|
[Table of Contents] [Previous] [Next] |
Alexander Campbell
The Christian Baptist (1889) |
| NO. 2.] | SEPTEMBER 3, 1827. |
Deism and the Social System.--No. IV.
PERHAPS I should again apologize for the singular title of these essays; It would import that an inseparable alliance existed or was formed between scepticism and a system of social cooperation. There is no such necessary connexion. There was, and there is, scepticism without a co-operative system; and there is a co-operative system without deism.
I receive a German paper, edited by Henry Kurtz, a teacher of christianity, in Canton, Ohio, denominated the "Messenger of Concord," devoted to primitive christianity; in which some extracts from this work are translated into the German language. The writer is an admirer and advocate of the ancient order of things and of a social or co-operative system. An infant association of some pious and intelligent Germans already exists, whose constitution contemplates a community perfectly social, and devoted to the religion of the first congregation in Jerusalem. As far as I understand the genius and spirit of their system of co-operation and their views of christianity, I can cheerfully bid them God speed. But not so our friends at New Harmony. Their system of scepticism must inevitably render their co-operative system a system of disorder--a co-operation whose fate was long since portrayed in the plains of Shinar. Their system has been, now is, and ever shall be, the--"Discordia semina rerum non bene junctarum congestaque eodem."--"The discordant seeds of things not fitly joined together and fitted together in the same place." Principles at war with reason, revelation, and a permanent co-operation, are strewed over the pages of their "Gazette," and the "mental independence" which is exhibited deifies both mind and matter, and annihilates both the idea of a creator, and of a moral governor of the world. But to return to our subject.
Since writing our last, the editor of the "New Harmony Gazette" has given in his paper of the 11th July, a few extracts from our No. 2. on this subject, with an invitation to some of his correspondents to come forward and maintain their cause. There is but one sentiment in the remarks of the editor which demands any notice from me. After commending my liberality, he adds--
"But though he would free us from punishment here, he would, we fear, be pleased to see us in another world suffering those pains and tortures which our scepticism justly merits from a merciful but just Creator. Such at least is the opinion [not the good pleasure then] of most christians. This is one of those erroneous ideas which are the great stumbling block in almost every system of religion. Merit and demerit is attached to a belief and disbelief in certain dogmas or doctrines, an idea which we know not how to reconcile, with the consciousness which we, in common with all other individuals of our species, possess, that our will has no power or control over our belief."
This "stumbling block" in the way of our sceptical friends, is one of their own creation, or one in which the bible is not concerned. How far metaphysical systems may have created it, I stop not to inquire. But I hesitate not to call this a palpable error, viz. that we have a consciousness that our will has no power nor [364] control over our belief. This assertion, that our will has no control nor power over our belief, is found in substance or in form in almost every number of the "New Harmony Gazette," and is one of the most palpable errors in all that they say against christianity. The experience of every man who can think at all upon what passes in his own mind, is, and must be, directly to the contrary of this assertion. It is, indeed, almost a proverb, "that what men wish or will to believe, they do believe; and what they do not like or will to believe, they disbelieve." Stop, Mr. Editor, and examine yourself here. This assertion I know is a capital and an essential dogma of yours. I see it is a part of "the chain or filling" in every piece you weave against the bible. I know, too, the speciosity which it has; for there are many instances in which it would seem the will had no power over our belief; and I do know there are many cases where and when we cannot help believing and disbelieving when our will is on the other side. But still it is a truth capable of the fullest demonstration that your assertion is false; or, in other words, that the will has an immense control over our belief. You see, then, we are at issue here. And as this is your main fort and citadel, do examine its bulwarks and towers. They are most certainly built upon the sand. You assert that the will has no power over our belief. I assert that it has an immense power over it. My adage is, What men will to believe, they most generally, if not universally, believe. I assert that the understanding is not independent of the will, nor the will of the understanding. But I only call this subject up to your reflection at present. The design of my present paper is to offer some thoughts upon the nature of the evidence of christianity.
The evidence of christianity, or the proof that it is of divine origin and authority, are usually classified under two heads--the Internal and the External. The internal are those which appear in the volume itself, or the proofs which the religion itself, objectively considered, presents to the mind of a reasoner or student. The external are those attestations which accompanied the promulgation of the religion, and those arguments derived from, not the nature of the religion itself, but from the accompaniments of it; these are usually denominated the miracles and the prophecies. To those who were the co-temporaries of the promulgation of this religion, the external evidences first arrested their attention, and were, in a certain sense, to them the stronger evidences; but to us who have the whole on record, both the religion itself and the miracles and prophecies, the internal are the stronger, and first arrest our attention. It is, perhaps,, improper to separate them, for the one is not without the other, either in the design or execution of this stupendous scheme, nor in the import of it. I am not about to adopt this trite method, nor to occupy the attention of my readers in the investigation of either distinctively; but in the mean time, would offer a few reflections upon the adjustment of the evidences to the condition of mankind in general.
I will, without hesitation, admit that the evidences of the truth of christianity might have been easily augmented if it had pleased the founder of it, or had it been compatible with the whole plan of things. From analogy I have reasoned thus: The sun might have been made to have produced a thousand times more light and heat. Animals necessary to our comfort might have been greatly multiplied, or those given us might have been endowed with a higher degree of instinctive knowledge. But again, if the sun had been made to afford greater light, the human eye would have been rendered useless, or have been made differently. If the heat which we attribute to the sun had been greatly augmented, our bodies could not have endured it. If domestic animals had been augmented, their support would have been more oppressive, or if those made for our convenience had been endued with more instinct or more extensive knowledge, they would not have served us at all, but have become our masters. And if the evidences of christianity had been augmented, it would not have been adapted to the condition of man. The adjustment of light to the eye and of the eye to light; of heat to animals and of animals to heat; of instinct to brutes, and of brutes to our service, is all graduated upon a divine scale; or, in other words, is perfectly adapted means to end, and end to means. Precisely so the evidences of the christian religion to the present condition of men, and of the religion itself to man. The christian religion is made for man, and absolutely and indispensably necessary to his comfort, as food is to the body. And the evidences of this religion taken together are as precisely adapted to the condition of man in this stage of his existence, as light is to the human eye, or sound to the human ear. Amongst the thousand ways in which the evidences of the christian religion might have been, and might now be augmented, I will mention but two or three. For instance, God might have spoken aloud to the Jews and Romans in their own language, in such a way as could not be misunderstood, and have attested the pretensions and claims of his Son. The Son himself might have, by the same power, given more general and conspicuous proofs of his mission. He might have gone to Rome, as to Jerusalem, and summoned all the heads of departments, magistrates, legislators, and priests, and given such proofs of his person and mission as would have revolutionized Rome and the world in a few days. At this time also, God might speak in all the languages of the world in the same instant of time, and inform all nations, viva voce, that the contents of the New Testament were worthy of universal acceptation. Or he might cause all the believers to escape all calamities in this first life, and live ten times as long as the infidels; he might cause them to pass off the stage in a deep sleep, as when Eve was made out of the side of Adam, and thus have exempted them from all pain. He might have made them prosperous and happy every way. But what imagination can conceive, what tongue express how many, and how signal proofs of the divine authority of the scriptures of truth, he might have given! So that I make it an argument of no little momentum in giving a reason of the hope that is in me, that God could have made the evidence omnipotent, but he has not done it, and for reasons the wisest that could be conceived of.
I write not now merely for the benefit of sceptics, but for Christians schooled in a false philosophy. Why, tell me, ye Christians, who are naturally and morally, or spiritually dead as a stone, why was there any adjustment of the evidences of christianity, or rather why had it any evidence at all but in the hearts of men? Why was not the evidence greater or less than it is? Your systems will not enable you to answer this question I am sure. Ask your Doctors, and they cannot tell you. Ask your systems, and they have forgotten it. Yet it is a fact that the [365] evidences are adjusted upon a certain scale and amount to a certain maximum beyond which they do not go.1
Had they gone farther (I will blab out the secret,) all excellency in faith would have been destroyed. Had they fallen short one degree every mouth could not have been stopped. While a small proportion of the evidence is sufficient for some, it is all necessary for others; and those who do not believe upon the whole of it, and have one objection remaining when the whole is heard and examined, that which would remove this one objection would destroy every virtue and excellency properly belonging to faith. Faith built upon evidence greater than the whole amount divinely vouchsafed, would have nothing moral about it; it would be as unavoidable as the motions of a mill wheel under a powerful head of water, or as the waving of the tops of pines beneath a whirlwind.
I must break off in the midst of my illustration, and close my present essay, when I tell the New Harmony people that the faith which they talk of, over which "the will has no power," requires that species of evidence which is incompatible with all moral virtue and goodness, and which would make belief like the fall of one of those volcanic stones which a few months since shivered a tree a few miles from Nashville, Tennessee.
To such christians as are staggered at the above reasoning, I would just mention that the Saviour resolved the infidelity of his hearers on many occasions, entirely to the will--"You will not come to me," and "You would not."
EDITOR.
A FARMER once had a horse, which his son, a lad of ten years old, could ride with pleasure and safety. But no fence could keep this horse out of his master's corn field. The consequence was, he was confined to the stable and secluded from good pasture. The lad said to his father one day when riding out, 'Father, what a pity it is that this horse has not a little more wisdom--how much better he might live in the pasture than in the stable, if only he could learn from his first long confinement to avoid going into the cornfield. If he had only a little more sense how much better it would be for him and for us.' Stop, my son, replied his father--if he had a little more sense, just as much as you now wish him to have, he would not let you nor me ride him at all. Those who never think upon the adjustment of things to their respective ends and uses, will find an admonition here.
EDITOR.
Remarks on Tassey's Vindication.
To the Editor of the Christian Baptist.
SIR--IN the close of extracts from Mr. Tassey's vindication, &c. the last of which appeared in your No. of May 7th, I intimated an intention, with your permission, of adverting to a few faults which I was grieved to find in that otherwise excellent performance.
Though the author appears quite alive to a sense of the pernicious influence of the common prejudices of education, of system, of interest, &c. and speaks as loudly and as pointedly against them, as almost any I have met with, yet, strange to tell, he seems as completely under the influence of those pernicious evils, against which he declaims and admonishes with so just a vehemence, as are some of those, he so justly condemns. It is under this impression I feel induced to animadvert upon a performance which, in other respects, I so highly esteem--and that both for the sake of the author, and of the public into whose hands these animadversions may chance to come. But, before I proceed, permit me to correct a mistake which I made in relation to the author's not having formally cited the Westminster Confession of Faith, upon the powers of synods and councils, which he has precisely done, p. 233. This was an oversight.
Investigating the various striking coincidences between Moses the type, and Christ the antitype, from Acts iii. 22. 23. it is stated p. 21. that "Moses was the introducer of a new dispensation of religion; one which was different and distinct, in its leading features, from any that had preceded; and which was added, as an appendage, to the patriarchal dispensation because of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made?" Moses was king in Jeshurun. "Our Lord, in this respect, most strikingly resembled his predecessor. He is the author and introducer of a new dispensation of religion, of which he is himself the sum and substance. He came to put an end to the carnal institutions, which consisted in meats, drinks, and divers washings; to these sacrifices, which could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; and to abrogate and forever abolish all the laws which pertained to the worldly sanctuary, and all the privileges that belonged to the Jews as a distinguished and separated people. He came, as the Sun of Righteousness, to enlighten a dark and benighted world, to teach and establish the worship of the true God, in its more spiritual and glorious form.--He came, also, to give laws and regulations to his people, adapted to the various circumstances in which they, as his followers, would feel themselves placed in this present world." So far the coincidence and contrast is clear, striking, and intelligible; and the natural and necessary consequences certain, easy, and obvious. We must then, as christians, look simply and solely to Jesus Christ for the whole of our religion; for he, as our king, has given laws and regulations to his people, adapted, &c. Christ is King in Zion.
Not so fast, for, says Mr. T. "We are not to consider the religion which the Saviour taught, as a distinct and different religion from that which was propagated by Moses. They are in substance and design the same, and are not in any measure to be considered as opposed to each other.
"Although, therefore, our Lord came to set aside that covenant or dispensation of religion, which had waxed old, and was ready to vanish away; yet it was not to abolish the religion itself; for a sinner was justified by faith and saved then, just as he is now: and though he introduced a new covenant or dispensation of religion, excelling, in glory, that which preceded it, yet [366] the religion itself was essentially the same as that which had subsisted from the grant of the first promise to our progenitors before their expulsion from Paradise." Now, gentle reader, to reconcile Mr. T. with himself and with the truth; hic labor, hoc opus est. This appears, indeed, an insuperable difficulty. Moses, he says, was the introducer of a new dispensation of religion, one which was different and distinct in its leading features, from any that had preceded; and which was added, &c. In like manner, also, that our Lord, the great antitype, "is the author and introducer, of a new dispensation of religion; and that he came to abrogate and abolish forever all the laws which pertained to the worldly sanctuary, and all the privileges which belonged to the Jews as a distinguished people." Consequently, he did not leave one shred of the Mosaic dispensation, "which was added as an appendage to the patriarchal dispensation" in force: yet he says, "We are not to consider the religion which the Saviour taught, as a distinct and different religion from that which was propagated by Moses." And not only so, but after granting that both Moses and Christ, each introduced a new dispensation of religion, "distinct and different from any that had preceded;" yet that, "the religion itself," which our Lord introduced, "was essentially the same, as that which had subsisted from the grant of the first promise to our progenitors, before their expulsion from Paradise." Consequently that neither Moses nor Christ introduced any new dispensation, of religion; but that they are both the same as the patriarchal, and of consequence the same with each other. Do, reader, reconcile these things if you can. Moses introduced a new dispensation of religion distinct from the patriarchal; Christ introduced a new dispensation of religion distinct from both; and yet we are not to consider it as such; nay we are to consider these three distinct and different dispensations of religion, as one and the same religion essentially.
But perhaps the reconciling medium lies involved in the mysterious word, essentially; or in the pithete, dispensation, which our author, in his premises, always attaches to the word religion; or perhaps it may lie concealed in the term, religion, itself. Let us try then what assistance the common and established sense of these terms may afford us for reconciling our paradoxical and mysterious author with himself.
To begin with the last mentioned, namely, religion; that we may not mistake the meaning of this leading and important term, let us begin at the root:--it is derived from the Latin word, religio, and that from religo, to bind thoroughly, or strictly; that is, to all intents and purposes; hence the noun, in the Latin language is frequently used to signify an oath; more commonly piety, the worship of God, or the rites and ceremonies of his worship. Hence a man of religion, of piety; or a pious and religious man, are phrases of equivalent import; expressive of the possession and exercise of an inward principle of love, adoration, and reverence towards God. In this sense, indeed, religion is the same in all true worshippers, both men and angels. In this sense, therefore, neither Christ nor Moses, officially considered, were the authors nor introducers of it. Our author therefore must needs understand it in the external exhibition of it, consisting in a devout and reverential observance of certain rites and ceremonies, or ordinances of divine worship, divinely appointed; for in no other sense can religion be properly the subject of a divine institution. Now our author has told us, that, in all these respects, the patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian religions are distinct and different. How then can they all be the same; especially as he tells us that the last mentioned has abrogated and for ever abolished all the laws, ordinances, rites, and ceremonies which pertained to the worldly sanctuary; or which, in other words, constituted the Jewish religion. And it is as certain, that the religion of Moses abolished the preceding to which our author says it was appended; for under it, to have worshipped according to the preceding, would have subjected the worshipper to death.
The Jewish religion was, therefore, as destructive an appendage to the patriarchal, as the christian religion is declared to have been to the Jewish. It abrogated and forever abolished it to the Jews. But our author only says they were essentially the same. There may be something of mysterious importance in this, for the doctrine of essences is, confessedly, of difficult interpretation. The term essence, is generally understood to mean the being or substance of a thing, or the remote matter out of which it is made, or its prime constituent qualities, &c. And probably this is the meaning of our author; for he says, the Jewish and Christian religions, "are in substance and design the same;" "for a sinner was justified by faith, and saved then, just as he now is." If by the term justified, we are to understand a person's being sustained as righteous before God, as approved and accepted in his sight, we might argue in a similar way, that the religion of our first parents in the state of innocency, and of the faithful was essentially the same; yea of all true believers to the end of the world; for who knows not that the very essence, or prime constituent principles and essential qualities of acceptable worship, of all true religion, are faith and obedience; that by these Abraham, and true believers with him, are and have been justified, and ever shall be; and that by departing from these our first parents sinned, and fell into condemnation--even by their disbelief, and consequent transgression. But, after all, our author may perhaps be exculpated from the unpleasant charge of self-contradiction by the just import of the term dispensation, which he always annexes to the word religion, in the premises before us. He does not say that either Christ or Moses introduced a new religion; but only a new dispensation of religion. What may be the difference between a new religion, and a new dispensation of religion, seems difficult to define. The term dispensation strictly and properly implies a weighing or parcelling out of something, as a task or portion for present use or occupancy. Hence, in certain cases, there may be a new or repeated dispensation of the same things. Thus summer and winter, spring and autumn, day and night, are, and have been dispensed to the world, and shall continue so to be to the end of time. Yet no man considers any of these a new dispensation. The word covenant, which our author uses in this connexion, and which has the advantage of being a more scriptural epithet, goes to afford no assistance towards solving the difficulty; For a new covenant of religion, which signifies, s new constitution or establishment of religion, necessarily implies and designates the newness or novelty of the religion established; especially when the people, for and amongst whom it is so established, are already in possession of a religion or form of worship which the new religion goes to supersede, as our author acknowledges the christian did the Jewish, to all intents and purposes demolishing its whole fabric. [367] Upon the whole investigation of this subject of apparent self-contradiction, there appears no means in the compass of the common use of language, and of common sense, to exculpate our author; I mean of reconciling him with himself. This, however, would appear a matter of small moment, were it not for the importance of the subject, and the connexion in which it stands. But what a pity that so strenuous and able an advocate for reformation should have so committed himself, for the sake of maintaining an antiscriptural hypothesis, viz. that the christian church or kingdom of Christ is but a continuance and improvement of the old; and this not for the sake of priestly honors, and the tithing system, like the high pretensioned Episcopalians, but merely for the sake of infant sprinkling, founded upon the hypothesis of church membership, deduced from the rite of circumcision, the fleshy seal of the covenant of peculiarity, with the select seed of Abraham according to the flesh.
PHILALETHES.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
Review of Dr. Noel's Circular.--No. II.
REV. SILAS NOEL, D. D. thus defines his creed: "By a creed, we mean an epitome, or summary exhibition of what the scriptures, teach." The Rev. Samuel W. Crawford, of Chambersburgh, Pa. who this year has printed a sermon on creeds, on the hypothesis that Dr. Miller and his predecessors had left something undone which he could achieve, has defined his creed thus, p. 6. "Creed is derived from the Latin word credo, I believe, and means simply that which any one believes, whether expressed by the living voice, or exhibited in written or printed language. It also signifies a system of evangelical truth, deduced from the scriptures by uninspired men, printed in a book, and made a term of ecclesiastical fellowship." The Rev. G. Waller defines a creed to be, every thing a man preaches or writes, and to this agrees the opinion of my friend and brother, Rev. Spencer Clack, who declares all that a man writes on religion to be his religious creed. I could fill a few pages very conveniently with definitions of creeds, but these will suffice at present. To begin with Dr. Noel, whose creed is "a summary exhibition of what the scriptures teach." As we have never seen the Doctor's creed in writing or in printed characters, nor heard him preach it all, for this he cannot do until he has preached his last sermon, we cannot form any opinion upon its perfection or imperfection, as coming up to his definition. He tells us it is not the scriptures themselves, but a summary exhibition of what they teach. This summary exhibition, then, is that which is to preserve the purity of the church. What the scriptures teach in their own proper arrangement, and in their own terms and phrases, is inadequate to this great end; but the summary exhibited in the Doctor's arrangement and terms will answer this glorious object. Query. How much more valuable is the summary exhibition than the whole inspired volume? Query again. What a pity that the Lord did not command his apostles to draw up a summary exhibition, knowing, as he must have known, that without this "summary exhibition," his church must have gone into dilapidation and ruin. Arians, Socinians, Universalists, Baptists and Presbyterians, must, without it, have formed one communion. And what a pity that the apostles had not, "out of their own head," given this "epitome or summary exhibition," before they died. But on Mr. Crawford's definition, this would not have answered the purpose, for his creed "must be deduced from scripture by uninspired men." And on Messrs. Wallet and Clack's definition, it would have been impossible to have done it, for it required all "the sermons, orations, and lectures" of our Lord and his apostles to make their creed, and all that they wrote and spoke during their whole lives constituted their creed. For all that I have written, is, with them, so many articles of my creed--and how voluminous it may be before finished, neither I nor they can predict.
We want to see Dr. Noel's "summary exhibition" more than any other. For his creed is nuncupative. He has not yet committed it to writing. The little creed book made or adopted by the Philadelphia Association is not his creed. For he has declared he does not believe it all, and he sometimes "constitutes churches" on one creed and sometimes on another. I have heard of two or three which he constituted upon "no summary exhibition" whatever; but on the platform of the whole volume in cumulo. I do herein and hereby sincerely request him to publish to the world his "summary exhibition," and to show us what the scriptures teach. For as I do well know there is not in print on this continent one such summary exhibition as he approves, believes, or practices. For against the Philadelphia creed he has most serious and important objections. And it is not many years since he attempted to publish a creed, but for some reasons abandoned it. And although Aleph and Beth should "bury the tomahawk," and agree on other principles of operation, still it will be necessary to publish the summary, or cruelly to desert the church to wolves and tigers, stripped of its only guardian, an epitome of what the scriptures teach. I repeat, the Doctor ought, on his own principles, to print the summary; for he says, p. 5, "a nuncupative creed is not calculated to quiet disturbances, or to exclude corruption." "If," adds he, "we use a religions test at all, we should be honest and independent enough to avow it." Honesty and independence, then, as well as the fitness of things require the publication of an epitome. To pretend to hold to the Philadelphia Confession, when it is neither believed nor practised, is to make it, and treat it, no better than the bible. If the Doctor believes it to be the desired epitome, honor and honesty require him to avow it; if not, let us have a faithful one.
But on glancing over the Doctor's circular, I find an epitome stated in it, and lest I should be contradicted by it in inserting that there is no epitome or summary exhibition in print, such as the Doctor approves, I must lay this epitome before my readers. It is in the following words, p. 7. "The bible plainly teaches, as I read and believe, the deplorable and total depravity of human nature, the essential divinity of the Saviour, a trinity of persons in the godhead; justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ; and regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, as indispensable to prepare the soul for heaven." Is this the summary exhibition of all the bible teaches, or of what the bible teaches?--!! Are these "the only radical truths?" Oh! that we "could see ourselves as others see us!" What a pity that God should have employed so many prophets and apostles for so many centuries, who have written so many pages to teach us no more than may be summarily comprehended in the above epitome.
Not a word of the perseverance of the saints--not a word of the resurrection of the dead, [368] eternal judgment, of eternal salvation or damnation in the above "summary exhibition of what the bible teaches." On this epitome Sadducees and Universalists might get into the bosom of the Doctor's church. Blessed be God that my faith is not to be measured out to me in spoonfuls by any such epitomizing Doctors! and that I can smile at the folly and deplore the weakness of such summary exhibits of what the bible teaches. I should not have been astonished at the above epitome, had not my friend, the Doctor, added, "These I believe to be the radical truths which God has revealed in his word," yes, "the fundamental principles." Mark it well "THE radical truths"--THE fundamental principles!"
Now, reader, you know the definite article the is inclusive and exclusive--it includes and excludes every thing foreign to that to which it is applied. Doctors of Divinity are all Doctors of literary attainments. And Doctor Noel is distinguished as a belles-lettres scholar. The resurrection of the dead, and eternal life and death, are not among "the radical" nor "the fundamental truths;" and from all in the above epitome, I know not whether the Doctor would make them any truths at all taught in the Bible. Whether such an epitome, or a general declaration, "I believe what the Bible teaches," furnishes the more or the most satisfactory data on which to unite in church fellowship, I would not spend one sentence to prove. But as this matter is sufficiently exposed, I proceed to notice that there never has been, nor ever can be, "a summary exhibition," nor "an epitome of what the Bible teaches," written out by the hand of man. If all the Doctors on earth were to meet in one solemn conclave, and sit seventy years longer than the Council of Trent, they cannot write out such an epitome. And I do here promise, that if any man attempts to give such a summary exhibition, even Dr. Noel himself, I will shew that it is no epitome, no summary exhibition at all. So that if what I have now said be correct, and the Doctor's definition of a human creed be correct, then it follows no such a creed as he would make a religious test can be furnished from the pen of mortal man. Now remember we are at issue here, and that I stand pledged to shew, when any such epitome is written out, that it is not "a summary exhibition of what the Bible teaches;" and I think, my opponents themselves being judges, it will be awarded that I have now shewn that the Doctor's radical and fundamental truths are no epitome, compend or summary of what the Bible teaches. I do not care how the human creed advocates, transmografy or metamorphose themselves on the question--I do not care how they change the mode of defence or the definitions--I am just as conscious that I can ferret them out, and shew them and the world that it is all downright sophistry as I am that I can lift fifty pounds weight.
The Baptist Recorder editors have changed the question altogether. A creed, with them, is all that a man preaches or writes. "Your creed," says brother Clack in his first letter to me--"I mean your writings." Here is the proof, or a summary exhibition of it, that a man's writings are what they call his creed. But is not this most sophistical? Who contends that his writings should be made a term of communion--a test of Christian character? If Messrs. Waller and Clack do so, I hereby declare I do not. If any man or set of men should attempt such a thing, I hereby protest against them. The indiscriminate use and application of the term "creed" unsettles the question altogether. Now I candidly acknowledge there is much more honest, independence, firmness, and candor, apparent in the writings of Dr. Miller and the Rev. Crawford, than in any of the Baptist advocates of creeds. The Paido Doctors boldly and unequivocally avow what they mean, and defend themselves as unambiguously as they can. But there is such shuffling and changing, such settling and unsettling, such defining and misdefining the terms or the chief term in this question, among the Baptist Doctors, that it exhibits either great misgivings within, or inability to reason on the subject. When a term is changed in its meaning by any controversialist, all logicians know and admit that the person who changes it either begs the question, abandons the cause, or misrepresents his opponent. To say that I make a creed of my writings, or that they come up to Dr. Noel's definition, is without all reason, argument, or proof. I have never once attempted to form a creed upon Dr. Noel's plan, Dr. Millers, or any other plan. And if the question is now to be argued, Whether my writings constitute a creed, or in writing I am making a creed for others, let the former question be abandoned and I am at my post to defend myself at a moment's warning But, gentlemen, no more of this sophistry. I have not yet done with Dr. Noel's definition, but I do not wish to weary him out, or my readers at one time on this trite question.
EDITOR.
Replication No. II. to Spencer Clack.
BROTHER CLACK,--WHEN you have read my No. 2. on Dr. Noel's circular, you will no doubt have observed that I represent you as having changed the subject of investigation on the creed question, and that you are considered as fighting with a phantom of your own creation. You have defined a creed to be all that a man writes on the subject of religion--a definition however true and correct you may consider it, is at war with all the creed systems in Christendom. On your definition, the creed of the Presbyterian church is the writings of all the commentators, all the bodies of divinity, sermon books, and religious magazines, written by the orthodox clergy of that church, equally with the Westminster productions. On your definition, all writings of Dr. Gill, Andrew Fuller, and a hundred others, regular and orthodox Baptists, constitute the creed of the regular Baptist church. And so it comes to pass, that all the writings of every man is his creed, and all who adopt him as a brother or a member of their community, adopt his writings as their creed. I know you have not said so in so many words, but your definition of a creed most certainly represents the matter thus. For you call my whole writings my creed, and make them the creed of all who read them with approbation. This is not that question Dr. Noel, Dr. Miller, or I was discussing; and by introducing this view of the matter, you have changed the whole ground of controversy. For instance:, when I commence a defence of myself from your imputations, I have only to show that I am making not a creed form myself or others, no test of religious character, no term of communion; and when I have done this the question at issue is never glanced at, which is proof positive that the question at issue is abandoned by you.
If you aim either at my conviction or that of others, you must not reason in this way; for to see you driven into this plan, establishes us in our views more and more: and weakens your [369] cause, irreparably I now beg your indulgence while I attempt to show you that you have mistaken the subject altogether. I say mistaken, for I would rather believe that you have mistaken, than that you have knowingly misrepresented it. You say in Letter 1. "You (meaning myself) "object to creeds and confessions, and for the very same reason I could object to your ancient order of things. You object to creeds because they are not the Bible." Now let me tell you that this is not fact. I never did object to creeds because they were not the Bible. And recollect I use the term creed in its ecclesiastical import; and I call upon you to show where I have objected to creeds for this reason. Nor can you object to my "ancient order of things" for the same reason why I object to creeds and confessions. I object to creeds and confessions because made authoritative "tests of religious character and terms of christian communion;" and never can you, "for the same reason," object to the essays I have written on the "ancient order of things," because I have never made them, hinted that they should be, or used them as a test of christian character or terms of christian communion.
You must, I think, now see that you are fighting with a phantom of your own creation. It is not the editor of the Christian Baptist that you assail, but an apparition or a ghost that has some moonless night appeared to you in the vicinity of Bloomfield. I have often said (and let me tell you that I am not like your friend Aleph, always veering about on this question or any other which I publicly avow, for I have declared in the first letter I ever presented to a Baptist Association many years ago) that I cared not how many creeds were published, or would not object to publishing a creed every year, provided that it was only to inform the world what I or those in union with me held: and not to be made a test of christian character nor a term of christian communion. It is just in this light only that I oppose them in this controversy. And so long as you defend them in any other light, or represent me as opposing them--so long you mistake the question--so long you are terrified by ghosts and witches--so long you abandon the cause which you seem, and would wish to appear, to defend. It is very true I might object to many creeds because of their contents; but that is not the question now. It is the right of making any human creed--any inferences drawn by fallible men and fallible reasoning from the scriptures--any epitome, or summary exhibition, made by short-sighted mortals, a test of religious character and a term of christian communion. Having then detected you in a gross mistake of the whole matter at issue, I hope I shall be excused for noticing any farther any thing you have said upon this subject, founded upon your misapprehension of the subject. You know when we have dug up the foundation, it is not always necessary to knock the wall to pieces.
Mr. Crawford of Chambersburgh gives the best definition of a creed of any of you human creed advocates: "It is a system of evangelical truth, deduced from the scriptures by uninspired men, printed to a book, and made a term of ecclesiastical fellowship." Although not a Doctor of Divinity, he has acquitted himself well here. Uninspired deductions of the understanding from the scriptures, made a term of ecclesiastical fellowship. This is the creed for which he contends, and such a one as he practically holds. Uninspired inferences is his bond of union. Faith, I will contend, has respect to testimony alone, and facts attested are the only things that can be believed. The agreement of conclusions with premises, or the deducing of them, or the apprehending of them, is a work of reason, not of faith. A man might as properly say he believed that an equilateral triangle had three equal sides and three angles, as to say that any book of inferences, inspired, or uninspired, deduced from any premises, is a confession of faith.--Two men may agree in all the deductions or chapters in the confession of Mr. Crawford, but their agreement is in opinion, not in faith.--And if he could apprehend this, his whole sermon on creeds is dissolved and vanished into thin air.
There is one other mistake in your first letter, which I beg leave to correct. You say, "Between you and your Baptist brethren there is no difference of opinion as to the rule of faith and practice." I wish this was true. I admit it is true so far as we profess to have one and the same bible; but I do not profess to walk by the rule of the Philadelphia Confession--and if you do, you have got one rule more than I have got. I have no idea of calling any thing a rule of life by which I do not walk, and no man can walk by two rules unless they are of the same length and breadth.
In illustrating this rule, you say the Baptists think the bible teaches the doctrine contained in their creeds. Now, brother Clack, you will pardon me in saying that I do not know a Baptist church on this continent that "thinks the bible teaches" the doctrine contained in the only regular Baptist creed I have seen. And not all the members of any one church which I have yet met with, have ever seen or read this creed. It is very questionable with me whether as many as five persons in every church in your state have read or seen this little book--and I think it is no great loss. Many Baptists have gone to heaven who never saw it; and I do not think a single soul would be lost in consequence of the destruction of every human book of dogmas, called creeds, in the United States.
What then are you, brother Clack, contending about? About an ignis fatuus--a dead carcase; a dead letter--uninspired deductions? the apprehension of the theoretic truth of which depends upon the strength of intellect, and not upon faith at all. The apprehension of which never saved a sinner, nor edified a saint. If you were to issue from your press this day one myriad of such creeds, you would only poison the minds, inflame the passions, and scatter the seeds of discord throughout your churches. I do most earnestly beseech you, brother Clack, to abandon this heart-hardening--this soul-alienating--this discord-making--this strife-breeding course. Lift up your voice, and wield your pen in behalf of the superlative excellency, heaven-born simplicity, divine sufficiency, majesty, and power of the sacred writings of the holy apostles and prophets of Jesus our Lord. Call sinners to behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world, as he has been presented to us by his holy messengers--and exhort the saints to keep his commandments--to abide in his love--and to love one another for his name's sake--and neither in the hour of death; nor in the day of judgment will it cause you to blush or tremble, because you have cast to the moles and to the bats the little book and all the sophistry which was attached to, and inseparably connected with, the keeping it in public esteem, as a form of sound words.
A. CAMPBELL. [370]
------, MISS. MAY 29, 1827.
DEAR SIR,--ON reading your essay in one of the late numbers of the Christian Baptist, on the "purity of speech," or being cast into the mould of the New Testament, or Covenant, my mind was involuntarily led to the following train of reflections, which I have concluded to pen down and transmit to you for publication, if you think them worthy of insertion.
The subject of my meditations was the first idolatry, or image worship, the worshipping of the molten calf as gods, a particular account of which may be read in Ex. xxxii. The Israelites said to Aaron while Moses was upon the Mount receiving the law, "Up, make us gods which shall go before us," &c. "And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden ear-rings which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me."--And all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron." Men wore these ornaments in the eastern countries as well as women, as we find in the story of the Israelitish and Midian soldiers. Judges viii. 24, 25, 26. And Pliny speaking of their earrings, says, "In the east it is esteemed an ornament for men to wear gold in that place." (See Beauchart's History, chapter 34,) "And they said, These be your gods, O Israel!" &c. "And Aaron built an altar before it, and made proclamation, To-morrow is a feast to the Lord." Now, what in this history struck me so forcibly, was, first they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox, a fat filthy ox that grazes on the green meadow, and then transferred to this beautiful ox with white and black spots intermingled, the fearful name, the character, the attributes, the perfections, the works and the worship of the I am that I am. For they rose up early on the morrow and brought burnt offerings and peace offerings. How easy the transition! This may appear a small matter to some who believe that whatever a man thinks to be right, is right to him; and to others who say that it is no matter what we call things, so that we mean the same thing; and by others it will doubtless be viewed in the light of a non-essential, as it was at most only a departure from one of the statutes. But let us trace this one act of the high priest through all its meanderings, as far as we have the facilities of doing so, and see if the ultimatum will support these persons in their indifference about celestial names and things.
It is generally supposed that they learned this idolatry or abomination from the Egyptians, among whom they had sojourned, and who were notorious for their love and use of hieroglyphics, and who accordingly worshipped Joseph, (who interpreted the dream of Pharaoh's seven fat and lean kine,) under the emblem of an ox with a bushel turned over his head. This is the foundation of all idolatry. This is the Apis, or Serapis, of the Egyptians; the Bel, or Belus, of the Canaanites, Chaldeans, or Babylonians; the Melianthus of the Phoenicians; the Molech, Moloch, Milcom, Melcam, Malcom, Rephan, Remphan, Chiun, of the Ammonites; the Baal, a male deity, of the Israelites; the Chemosh, Baalim, and Ashtaroth, feminine deities, of the Moabites; the Adonis of the Syrians; or the Rimmon of the Damascenes; the Thammuz of the Jews; the Dagon of the Philistines; the Saturn of the Carthagenians; the Light and Darkness of the Persians; the Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Bacchus, and, in short, the thirty thousand gods of the Greeks and Romans, made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. They even deified the most abominable vices:--
| "Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
"Whose attributes were rage, revenge or lust; "Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, "And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe." |
The properties of these idols transferred to St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Cyprian; &c., forms the mysterious rites of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church, and which lies deep at the foundation of the modern charitable and Babylonian churches, which claim the prerogative to change, alter, and abolish rites and ceremonies to suit times, places, and countries, (see the Prayer-Book, under head "Ceremonies,") and whose fall will be great. Thus we see that the whole system of ancient Pagan mythology is nothing more than the perversion of a plain historic fact of the Jewish law: a mixture of Judaism and Paganism, a misnomer. The modern systems of mythology are a mixture of Judaism, Paganism, and Christianity. Jewish and anti-christian names and ideas transferred to christians' names and things, a misnomer. After this survey, will any man say that it is immaterial what we call things, so that we mean the same things; that there are non-essentials in the word of God, connected with every word of which is, majesty, authority, power, wisdom and benevolence? The following reflections seem naturally to arise. How grateful should we be for "the Book" which gives us all the information we have, or can have, of the Almighty, and our own origin and destiny, in appropriate and intelligible terms! How careful should we be to preserve inviolate every phrase, word, syllable, and letter of this inestimable book! What robbery has God sustained by this one departure from the divine law! What innumerable millions of souls have perished in consequence of this one departure! How much evil have great men done at different periods of the world by lending their names and influence to sanction these departures! How difficult to return to the right way, when once forsaken! How much trouble, vexation, opposition, persecution, tyranny, agony, horrors and bloodshed, and death, in a thousand forms, have the Christians experienced by this one departure! How has his glory been concealed and his significant and heavenly institutes perverted!
J. C.
BELMONT, OHIO, JULY 28, 1827.
MR. CAMPBELL--FROM the perusal of your Christian Baptist, and known talents on theological subjects, I would come nearer to the truth of a question I would presume to propound. Before I lay down the question, I will state the history of the case which gave rise to it. I am a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and denominated a Reformer, being an adherent to that party. We, the reformers, of the said church, have got up a paper called the Mutual Rights, in which are discussed the principles of church government. We, the Reformers, wish the church to be modelled upon primitive usage, i. e. the people to be identified in the church with the ministers in the law-making department. Now it is contended for, in a pamphlet versus Reform, that, as the church originated from the preachers, that is, in the formation of the discipline to govern the Methodist Episcopal Church, as the people did not originate the discipline, they have not any right in the administration of the church. And again, that a man virtually surrendered his inherent rights in the church, or, in one word, that a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church has lost his liberty as Christ's freeman when a member of said church. You must recollect [371] that the discipline of our church originated from Coke and Asbury, and that the present polity was surreptitiously introduced, being contrary to the desire of our founder, the episcopacy of the church. Now for the question: Can it be possible for any church to exclude its members from a participation in the law-making department of the church, merely and solely because the church government originated from the ministry? Was not the church for one hundred and fifty years governed according to the manner it is laid down in the New Testament, and as soon as the clergy debarred the people their legitimate rights, it sunk or merged to popery, with its concomitant evils? Now it is also contended in the pamphlet, that, as the Methodist polity is missionary, lay representation will bring it down to the Congregationalist form, and naturally destroy the design of the missionary character. Now we have nothing to warrant that assumption from primitive times. I am certain that there were churches planted in different parts of Asia, Europe, Africa, and that under that economy, the spirit of the missionary character was glorious. Now how lay representation, in the councils of the clergy, can destroy the missionary effect, is an enigma to my mind, maugre the spareness of the number of the people and the extent of country the preachers have to travel, even if they have the world for a diocese.
Your attention to these, will command the grateful recollection of your sincere friend and well wisher.
S. I. M.
"In the April, May, and June numbers of the "Mutual Rights," a periodical work, published by a committee of Methodists in Baltimore; there is an account of seven members being excluded by the preachers in North Carolina, for no other crime than peaceably attempting to obtain their rights as members of the church. Also, an account of a preacher being silenced for one year by the Baltimore Conference, for reading the "Mutual Rights," and recommending them to others--his moral character unimpeachable. These things have roused the members so in many parts, that they are determined no longer tacitly to submit to this Methodist Popery?
MY DEAR SIR--I AM glad to see the efforts making by the more intelligent Methodists throughout the union, for divesting their system of those strong features of resemblance to the papal supremacy, which appear in this country so illy to comport with the spirit and genius of our government. A calf in rich pasture soon grows up into an ox; and when an ox, he can sometimes gore prodigiously. The calf which was raised by the hands of Messrs. Asbury and Coke, though not so well thriven as that on the banks of the Thames in Old England, has grown rapidly, and occasionally he terrifies the youngsters by the shaking of his horns.
I do hope that you will succeed in defacing one mark of the Beast from your system. But I do not understand so well what you mean by the laity participating in the law-making department. Neither the teachers nor the taught, as I understand the New Testament, have any lawmaking authority at all. Jesus Christ, the New Testament teaches me, is the one only lawgiver, and he is able to save them who obey his laws, and to destroy them that do not. You have no need of any other lawgiver, nor laws, as far as I can judge. I would ask those who wish to have a legislating power, to inform me how, and upon what subjects, they would exercise it.
I do not wonder at the logic used by the anti-reform good people. Men never like to part with power; and those in power will always find many tools by which to carry their projects into effect, by any means, sense or nonsense.
I answer your question with a capital NAY. But I am unwilling to put out one class of lawgivers and to put in another, when I know that every law they make for the church will be an attempt to usurp the throne and government of the Great King. You want less law-making and more law-keeping. If I were to set up a human religion, that is, a religion of human contrivance, I would ordain that all the law-making should be in the hands of the laity, and that the priesthood should have no part in it at all; but let them execute the law of the laity. Then you might expect something like your rights--your mutual rights--but if you let the clergy help you to make laws and execute them too, you will be duped at last. For were you to send two laymen for every priest, the priests would make the laws at last; and your reformation, like that of Luther, would need to be reformed again and again.
With the best wishes for your success in destroying idols and them that worship them, by the power of truth, I subscribe myself your friend and the friend of every man who loves truth and liberty.
A. CAMPBELL.
From the New Harmony Gazette of August 1.
IN REPLY to the queries of the Christian Baptist, published in our Gazette of the 11th ultimo, we have received the following communication from our correspondent W. R.
To the Editor of the New Harmony Gazette.
MR. EDITOR--HAVING in vain looked for a reply from some of your correspondents to the Queries of the Christian Baptist, published in your Gazette some weeks ago, I beg to offer the following remarks, without, however, claiming the appellation "enlightened Deist."
The questions proposed for our consideration are, Is there a God who created all things? Is there a spirit in man which will survive the body? Is there a future state of reward or torment? I answer, We can reply to these propositions neither in the affirmative nor in the negative, for we possess no positive knowledge on any of these subjects.
A God, the Soul, Heaven and Hell, if such existences and places do really exist, can never, from their nature, become cognizable by the senses of man. I therefore cannot conceive how we shall ever be able to acquire information regarding their nature or existence.
W. R.
Can the editor of the Christian Baptist, or some of the "enlightened Deists" from whom he expected a reply, afford us any positive information on this subject? If so, we shall be pleased to hear from them, and shall insert their communications, reserving to ourselves our editorial privilege of closing the discussion, should it be come too lengthy for our columns, or uninteresting to our readers.
I HAVE only room for the present to remark, that, with all the improvements in philosophy for eighteen centuries, the world is no wiser with respect to God than it was when Paul lived. He then declared that neither Greece, nor Rome, nor Egypt, by all their philosophy, knew God. Even to this day, the God that was unknown in Athens, is unknown in New Harmony, and to all who have no other lights than what philosophy affords. And here is another and a striking [372] proof: the people of the city of "Mental Independence" are said to have the best library on this continent, and with all the advantages of social converse in the best improved condition of human nature, having voluntarily extinguished the lights of supernatural revelation, have now candidly and honestly avowed that whether there is a God at all, a spirit in man that will survive his mortal body, a heaven or hell, is to them unknown and unknowable. This is the identical conclusion to which I knew most certainly, by all the knowledge of philosophy which I possess, they would be constrained to come. For, as I have frequently said, there is no stopping place between Deism and Atheism; and they are lame philosophers who, taking philosophy for their guide, profess to hold with Herbert, Hume, Gibbon, and Payne, that there is a God, an immortal soul, a heaven, or a hell. I give great praise to the New Harmony philosophers for their candor and their honesty in frankly avowing the conclusion which all the lights they have authorize them to maintain. I say they are good philosophers. They have reasoned well. I thank them for their polite and minute attention to the queries I proposed to them; and in the meantime, promise them a continuance of my essays on this most interesting subject.
EDITOR C. B.
[TCB 364-373]
|
[Table of Contents] [Previous] [Next] |
Alexander Campbell
The Christian Baptist (1889) |