the Cardinal of the Left Wing that they had been guilty of contumacy and unofficer-like conduct. This gave rise to a long debate whether they should be executed for a sin of omission or commission, which was finally decided in favor of the former. Old Matthias made no confession at the stake, but died like a sheep. At this time I stood in need of some fresh air and made my way out of the crowd. I next attended the funeral of the martyrs, and appeared no more in the presence of the sanhedrim. While I was engaged in carrying off the slain, having occasion to come nigh the guillotine, I heard the last groans of the Somerset church.

      In the meantime, I found it convenient to retire from the premises, not knowing but by some arbitrary stretch of power I might be put to death; and so I mounted my horse, and escaped out of their hands. What was done during the night I cannot tell; but so far as I have narrated I pledge myself for the truth substantially of all that I have stated upon the evidence of my own senses.

      While I confess myself very doubtful of all those meetings called associations, conventions, conferences, &c. which view themselves either as a church representative, or as representatives of churches, I willingly own that the misdemeanors of these thirty voters are not to be charged to the account of, or preferred as objections against associations: for one reason; viz. they possessed not one attribute, but divested themselves of every feature, of a Baptist association. For example: suppose thirty members of congress should arrive at Washington city a few days before the others, and after several night meetings agree, that, as each newly elected member must produce, from the proper authority in his district, a letter, attesting him to be duly elected, they would reject, from a seat in that body, every member whose letter was not worded in the same set phrase, which they themselves had +277 fixed upon as constitutional: I say, suppose that these thirty congressmen, after dismissing all the others, should proceed to call themselves the Congress of the United States, and to claim the rights, and profess to perform the duties, of that body; would any man in his senses call them such, or would he object to all or any meetings of congress, because thirty individuals had taken it into their heads to tyrannize over the nation? Not the system, but the men, in this case would become the proper subjects of reprehension. It is as nearly analogous to the case in hand, as any we can well imagine. I would not, then, attack all general or public meetings of messengers from christian communities, thro' the medium of such monstrous occurrences; nor lay to their charge the conduct of these modern religious knight errants. But as there are the leaders and the led in this, as in all similar occurrences; and as the led are perhaps conscientious in their votes, while the leaders cannot reasonably be thought to have any conscience about it, it may be necessary to ask a few questions designed to awaken them to reflection.

      When your moderator prayed in the morning of this day of slaughter that you might "act in all your proceedings from unfeigned love to the Saviour, and the brethren, and with a single eye to the glory of God," did you say, Amen? If you did, were you in earnest? When he prayed that you "might be directed in all the proceedings of the day by the Holy Spirit," did you not remember that you had, the night before, determined on the course you would pursue? Did you ever think of the similarity of your proceedings in council to those of that Sanhedrim which condemned the Just One to the cursed tree? Did you act as a church representative, or as representatives of the consciences of your friends at home? By what law or rule in the testament, or in the Confession of Faith, did you pretend to excommunicate churches? From what did you excommunicate them? Do you think that their not naming "the Philadelphia Confession" will preclude their admission into heaven? And if your excommunication cannot affect their standing in the estimation of the Great King and the holy angels, how much is your excommunication worth? Will it degrade them in the estimation of men, or does it not degrade you? Do you not rank a refusal to acknowledge the Confession of Faith, with murder, adultery, and theft: inasmuch, as you affix as grievous a censure, and as heavy a punishment, to the one as the other? Do you not make a denial of the Bible and of your human creed equally criminal, and equally worthy of the greater excommunication? What assurance does it give either of the faith of a church or of an individual to say:--"We believe in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, as they are explained and held forth in the Philadelphia Confession of Faith?" Does this Redstone patented form of a church letter, give any assurance at all, that the church is a christian church? Would not their saying or writing any thing else be just as good proof? What sort of a foundation for christian love is this: "We believe in the Bible as explained in the Confession of Faith?" To love for this sake, is it to love for Christ's sake? Do you think that the best way to save life is to cut off the head, to quench a flame by throwing oil upon it; or to reconcile the injured by adding to their grievances? Do you think that the Lord will thank you now, or smile upon you hereafter, for having declared that you will have no christian fellowship with those who own the same Lord, claim the same Spirit, worship the same God: hold the same faith, hope, and baptism with you, because they would neither bow the head, nor bend the knee, to your little Philadelphia Confession of Opinions? Do you think your consciences will approve it when you come to die, and that you will glory in having done so in the day of Judgment? Lastly, would you not, and ought you not, was it in your power, according to your proceedings, to bolt the gates of heaven against those churches, and banish out of that kingdom all who will not subscribe your book of dogmas?

      I do not think you either will or can answer these queries; but my desire is that you may from your inability to answer them, be brought to repentance before it be measured to you, as you have measured to others.

EDITOR.      

      AS I have been informed, the messengers of the non-conforming congregations agreed to go home, and report progress to the churches which sent them, and to propose to them to send messengers to Washington, Penn. on the Saturday preceding the second Lord's Day in November next; which churches, it is expected, will send persons duly empowered to act in the forming of a new association. As a majority of the nonconforming churches are in Washington county, the probability is, this new association will be called the Washington Association. It is also probable it will be constituted on more liberal principles than that which has imposed upon them the necessity of setting up for themselves. And here it may not be amiss to speak in parables to the wise; for to them similitudes are plain.

      In the days of Abecedarian Popes it was decreed that a good christian just measured three feet, and for the peace and happiness of the church it was ordained that an iron bedstead, with a wheel at one end and a knife at the other, should be placed at the threshold of the church, on which the christians should all be laid. This bedstead was just three feet in the casement on the exactest French scales. Every christian, in those days, was laid on this bedstead; if less than the standard, the wheel and a rope was applied to him to stretch him to it; if he was too tall, the knife was applied to his extremities. In this way they kept the good christians, for nearly a thousand years, all of one stature. Those to whom the knife or the wheel were applied either died in the preparation, or were brought to the saving standard.

      One sturdy fellow, called Martin Luther, was born in those days, who grew to the enormous height of four feet: he of course feared the bedstead and the knife, and kept off at a considerable distance deliberating how he might escape. At length he proclaimed that there was a great mistake committed by his ancestors in fixing upon three feet as the proper standard of the stature of a good christian. He made proselytes to his opinions; for many who had been tried on the three-foot bedstead, who were actually four feet, had found a way of contracting themselves to the popular standard. These began to stretch themselves to their natural stature, and Luther had, in a few years, an iron bedstead four feet long, fashioned and fixed in his churches, with the usual appendages. The wheel and the knife soon found something to do in Luther's church; and it became as irksome to flesh and blood to [277] that stature, as it was to be forced either up or down to the good and sacred three-foot stature. Moreover, men grew much larger after Luther's time than before, and a considerable proportion of them advanced above his perfect man; insomuch that John Calvin found it expedient to order his iron bedstead to be made six inches longer, with the usual regulating appendages. The next generation found even Calvin's measure as unaccommodating as Luther's; and the Independents, in their greater wisdom and humanity, fixed their perfect christian at the enormous stature of five feet. The Baptists at this time began to think of constructing an iron bedstead to be in fashion with their neighbors, but kindly made it six inches longer than the Congregationalists, and dispensed with the knife, thinking that there was likely to be more need for two wheels than one knife, which they accordingly affixed to their apparatus. It was always found, that in the same proportion as the standard was lengthened, christians grew; and now the bedstead is actually proved to be at least six inches too short. It is now expected that six inches will be humanely added; but this will only be following up an evil precedent; for experience has proved, that as soon as the iron bedstead is lengthened, the people will grow apace, and it will be found too short even when extended to six feet. Why not, then, dispense with this piece of popish furniture in the church, and allow christians of every stature to meet at the same fireside and eat at the same table?--The parable is just, and the interpretation thereof easy and sure.

      Every attempt at reformation since the rude but masculine efforts of Luther, has been based upon the same principles. He did not like the popish superstructure, notwithstanding he built upon the same foundation. So did all his successors. They all divided the New Testament into two chapters. The title of the one was, the essentials--and the title of the other was the nonessentials. In one party the one chapter, and in another party, the other, is much the larger. Still the volume comprizes but two chapters, however disproportioned they may be. Many efforts have been made to reduce the chapter of Essentials into narrower limits; but as it is reduced the other is enlarged, and the old division is kept up. The book called The Creed contains all the essentials; and as they are there correctly arranged and soundly digested, this book is more the subject of controversy than the Testament, which has the essentials and the non-essentials all jumbled together.

      Suppose, then, that a number of churches should agree to throw aside the iron bedstead, and take the book in one chapter, and call it their Creed and Book of Discipline. What then? Oh! says Puritanus, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, &c. &c. do this. Stop, my friend, not one of them dare trust themselves upon this bottom; they all have their creeds and disciplines to keep them from sinking. What then if an experiment should be made, and a fair trial of the adequacy of the Divine Book should be given; and whenever it fails of the promised end, let any other device be tried. But among all the experiments of this age and country, it is nowhere recorded that such a trial has been made and failed. I am aware of all that can be said on the other side, and still I assert that no such an experiment and result are on record. And moreover, I do not think it is likely that it shall ever be proved by actual experiment that the New Testament, without a creed, is insufficient to preserve the unity, peace, and purity of any one congregation, or of those of any given district. But above all, let us have no more iron bedsteads, with or without wheels or knives.

EDITOR.      

      DR. MILLER has resumed his pen against Mr. Duncan. His pamphlet is titled "A letter to a gentleman of Baltimore in reference to the Rev. Mr. Duncan, by Samuel Miller, D. D. Professor of Ecclesiastical history and church government in the Theological Seminary, at Princeton, N. J."

      The following summary embraces the out lines of the whole pamphlet of 90 pages--

      I. Reasons why D. Miller should not reply to Mr. Duncan's book. These are: 1st. An aversion to controversy--2d. The professional avocations of the Dr. were of too pressing a nature. 3d. That formerly he had resolved to have no controversy with Mr. Duncan. 4th. Because he saw no good end to be gained by the controversy. 5th. Because Mr. D's book required no answer. Yet, notwithstanding all these strong objections, the fact is the Doctor has taken up his pen, and is pledged by all that's manly, good, and fair, not to lay it down until convinced, confuted, or triumphant.

      II. The second item in the Dr's book is six charges against Mr. D's book. These are: 1st. Mr. Duncan is contending without an adversary in all he says about the Bible as the one, only, sufficient, and infallible rule of christian faith and practice; and in all he says of the secular, ambitious, encroaching and tyrannical spirit of the clergy from A. D. 100, till A. D. 400, or to the council of Nice, also in his remarks on the corruptions and errors of the early ecclesiastical councils and creed makers--2d. That while Mr. D's premises are acknowledged by Dr. Miller, he dissents from him in the logical propriety of his conclusions. That is, the Dr. and Mr. Duncan agree in the premises, that there is but one infallible rule of faith and practice; but the Dr. thence infers we ought to have a fallible one, and Mr. Duncan very illogically concludes that we ought not--Concerning the primitive fathers and their councils Mr. Duncan and the Dr. agree; but Mr. D. infers their decisions and their creeds were like their makers; and Dr. Miller infers that a clean thing may and can come out of an unclean.--3d. His third charge against Mr. D's book is, that it proves too much for Mr. Duncan himself; that is, because Mr. D. will have no human creed he ought to have no preachers nor commentators, &c. and the Dr. alleges that the arguments which prove no human creed, also prove no preachments nor expositions of scripture. This is equivalent to saying, If a person contend that men should be free, they ought, for the same reasons, to contend that men should be ignorant, 4th. A fourth charge against Mr. D's book is, that it no where tells how the important ends may be attained without creeds, which the Dr. contends are attained by them, such as uniformity in opinion, &c. 5th. His fifth charge is, that while Mr. D. contends against the unlawfulness of creeds, he allows the indispensable necessity of having a confession of faith himself--i. e. while he contends that men's consciences should not be enslaved by human creeds, he requires men to confess that they believe the gospel, &c. 6th. The Dr's sixth and last charge against this book is, that it is wholly irreconcilable with the constitution of any Presbyterian church. [278]

      After making out these six crimes against this guilty book, the Dr. proceeds to defend himself from the attacks of Mr. D. and to show that the concessions which Mr. Duncan found in the Dr's other works which subvert his own argument in favor of creeds, are not to be used in any other controversy than with an Episcopalian. That what the Doctor says when addressing Episcopalians is not to be remembered when he writes in defence of his own system--He next gives us of his opinion of the judicial proceedings of the synod of Philadelphia in the case of Messrs. Duncan and M'Lean; which, indeed, is very flattering to the synod. Then he comes to discuss the question; whether creeds, if adopted, ought to contain any other than a few fundamental truths? He thinks they ought. To this item follows a vindication of Presbyterianism from the imputations of an ambitious, encroaching, tyrannical and anti-American spirit. A question is then started whether Dr. Miller's views of creeds are favorable to the circulation of the bible without note or comment, by the bible societies? That his views are favorable to such a circulation of the bible he would wish us to entertain; but in fact, as he afterwards states, the question is, "Whether the bible shall be circulated without note or comment; or not at all?" His answer is, that it would be better to have it "accompanied with an enlightened, perfectly orthodox and judicious commentary:" but if the bible cannot be accompanied with such a comment (which he thinks it could not yet awhile) he would prefer to see it circulated without note or comment rather than not at all. He concludes by an attempt to mitigate the evil of subscription to creeds, by showing that it is only the teachers of religion who must unequivocally subscribe to creeds as THE system of truth taught in the bible. It would be desirable that the laity were orthodox as well as pious; but for the present distress it will suffice if the clergy subscribe; for in that case there is a probability the laity may be kept orthodox.--Such are the outlines of Dr. Miller's defence. From all which it appears that in the Dr's opinion religious sects are still necessary, and creeds are necessary to keep them up; that Presbyterianism is just the identical religion of the New Testament, and that when the millennium commences all the christian world will become Presbyterians; that the tenets of this party will triumph over all other tenets, and be universally believed and obeyed--that the bible will be circulated yet for a little while without note or comment; but after a little it will be accompanied with the Westminster Creed, and Catechism, and Matthew Henry's notes, or some such orthodox and pious commentaries: and that then it will come to pass in religion, as it was before the project of the Free-Masons in the plains of Shinar of building a tower to reach to heaven, the earth will be all of one language and of one speech.

EDITOR.      

      TO this "Letter to a Gentleman to Baltimore," Mr. Duncan has written a reply of 143 pages, duodecimo. This reply is divided into six sections, with prefatory remarks and a general conclusion. In the first section Mr. D. gives his reasons for not following step by step the arrangement Dr. M. was pleased to make in his lecture; and very mildly calls the Doctor to an account for a number of unwarrantable assertions which he was pleased to make in his "Letter to a gentleman in Baltimore." The victory gained over Dr. Miller in this first section is chiefly embraced in the following items:--1. Dr. M. had, in his lecture on the utility of creeds, asserted that "the experience of all ages has found creeds indispensably necessary." This position he asserts in his letter was unassailed by Mr. D. or, at least, was left in all its force. By an induction of historical evidence which is irrefragable, Mr. D. had shown before, and again shows, that no such experience exists; and that the age or ages anterior to the Council of Nice had no such instruments; that "human creeds" and "scholastic theology" are the creatures of ecclesiastical power, and the offspring of a degenerate age. Dr. M. is manifestly foiled in this point; for having asserted that the experience of all ages had found creeds indispensably necessary, it behoved him to show that they were in use in the primitive age and in the ages anterior to the Council of Nice. His failure in this instance makes his assertion not worth a goosequill. And their being of indispensable utility in keeping up popery, prelacy, or presbyterianism, or any sect, so far from being an argument in their favor, is, in my humble opinion, just the reverse. Dr. M. fails as much in the hands of Mr. Duncan in making out the following position, as in the instance just mentioned, viz. "Human creeds are friendly to the study of christian doctrine, and, of course, to the prevalence of christian knowledge." This position is fairly demolished both by reason and fact.

      Mr. D. remarks, page 13, "Creeds are considered as unfriendly to the acquisition of christian knowledge, because they take divine truth out of its biblical connexions; throw it into scholastic forms; substitute abstract propositions, as disputable as they are philosophical, for plain practical law, and interfere with the varied operations of different minds, by forcing a unity of sentiment at the expense of free inquiry. This view of creeds, which every man may see exemplified in the controversies of the present day, was traced up to the same degenerate ages, when scholastic theology, as correlative with ecclesiastical power, was introduced as another active cause, creating the indispensable necessity for these instruments. Thus history, instead of passing any eulogy upon their power to extend spiritual erudition, proclaims them from the first to have been mere tests of philosophy, and therefore the ministers of strife and controversy. Such they have always been, and such they are now."

      Mr. D is never more successful than when he fights Dr. M. with his own weapons. Most unfortunately for the Dr. he had once a controversy with the Episcopalians in a series of "Letters;" and as the prelatists argued in favor of their establishment from the primitive fathers, ancient councils, canons and creeds, the Doctor was obliged to storm their citadel, and in doing this he came out in favor of the bible alone. Here I must give Dr. Miller's own words, as quoted by Mr. Duncan. Mr. D. in addition to the quotations in his former "Book on the Unlawfulness of Creeds," adds as follows, page 16.

      "In the "Letters" he (Dr. M.) speaks of the bible alone--of the word of God as being the sole standard--of the traditions and inventions of men as not to be followed--of our having but one master, even Christ; of our obligation to call no man or body of men masters, on earth, &c. i. e. I supposed him to be maintaining, in all its integrity, his argument against the Episcopalians--that it was death to any cause which could not be sustained by the bible alone. To quote some new extracts: Thus he smiles at a prelatical concession: "In other words, they confess that the scriptures taken absolutely alone, will not bear them out in their claims. But they suppose, and insist, that the [279] facts which are mentioned in the sacred history, taken in connexion with the writings of the early fathers, decidedly support this claim. That is, the New Testament, in its own divine simplicity, is insufficient for their purpose;but explained, and aided, by the writings of fallible men, it declares positively in their favor. Is it so?--What is this but saying, that the bible is not a rule either perfect or sufficient for the church? What is this but embracing a principle which makes human testimony co-ordinate with that of God; and which must involve us in all the mazes and uncertainty of tradition." Thus also he quotes the declaration of the celebrated Chillingworth with great commendation:--"I, for my part, after a long, and I verily hope and believe, impartial search of the true way to eternal happiness, do profess plainly, that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my feet, but upon this rock only, vii. the Scriptures. I see plainly, and with my own eyes, councils against councils; some fathers against other fathers; the same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age against the consent of fathers of another age; and the church of one age against the church of another age." "But it is needless," continues Dr. M. "to multiply reasonings, or authorities on this subject. The sufficiency and infallibility of the scriptures alone, as a rule of faith and practice, was assumed as the grand principle of the reformation from popery, and is acknowledged to be the foundation of the protestant cause."

      These principles and observations of Dr. M. in his argument with the Episcopalians, are just as forcible against himself when they come from the pen of Mr. D. So that if Dr. M. in this way triumphed over the prelates, Mr. D. triumphs over him by his own words. In the first section of Mr. D's reply these points are obviously gained, together with others of minor importance; so that in the first rencounter he has actually got within the intrenchments of his antagonist.

      In the second section he advances towards the pavillion of the general himself. I would gladly be more copious in my extracts here, but my limits confine me to the following:--

      Page 21. "In continuing his objections, Dr. M. says--"A still more remarkable charge to which Mr. D's book is liable, is, that while he maintains, with so much zeal and vehemence, the unlawfulness of all creeds and confessions, he distinctly allows the indispensable necessity of having a confession of faith, and confesses that he has, and employs one himself." I beg leave very respectfully, to say, that the charge is most remarkable; so much so, that it is far from being correct. One of the necessary qualities of a good controvertist is, that he should carefully endeavor to understand his opponent; and most scrupulously avoid misrepresenting words, or phrases, or sentences, which it would require some ingenuity to misunderstand. I did not condemn all creeds, taking the term creed in its literal sense; but I did condemn all creeds, taking the term creed in its ecclesiastical sense, i. e. as expressing a rule of faith and manners, composed, authorized and enforced by a voluntary association: I did not confess that I employed a creed, in the ecclesiastical sense of that term; but did confess that I had one, in the literal sense of the term; and admitted that every man must have one, as far as he has investigated, to his own satisfaction, any set of subjects which may be proposed to his belief. It is difficult to perceive how my meaning could have been mistaken, or not be grieved by the use of such unfair artifice in argument."

      The burthen of this section is the explanation of the position "that every real christian has a creed," and to contradistinguish this from the documents in question, from ecclesiastic creeds, and authoritative terms of communion. The pernicious influence of these human creeds is clearly developed in this section, and towards the conclusion of it the case is forcibly stated in the following words, with which we shall conclude at present.

      Page 33. "Now, if the church cannot live simply with her Bible, but flourish with her creed--if the Bible affords no effectual guard against the inroads of heresy, while a creed does--if the privileges of the ministry are to be determined, not by the Bible, but by a creed--then is not the one practically put in the place of the other? Is not one practically better than the other, insomuch as it does what the other cannot do? In short, is it not the supposed practical usefulness of creeds, which has obtained for them all the labored eulogy they have received?"

      A PAPER under the above title has recently appeared in Milledgeville, Georgia. This is one of the luminaries of the day, just adapted for the relaxing influence of a southern climate; for the editor is busily employed in relaxing the sanctions of the gospel. He has reasoned himself into the belief that all men will be saved, and is now employed in teaching the readers of his paper that no man will be punished in hell. So that the murderer and the saint shall ultimately enjoy the same eternal felicity. So that all the threatenings of the Living God are empty sounds, and they that reform, and they that reform not, shall be equal in the enjoyment of the same felicity. By a telescope of prodigious power this rational editor has descried Paul and Nero, Elijah and Jezebel, Caiaphas and John--Herod and the Baptist, all standing in a glorious group before the throne of God. He sees Death and Hades cast into the lake of fire, and passing thence to Heaven--with many other rare sights.

      He has also discovered that "it is a violation of the directions of the Saviour for any one to pray in public; to pray to any being but the Father; to pray for any thing except bread, for the forgiveness of sins, and deliverance from evil."!! So that all the apostles have seduced mankind both by precept and example, by teaching them to pray for every thing which they wanted; and especially in teaching them to pray for one another. When Paul prayed repeatedly for the saints, and for so many favors for them, "he violated the directions of the Saviour."--What strange light does this Southern Star afford! Should it mingle its rays with the Middle and Northern Stars, what a blaze of light will shine upon these states!!!

EDITOR.      

      SOME of the priests in Ohio, who pretend to great erudition, have raised an evil report against Campbell's translation of the four gospels, giving out that Dr. Campbell was a Socinian, and the head of a faction of this stamp in the Kirk of Scotland. This is a gratuitous slander. Such a charge was never before exhibited against Dr. George Campbell. Another person named Campbell did, half a century before Dr. Campbell's translation was published, raise some noise in the Kirk of Scotland about Socinianism. If the above slander was not invented by its author in [280] Ohio, he should have known better than to have confounded two persons so essentially dissimilar in views--especially in a matter so important. I am not sure but that the same gentleman will be sorry to find that he was mistaken; for generally they who propagate an evil report wish it to be true.

EDITOR.      

[TCB 273-281]