Volume 5. Number 10. May 5, 1828, pp. 437-444.

• Remarks on the Essays of Paulinus by Alexander Campbell, pp. 437-438.
• Ancient Gospel.--No. V.: Immersion by Alexander Campbell, pp. 438-439.
• The Columbian Star by Alexander Campbell, pp. 439-440.
• A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.--No. XXIV.: Church Discipline, No I.--Third Letter to R. B. Semple by Alexander Campbell, pp. 440-442.
• Review of the History of Churches.--No. I. by Alexander Campbell, pp. 442-443.
• Mr. Robert Owen's Challenge by Alexander Campbell, pp. 443-444.
• Seed Time by Alexander Campbell, p. 444.

      THE readers of the Christian Baptist are, and no doubt will feel themselves indebted to Paulinus for the very forcible, and elegant essays he has furnished on this subject. He has unquestionably thought very closely, examined the scriptures very fully, and has arranged and exhibited the testimonies to so methodical and forcible a manner, as to give the greatest and best possible effect to his sentiments on this theme. Few of the intelligent readers of this work will dissent from his conclusion of the whole matter, viz. p. 431--"The substance of the leading sentiment maintained in these two essays, is, that we are dependant on the influence of the Holy Spirit to render the word effectual to our conversion and final salvation. I am not so sanguine as to imagine that every remark I have made is invulnerable to an attack, or that every quotation from scripture will be found correctly applied; but the great object, the leading point is, I humbly conceive, satisfactorily established; and this, I would hope, will meet with no opposition from the friends of divine truth."

      Although it might appear that some of the sentences extracted from different parts of the sacred volume, were not originally intended to prove the position which was before the mind of Paulinus, yet still the conclusions to which he has come will be very generally embraced as declarative of sentiments styled evangelical. The delicate point is very tenderly handled; and indeed it requires great caution lest this system be too much reprobated, in showing why the apostles did not contend for such a position, nor exhibit themselves in the descriptive and explanatory style, when preaching repentance and salvation to their auditors. Paulinus explains the reasons why they did not so preach to sinners, and very justly concludes that, "this was not the leading object to be presented."

      There is one point which I should like to have seen occupy some place in the systems of this day with a reference to this subject, viz. As respects the actual possibility of salvation to those without the Bible--whether there is any advantage at all, as respects salvation, to those who have the Bible over those who have it not. Or is not a Virginian with the Bible, in exactly as hopeless a condition as a Hindoo without it, unless some special influence be exerted upon him? Or, for the sake of variety--can not, or does not, the Holy Spirit by its impressions or operations, make salvation as easy and as accessible to a Japanese without any written revelation as to a Virginian with all the sacred books?

      We are apt, in interpreting the holy scriptures, to suppose that a hundred things said of "sinners," of "natural men," of "children of wrath," of "the dead," of "those without strength," were spoken of persons who were circumstanced as the inhabitants of the British Isles, or the citizens of the United States: never taking thought that there are essential differences between those without, and those under, the revelation of God. This single fact, clearly apprehended, is like applying the pruning hook to the vine: it lops off a great many quotations and applications of scripture which are thought to bear upon the sons and daughters, the brothers and sisters of christians, as if they were born in tribes, and nations, where the name of Jesus has not been heard.

      I have long felt an unconquerable repugnance to that system of religion which destroys the use of the holy scriptures to unconverted or unregenerate men. The doctrine of physical and irresistible energies of God's Spirit upon unbelieving men, as absolutely and indispensably prerequisite to their deriving any religious benefit from all that is written on the sacred pages; from all that is spoken by christian tongues, from all prayer and supplication addressed to the Father of all; from all and every moral or religious means, is, in my view, at war with Moses and the prophets; with the Lord Jesus, and the apostles; with the whole Bible; with all rational analogies; with all the faculties yet belonging to the human race; with all and every thing, natural, moral, and religious, except the sheer inoperative dogma of some indoctrinated fatalist. I do therefore, with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, oppose every proposition, position, and sentiment, which either grows out of, is connected with, or looks towards, the establishment of such a cold, lifeless, and inoperative system: believing it to be entirely unauthorized by the Holy Spirit, and that it is the most genuine wresting of the scriptures to the destruction of thousands, who are now, as they have been for centuries, standing all the day idle: some running into all manner of excess; and others looking with aching hearts for some irresistible wind, afflatus, or spirit, to carry them, not literally, but figuratively, as Elijah was taken, in a whirlwind to heaven.

      I see some systems tinctured with this principle, which disavow it, and I have felt a good measure of it in all these theories about the Holy Spirit's operations upon unconverted men. If you, brother Paulinus, discard the doctrine of irresistible operations upon unbelievers, you are happily safe from the systems which I have been so long combating and endeavoring to expose in my various essays on the work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men. I have contended that the Spirit of God has done something which renders unbelief and unregeneracy a sin in all men who have access to the Bible; independent of any thing to be done; and I have taught that it will do something for those, who, from what it has done, are immersed into the faith of the gospel.

      What it has done, has given strength to the weak, life to the dead, and reclaimed enemies to God--what it will do, is to beget a holy spirit and temper, to fill with peace and joy and righteousness, those who believe. I will not therefore, with the speculative philosopher, make what the Spirit of God has already done of none effect, to make way for something yet to be done. Nor will I ascribe every thing to what the Spirit has done, in the inditing and confirming the testimony, to the exclusion of any influence upon the minds who, through faith, have been immersed for the remission of sins and this heavenly gift. Thus the Scriptures encourage all to activities. The whole world with whom this Spirit of God strives in the written word now as it once did in the mouths of the prophets and apostles, have no excuse for their infidelity or unregeneracy--and those who have put on the Lord Jesus are invited to abound in all the joys, consolations, and purifying influences of this Holy Spirit. Such is the operative system of supernatural truth--the scope of the practical principles of the Bible.

      Those who have contended for physical and irresistible influences, have found themselves at variance with the manifest scope and bearing of a large portion of the apostolic addresses to their auditors. They, to prevent or to obviate [437] the charge of making the word of God of none effect by their traditions, have invented a curious doctrine of "common operations," contradistinguished from the special and, like the pious Mr. Baxter, have attempted to reconcile the jarring systems by making it possible for all gospel hearers to be saved and certain for some--possible for all who did not resist the common operations; and certain for all upon whom the irresistible or special operations were employed. This is a lame expedient. Their doctrine of common operations is as unscriptural, as their special operation is subversive of all praise or blame, of all virtue and vice, of all excellency in faith, or criminality in unbelief. The Bible doctrine requires not the aid of either system.

      Let no man say that in explicitly opposing both systems, we argue that men are converted without the Holy Spirit. By no means. The Spirit of God works upon the human mind as well as dwells in it. It works by the record which God has given of his Son, as the spirit works by the body of a man--clothed with this record, it enlightens, convinces, and converts men. It is never once said to work in any other way upon the minds of men since it consummated the record. Even in convincing the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, in the age of miracles, it did this in words concerning Jesus. When men hearken to the word, they hear the Spirit of God; when they will not hearken, they resist the Spirit of God. It makes every man who hears the word able to believe, by adapting its testimony to his capacity, so that his unbelief is wholly his own sin, owing to aversion, and not to incapacity.

      Men are not made Christians as Balaam's ass was made to speak, or the whale to vomit Jonah upon dry ground. Yet still they are enabled to believe by the Holy Spirit, and without its aid no man ever could have believed in Jesus, as God's own Son. In one sentence all men who hear the Spirit of God, (and every man born in these United States may hear this life giving Spirit,) have all natural inability removed, and faith is just as easy to them as it is to hear. Salvation, or the heavenly inheritance, "is of faith, that it might be by grace or favor," says an apostle. I rejoice to know that it is just as easy to believe and be saved as it is to hear or see. That the Spirit of the living God has made it so to every man, and so works upon all men who read or hear the record which God has given of his Son as to remove all natural incapacity out of the way, is just what makes the record of Jesus glad tidings of great joy to all people. And nothing less than the views above given make the gospel glad tidings of great joy to every body. There is not a phrase, word, or syllable in the New Testament that is in the least irreconcilable with this simple view of the Gospel. Where the Spirit of God is not heard, men are without strength, and cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. Where it is heard, every person is empowered to believe. And if any man ask me why all do not believe, I will tell him, it is because all do not wish to believe: or if they say they wish to believe, I will tell him then, "They believe not because they are not of the sheep of Christ." And if he ask the who are the sheep of Christ, I will tell him, They who follow him: for the reason why disciples are called sheep, is because they hear and follow the Master's voice. But this matter will be further developed in the subsequent essay. And in the mean time I will only add, that while many agree with this view of the Gospel on one side, they take a view of it on another side incompatible with the nature of grace or favor altogether, by representing the whole matter as dependant upon some will subduing operation as physical as the creation of light--without which it is all a dead letter.

EDITOR.      

      THERE is a natural and a moral fitness of means to ends. In the vegetable and animal kingdoms there is a natural fitness existing between all the means employed in promoting all the changes of which vegetables and animals are susceptible. This is, however, owing to the Creator's own appointment. Why heat and moisture should contribute to vegetation--oxygen, food, and medicine, to animal heat and life, is, to us, very natural; yet it is owing entirely to the will of the creator that it is so. For he made the vegetable, the heat and the moisture; and the animal, the food and the medicine, for each other. The fitness which we discover in them we call natural, just because it appears invariably to exist. It is the law of nature, we say; yet this law of nature, when pushed back to its fountain, is only another name for the will and power of God.

      In the moral empire, or the empire of mind, there is a moral fitness as well established, though, perhaps, not so clearly defined as that which is the object of sense. Intellectual light and love are as well adapted to mental health and vigor, as natural light and heat are to the animal and vegetable existences. There is natural and moral good, natural and moral evil, natural and moral beauty, natural and moral deformity, and natural and moral fitness. Kindness and beneficence are morally fitted to produce love;--forgiveness and generosity io overcome injuries, to destroy enmity, and to reconcile parties at variance.

      Transgressions of law, whether natural or moral, are invariably productive of pain, though of different kinds. If I put my hand into the fire, corporal pain is not more certainly the consequence than that mental pain of guilt follows the infraction of moral law.

      But were I thus to follow up the analogies in the natural and moral kingdoms, I might stray off from my present purpose altogether. It is sufficiently established that there is a moral as well as a natural fitness of means to ends.

      Sometimes there is an apparent congruity or fitness between the means appointed by God and the end or object for which they are appointed, but at other times there is no discernible relation between them. The falling of the walls of Jericho upon the blowing of rams' horns; the anointing of a blind man's eyes with clay to recover his seeing; or the dipping of a leprous person in Jordan to remove a leprous affection, are all of the latter kind. But, perhaps, the amount of divine energy put forth in this way is no greater, though to us more extraordinary, than that employed in making a tulip grow, or a rose open and expand its leaves in obeisance to what we call a law of nature. I think it would not be more expensive on the treasury of divine power to rain loaves from heaven, than to give them to us in the ordinary way of twelve months vegetable and animal process. And, therefore, I can believe that it is as easy for God to forgive us our sins in the act of immersion as in any other way whatever.

      But yet I have not arrived at the assigned point [438] to which I directed the expectation of my readers in my last.

      Where there is a guilty conscience there is an impure heart. So teaches Paul: "To the unbelieving there is nothing pure; for even their mind and conscience is defiled." In such a heart the Holy Spirit cannot dwell. When God symbolically dwelt in the camp of Israel, every speck of filth must be removed even from the earth's surface. Before the Holy Spirit can be received, the heart must be purified; before the heart can be purified, guilt must be removed from the conscience; and before guilt can be removed from the conscience, there must be a sense, a feeling, or an assurance that sin is pardoned and transgression covered. For obtaining this there must be some appointed way--and that means or way is immersion into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So that, according to this order, it is incompatible, and therefore impossible, that the Holy Spirit can be received, or can dwell in any heart not purified from a guilty conscience. Hence it came to pass, that Peter said, "Be immersed for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

      No man can have a holy spirit otherwise than as he possesses a spirit of love, of meekness, of humility; but this he cannot have unless he feel himself pardoned and accepted. Therefore the promise of such a gift wisely makes the reception of it posterior to the forgiveness of sins.--Hence in the moral fitness of things in the evangelical economy, baptism or immersion is made the first act of a Christian's life, or rather the regenerating act itself; in which the person is properly born again--"born of water and spirit"--without which into the kingdom of Jesus he cannot enter. No prayers, songs of praise, no acts of devotion in the new economy, are enjoined on the unbaptized.

      Catholics and protestants think so too, if they only knew it. They know that baptism, as they understand it, is prior to every other religious institute. They make it, in fact, regeneration. They suppose that by it the inconscious babe is born into the kingdom of heaven in some sense. They err not in making it, in the order of things, previous to every other act, but in separating it from faith in the subject. It is not more natural or necessary in the kingdom of nature, that blossoms should precede the ripe apple, than that, in the empire of salvation, baptism should precede the remission of sins and a holy spirit. For the Spirit of God is the spirit of holiness, and where there is a guilty conscience it cannot dwell.

      If baptism be connected with the remission of sins, infants require it not; for they have no sins to be remitted. At least the Calvinists and Arminians teach this doctrine; for they say that "original sin" is all that is chargeable upon infants. This original sin is but one, and is always found in their dialect in the singular number. Now as Christian baptism was always for the remission of sins in the plural number, in the primitive age, and never once said to be for the remission of sin, nor of original sin--infants, on the Calvinistic and Arminian hypothesis, need not be baptized: and in this I am both a Calvinist and an Arminian.

      But I cannot, it seems, keep to the point. The question is, Why is the Holy Spirit promised as consequent upon immersion? I answer, 1st. Because forgiveness is through immersion; and because, in the 2nd place, the spirit of holiness cannot reside in any heart where sin is not absolved. This is an invariable law in the moral empire, over which the Lord Jesus reigns. The new constitution is based upon the fact that where remission of sins is there is no need for sacrifices; consequently I argue, that the reason why there are no sacrifices--no altars, priests, nor victims, under the reign of Jesus, is because remission of sins through immersion is enjoyed. And let it be noticed with great attention here, that God's dwelling in and among the people of the new reign, or his spirit ruling to their hearts, is based upon the fact that "the worshippers being once cleansed have no more conscience of sins." This admirably coalesces with the views exhibited in the previous essay, and indeed with all the essays upon the "Work of the Holy Spirit in the Salvation of Men," in the volumes of this work.

      If men do not believe, and will not be immersed into the faith through what the Spirit of God has already done, there is not one promise in all the Book of God on which they can rely, or to which they can look as affording ground of expectation for the Spirit of God to dwell in their minds, or to aid them while in unbelief. Let him that says "Yea," tell us the promise.

EDITOR.      

      MR. WM. T. BRANTLEY, Pastor of one of the richest and most flourishing Baptist churches in the United States--a church rich in annuities, neither dependant upon the head of the church nor any of its living members, for at least sixteen hundred dollars a year;--I say, Mr. Wm. T. Brantley, formerly of South Carolina, called to the pastoral office of said church, rich in good "deeds" and legacies, and editor of the "Columbian Star," has humbled himself so far as to notice this little periodical--which, with great good humor, he calls the "insolent," "pugnacious," and "insidious," "falsely called Christian Baptist." After having exactly in the letter and spirit of the Apostle Paul, honored me with a long retinue of epithets, full of Christian charity--and declarative of a most benevolent and Christian temper, he gives me over to Satan and the Arminian Expositors for good behavior.

      I could have thanked him more if he had honored me less. But at the impulse of his strong affection for my person and labors, he oversteps the modesty of Christian nature; and not only represents me as "self-willed," "merciless," "self-conceited," and "arrogant," but as insidiously aiming at the subversion of "the ancient order of things." So much for Star-light when the Sun shines. But for my joy he has promised me but one such friendly notice. Why but one, Mr. Brantley? If a proof of your condescension, it is too little to gain the reputation of being humble; which, perhaps, is not fashionable in the present order of things:--if a proof of your bravery, but once is too little to gain for you the reputation of a Christian hero. But if "once only," lest your reputation for honesty and candor in a good cause should suffer, it would have been well for you to have thought twice before you promised "once only," lest this "once only" should prove too often for your good name.

      The history of Mr. Brantley's course to the "falsely called Christian Baptist" is as follows: Some time in November last, if I remember right, he first introduces me to his readers through the medium of a false statement prefixed to the minutes of the Franklin Association. I call it a false representation, for so it was demonstrated, and the authors of it have not since vindicated themselves nor it, though called upon for an explanation [439] in the third number of this present volume. I wrote a private letter to Mr. Brantley, complaining of this act of injustice; but he made no public amends for the falsehood published, and suffers his readers to remain under the false impression to this day.

      Not willing to become "pugnacious" all at once, although he began to conjugate "pugno, pugnas, pugnavi," I suffered him to pass without a word. By and by, in December, he gives me one or two thrusts, "unguibus et pedibus," in his preface to Bishop Semple's two letters, but graciously promises to give me a column or two in his paper when I should demand it. The publication of these two letters following his kind introduction of me, were well designed and calculated to bias every reader of the "Star" against me. Still, though "self-conceited, self-willed, and arrogant" as I be, I did not notice these infractions of christian law, fully expecting and hoping, for the sake of christian character, that he would make a large amends, and so soon as my replies to Bishop Semple would appear he would permit his readers to hear with both ears and to examine both sides. But to my no little surprise, he next gives a dissertation upon "the Spirit of the Reformers," and castigates me over the shoulders of the Reformer. Still I could not give him up, nor lift my pen in self-defence, while I had his pledge--his public pledge, that he would do me justice. I concluded to write him, requesting him to redeem his pledge; and as he had published Bishop Semple's letters, I asked him to publish mine. This last letter he deigned not once only to answer, but in the "Star" of the 5th April he addresses me as "pugnacious, self-willed, self-conceited, insidious, arrogant," &c. &c.

      The policy of this kind philippic is to represent me as fighting with the Baptists and Baptist Confession, and all the good, pious, and orthodox Baptist dignitaries, such as Dr. Noel and Mr. Brantley, and so forth--as exceedingly mad against the Baptists, the Confession, and the Doctors of Divinity, and those decent Rabbies who make out of the popular establishments two, three, and sometimes four thousand dollars a year.

      No wonder they support the schemes that so well support them.

      I could easily show that a Pharisee, a Sadducee, or an Epicurean Philosopher, or any Rabbi, with a good fat living, could have represented Paul the Apostle as "self-conceited, arrogant, self-willed, pugnacious," exceedingly mad against the little creed and the good and pious Jews who loved Moses and their own order of things. I say, I could show that, upon Mr. Brantley's plan, all this and much more could have been done with infinite ease; and the great majority would have been gulled with such a representation of things as easily eighteen centuries ago as at this day. But this is unnecessary for me. As Paul did appeal to his whole course in self-vindication, and as he ascribed to the dyspepsia, rather than to the head or the heart, the opposition of his opponents; so, for the sake of all parties, I do adopt and pursue the same course.

      But if Mr. Brantley should ever condescend a second time to look down from his high and lofty seat in the great city of Philadelphia, upon the "arrogant and insidious Christian Baptist," I will ask him a query or two which he must feel himself bound to answer:--

      1st. Why do you represent me in your first sentence as "selecting the brethren Semple, Noel," and yourself, for a wanton attack, when in fact you, and each of them, selected me, and tried, condemned, and denounced me, before I ever pointed a pen or opened my lips to publish a single word concerning any of you? Yourself and the brethren Semple and Noel, months before I noticed you, were making very free with my reputation. This is so notorious that it puts my charity to the torture to discover how you could innocently present me to your readers as the first to attack any of you. You made "the selection;" not I. But Mr. Brantley, you understand the logic of the Ins full as well as you understand the seventh chapter of the Romans. And I do not hereby question your orthodoxy in either I want to see more honesty. We have enough of orthodoxy. Show me a little honesty in answering this pertinent request.

      2d. Why do you not fulfil your promise made to me and the public in December last, of giving me an opportunity of vindicating myself from the vituperations you have given currency to--and why do you now append conditions to your promise which did not accompany it? I have fulfilled the only condition you attached to it, and will you plead with the Mother Church that an oath or promise made to a heretic is not binding?

      3d. Why do you say there was a time when, as a writer, I professed to have "no fixed tenets?"

      4th. Why do you affirm that, in opposing your little dead letter, called the Confession, (which, by the way, has not been the chief thing in my mind while opposing creeds,) I am casting off all cords? Is the little creed all the cords in the world?

      5th. Why do you say that I "scatter my sentiments over a wide space (in the C. B.) to prevent their being compared and examined?" Do give the proof.

      You make me a new promise instead of fulfilling an old one. You say if I "make out a synopsis of my sentiments you will publish it." If, in your logic and morals, the making of a new promise is equivalent to fulfilling a former one, I despair of inducing you to do me justice; and while you make yourself "the judge, jury, and witness," when I am worthy to appear in the "Columbian Star," I shall be content to suffer such acts of injustice as you have done or may do me, so long as it may please my good master to permit it to be so. I had once some hope that amongst the public and leading Rabbies of the day, I had found one who would not think himself degraded in serving the Saviour of the world. I will not yet say, "Ab uno discite omnes."

EDITOR.      

Brother Semple,

      DEAR SIR--YOU say that "church government is obviously left by the bible for the exercise of much discretion." How this can be I cannot conjecture. Whatever is left for the exercise of much discretion is obviously a discretionary thing. If, therefore, church government be a matter obviously of human discretion, I see not how any form of church government, though principally of human contrivance, such as the Papistical or Episcopalian, can be condemned. Each of these forms takes something from the bible and much from human discretion. We [440] may think that what their discretion adopts is very far from being discreet; but in condemning their taste, we cannot censure them as transgressors of law; for obviously where no law is there is no transgression. If there be no divine law enjoining any form of church government; if there be no divinely authorized platform exhibited in the bible, then why have the Baptists contended for the independent form, except they suppose that they have more discretion than their neighbors!

      But what you may call "church government" may, perhaps, be entirely a matter of human discretion, such as fixing the time of day on which the church shall meet; also, the hour of adjournment; the place of meeting, whether in a stone, brick or wooden building; the shape and size of their house, and the seats and conveniences thereof. On these items the bible, indeed, says but little. Or, perhaps, brother Semple, under the terms "church government," you may place synods, councils, associations; the duties of moderators and clerks; rules of decorum and parliamentary proceedings in deliberative bodies; all of which some think as necessary to the well being of the church as "the scaffolding is to the house." If you embrace all these items, and other kindred ones, in your idea of church government, I perfectly agree with you in one part of your assertion, that the bible says little or nothing on such matters; but I do not say that they are all left to human discretion, and therefore I cannot flatter myself into the opinion that the synods and advisory councils of Presbyterians and Independents are innocent matters of human discretion!

      You have, no doubt, brother Semple, often observed, and remarked to others, that a majority of the disputes in religion have originated from not defining the terms or using the same words as representatives of the same ideas. I have often said that the chief advantage which mathematical demonstration has above moral or philological proof, is owing to a greater precision in the terms used in the former, than in the latter species of reasoning. Many an angry and verbose controversy has been dissipated by the definition of a single term; and the angry disputants, after they had exhausted themselves, finally agreed that they misunderstood one another. When you say that "church government is obviously left by the bible for the exercise of much discretion," I am led to suspect that you attach a meaning to these terms quite different from that which I and many others attach to them. The reason I think so, is because I am puzzled to find a definition of them, that will accord with your assertion.

      By "church government" I understand the government of the church; which the bible teaches is upon the shoulders of Immanuel. He placed the twelve apostles upon twelve thrones, and commanded the nations to obey them. I find, therefore, that the Lord Jesus is the governor, and the twelve apostles under him, sitting upon twelve thrones, constitute the government of the church of Jesus Christ. I know that synods and advisory councils have a right to govern voluntary associations, which owe their origin to the will of men; but in the church of Jesus the twelve apostles reign. Jesus, the king, the glorious and mighty Lord, gave them their authority. The church is a congregation of disciples meeting in one place, an assembly of regenerated persons who have agreed to walk together under the guidance of Jesus Christ. Hence they are to be governed by his laws. All the exhortations concerning temper, behavior, and discourse found in the apostolic writings, in all their addresses to the congregations after the day of Pentecost, constitute the government of the church, properly so called. When all the apostolic injunctions, such as those concerning the government of the thoughts, the tongue, and the hands of christians are regarded, then the church is under the government of the Lord. Laws moral and religious, i. e. laws governing men's moral and religious actions, are the only laws which Jesus deigns to enact. He legislates not upon matters of mere policy, or upon bricks, stones, and logs of timber. He says nothing about moderators, clerks, and parliamentary decorum: but upon moral and religious behavior he is incomparably sublime. He enacts nothing upon the confederation of churches, of delegate meetings, or any matter of temporal and worldly policy. Hence they strain out a gnat and swallow an elephant who complain there is no law authorizing the building of meeting houses, and yet find a warrant for a "state convention" or a religious convent, college or seminary of learning. The matter of church government which was discussed at Westminster was never mentioned by the Lord nor his apostles. When I hear Independents, Presbyterians and Episcopalians contending about their different forms of church government, I think of the three travellers contending about the color of the chameleon. One declare it was blue; another affirmed it was green; a third swore it was black; and yet when the creature was produced all saw "it was white."

      As some of the wisest philosophers of the present century have discarded what has been improperly called "moral philosophy" from the circle of sciences, because it has no foundation in nature; so methinks the subject of "church government" and the whole controversy about it, in the popular sense of these terms, might safely be sent back to the cloisters of the church of Rome, whence it came. Let the moral and religious government of the institutes and exhortations addressed to disciples in their individual and social capacities be regarded, and there is no need for one of your by-laws or borough regulations.

      The decorum of a public assembly is well defined, both in the sacred oracles and in the good sense of all persons of reflection. And if disciples meet not "for doing business," but for edification, prayer and praise, or discipline, they will never need any other platform or rules of decorum, than the writings of Paul, Peter, James and John. But if you, brother Semple, will have the daughter attired like her mother; or if you wish any sect to become respectable in the eyes of those acquainted with the fashions in London and Rome, you must have sectarian colleges under the patronage of churches, and churches under the patronage of associations, and associations under the patronage of state conventions, and state conventions under the patronage of a constitution, creed, and book of discipline, called "church government." And the nigher these two latter approximate to the see of Canterbury, or that of Rome, the more useful and honorable will they appear in the estimation of such christians as are deemed orthodox in the District of Columbia. I feel very conscious that the less you and other good christians say about "church government," in the popular sense, the better for its safety with the people, who have contended for something, they know not what, under this name. And just as certain am I, that if the laws governing moral and religions demeanor in [441] the epistles are regarded, as they must be by all who are really taught by God, there will be found no need for our by-laws or regulations in the congregation of the faithful, not even in cases of discipline when transgressors present themselves.

      Brother Semple, when I hear you call the church a "a corporation," the Bible "its charter," and the creed its "by-laws;" or, perhaps, you make the essay on discipline its by-laws: I say, when I hear a baptist bishop of such eminence, in the state of Virginia, in the reign of grace 1828, thus express himself, I feel almost constrained to take up my parable and sing--

      I hope to be still more explicit in my next.

	Yours with all respect,
	EDITOR.

      WE have given the history or brief notices of the origin and progress of sundry churches or congregations, which, in Europe and America have attempted to move out of Babylon. To these we might have added many more, but a sufficient variety appears in the number given to afford a fair specimen. The history of another we have reserved for the last number of this volume. From the specimens given, several prominent features of characteristic importance appear pretty much alike in all:--

      1st. Although in countries far remote from each other, and without the identifying influences of ecclesiastic jurisdiction, in the form of superintending judicatories, they appear to have agreed in making the scriptures the sole and all-sufficient rule of faith and manners--without the assistance of any creed or formula of human contrivance.

      2d. In the next place, they appear to have drawn from the same source the same general views of the genius and design of the institution of a public weekly meeting of christians on the first day of the week.

      3d. They all concur unanimously in the necessity and importance of the principal items of worship constituting the ancient order of things, such as the weekly commemoration of the death of Jesus and the resurrection; the contribution or fellowship for the necessity of saints; public and social prayer and praise, with the exercise of discipline when necessary; and, indeed, all the other public means of edification; such as public reading of the scriptures, teaching, preaching, and exhortation.

      4th. They moreover give the same general representation of their regard for, as well as apprehension of, the nature and design of the true grace of God--and the indispensable need of a moral and pious life. But it has happened to some of them as it happened to those called Reformers from Popery. They disliked the Pope in Rome, but had no objections to a Pope in Geneva or at Wirtemberg. They disliked the incumbent rather than the incumbency; and each sect in setting up for itself, had either an effigy of the Pope's chair, or a few of the relics of an old one set up in their little Sancta Sanctorum. So some of those churches, in their honest and pious efforts towards a better order of things, inconsciously, no doubt, brought with them two misfortunes of very great injury both to themselves individually and to the progress of the more valuable and interesting parts of the Reformation. The first is the catholic or textuary mode of interpreting scripture, and the second is not of much less deleterious influence, namely a too great regard to unity of opinion, or, as some would express it, unanimity of sentiments or views--an occurrence which, could it always be effected by any systematic course, neither presupposes the existence of moral goodness, nor necessarily contributes to its growth. Persons may be very unanimous in their views and efforts, and be no better than the projectors of the tower of Babel, whose misfortune it was that they were too much of one opinion. I trace every difficulty into which these virtuous communities fell, either to the textuary system and rules of interpretation, or to an unrighteous regard to similarity of sentiment. I say unrighteous regard, for when men make communion in religious worship dependent on uniformity of opinion, they make self-love, instead of the love of God, the bond of union, and elevate matters of mere speculation above the one faith, the one Lord, and the one immersion.

      I am fully aware of the difficulties under which these christians withdrew from the popular establishments. They were sick of frivolous formalities, tired with the poor entertainment of insipid speculation and traditionary prescriptions, and desirous of understanding and living upon the Book of God. But they had lost the key of interpretation, or rather they withdrew from the popular establishments with much esteem for the bible, but with the textuary notions expounding it. They did not know or feel that when they commenced interpreting for themselves, they were only using the tools which they carried from the pulpits which they had forsaken. In many instances they only corrected a few opinions by their separation, and their reformed system left them as heady and high-minded and as cold-hearted towards the reign of heaven as before. The introduction of error, and the propagation of delusions are not the greatest evils chargeable upon the Mother of harlots. She has done worse than even this. She has taken away the key of knowledge and rendered the oracles of God of none effect by her traditions.

      A great deal has been said upon the evils arising from the mincing of the scriptures into texts, and the textuary plan of sermonizing: but as the queen of Sheba said when returning from her visit to king Solomon, "The half has not been told." There are not a few flowery and elegant sermonizers, as well as some scores of spiritualizers, who can make an ingenious sermon, and yet could not expound a single chapter in the whole volume, or give the meaning of the shortest epistle in the book. The reason is obvious: the art of making sermons and of expounding or understanding the contents of a book, are just as distinct as the art of managing vulgar fractions is from the whole science of mathematics, or the doctrine of magnitudes. Any person, by the help of a margin bible or a concordance, with the outlines of some system of theology in his cranium, can make as many sermons as there are verses in the bible, and deduce many doctrines and notions which never entered into the head or heart of any of the Jewish prophets or christian apostles. All this and much more he may do, and obtain the reputation of an eminent Divine, and yet could not tell the meaning or design of the first paragraph of the letter to the Hebrews. But this is not the worst evil resulting from this art. It gives birth to arbitrary and unreasonable rules of interpretation, which, so far as they obtain, perfectly disqualify the auditors [442] from understanding any thing they read in the sacred volume. But this only by the way.

      I do not offer these remarks as if they had been altogether elicited by the preceding letters; but because, in some of them, we see evident traces of the existence of these false premises in the minds of the communities which approved them. We are happy, indeed, in discovering in some of them a decided triumph over the narrow and illiberal principles which make a disagreement in what are called "doctrinal points," dismember a church; or exclude, as "unsound in the faith," the man whose head is too strong, or too weak, to assent to some far-fetched deductions of a more abstract or metaphysical reasoner. So far as this sentiment prevails, the way is opening to the return of the saints to the city of God. Had not this principle been recognized and acted upon in the primitive age, it would have been impossible for even the Apostles themselves to have united the believing Jews and Greeks in one religious community. It is as necessary now, if not more so, than in the apostolic age for the union of all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity. Just what the more intelligent sectaries agree to constitute a Christian in profession and practice, is all that they can reasonably demand of any applicant for admission into their communities. If they demand more or less, they sin against their own judgment, and sacrifice their good sense upon the altar of sectarianism. Admit this principle to be a correct one, and then when one point is settled the way is clear for the union of all Christians. Let the question be discussed, What is necessary to constitute a disciple of Jesus Christ, both in profession and practice? and then who dare say that such should be excluded from the people of God? The man who would exclude such, will be hard puzzled and much perplexed to answer one interrogatory from the great Judge; namely, "Who has required this at your hands?"

EDITOR.      

      SINCE the publication of my reply to a correspondent in Canton, Ohio, [Mr. A.] the following challenge from Mr. Owen to the clergy of New Orleans, reached us. It seems this challenge was published in several of the New Orleans papers.

      'GENTLEMEN--I HAVE now finished a course of lectures in this city, the principles of which are in direct opposition to those which you have been taught it your duty to preach. It is of immense importance to the world that truth upon these momentous subjects should be now established upon a certain and sure foundation. You and I, and all our fellow men are deeply interested that there should be no further delay. With this view, without one hostile or unpleasant feeling on my part, I propose a friendly public discussion, the most open that the city of New Orleans will afford; or, if you prefer it, a more private meeting: when half a dozen friends of each party shall be present, in addition to half a dozen gentlemen whom you may associate with you in the discussion. The time and place of meeting to be of your own appointment.

      'I propose to prove, as I have already attempted to do in my lectures, that all the religions of, the world have been founded on the ignorance of mankind; that they are directly opposed to the never changing laws of our nature; that they have been and are the real source of vice, disunion and misery of every description; that they are now the only real bar to the formation of a society of virtue, of intelligence, of charity in its most extended sense, and of sincerity and kindness among the whole human family; and that they can be no longer maintained except through the ignorance of the mass of the people, and the tyranny of the few over that mass.

      'With feelings of perfect good will to you, which extend also to perfect sincerity to all mankind, I subscribe myself your friend in a just cause.

		ROBERT OWEN.
'Mrs. Herries, Chartres street,       New Orleans, Jan. 28, 1820.	}

      'P. S.--If this proposal should be declined I shall conclude, as I have long most conscientiously been compelled to do, that the principles which I advocate are unanswerable truths.

R. O.'      

      I have, from the first appearance of Mr. Owen in this country, considered his scheme of things, moral and political, as predicated either upon absolute Deism or Atheism. To decide which of the two, I was, for some time, in suspense. He has now come out full face against all religion, finding it at variance with his new theory of society. I have long wondered why none of the public teachers of Christianity has appeared in defence of the last blest hope of mortal man.--This sceptical age and country is the proper soil, and the youth of this generation the proper elements for Mr. Owen's experiments. I have felt indignant at the aspect of things in reference to this libertine and lawless scheme. Mr. Owen, a gentleman of very respectable standing as a scholar and capitalist, of much apparent benevolence, travelling with the zeal of an apostle, through Europe and America; disseminating the most poisonous sentiments, as Christians conceive; finding myriads in waiting to drink, as the thirsty ox swallows water, whatever he has to offer against the Bible and the hope of immortality, passes unchecked and almost unheeded by the myriads of advocates and teachers of the Christian religion. If none but Christian philosophers composed this society it might be well enough to let Mr. Owen and his scheme of things find their own level. But while a few of the seniors disdain to notice, or affect to disdain his scheme of things, it ought not to be forgotten that thousands are carried away as the chaff before the wind, by the apparently triumphant manner in which Mr. Owen moves along.

      Impelled by these considerations and others connected with them, we feel it our duty to propose as follows:--

      Mr. Owen says, in the challenge before us:--"I propose to prove, as I have already attempted to do in my lectures, that all the religions of the world have been founded on the ignorance of mankind; that they are directly opposed to the never changing laws of our nature; that they have been and are the real source of vice, disunion, and misery of every description; that they are now the only real bar to the formation of a society of virtue, of intelligence, of charity in its most extended sense, and of sincerity and kindness among the whole human family; and that they can be no longer maintained except through the ignorance of the mass of the people, and the tyranny of the few over that mass."

      Now, be it known to Mr. Owen, and all whom it may concern, that I, relying on the author, the reasonableness, and the excellency of the Christian religion, will engage to meet Mr. Owen at any time within one year from this date, at any place equi-distant from New Harmony and Bethany [443] any, such as Cincinnati, Ohio; or Lexington, Kentucky; and will then and there undertake to show that Mr. Owen is utterly incompetent to prove the positions he has assumed, in a public debate before all who may please to attend; to be moderated or controlled by a proper tribunal, and to be conducted in perfect good order from day to day, until the parties, or the moderators, or the congregation, or a majority of them are satisfied, as may afterwards be agreed upon. I propose, moreover, that a competent stenographer, perfectly disinterested, shall be employed to take down the speeches on the occasion; that for his trouble he shall have the exclusive right of printing and distributing said debate throughout the United States--and thus give all who feel desirous to hear or read, whether Mr. Owen, with all his arguments, benevolence, and sincerity, is able to do what he has proposed. After stating these prominent items, I leave every thing else open to negotiation or private arrangement.

      To quote the words of Mr. Owen--"With feelings of perfect good will to you, which extend also in perfect sincerity to all mankind, I subscribe myself your friend in a just cause."

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
Bethany, Va. April 25th, 1828.

      "HE that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Few persons seem to bear in mind that they are reaping every day what they have sown some days, months, or years before, even in their temporal enjoyments or sorrows. Still more plain it is to those who believe the words of the Great Teacher sent from God, that men will hereafter reap in the long, long harvest, what they have scattered in the seed time of their existence. Others also will reap, in some sense, the seeds which we are sowing, just as we are now reaping the seeds sown by our ancestors and predecessors. These facts suggest to us the necessity of great attention to our conduct. Ourselves here and hereafter, our children and our children's children, with their cotemporaries, may, and in many instances will, most assuredly reap what we are this day sowing. As we then regard our present and future happiness, that of our descendants, and that of all connected with them, we are admonished to take heed what we daily sow. "To sow to the flesh," is to labor for fleshly or animal pleasures; or, taken in its worst sense, it is to labor for the gratification of our evil propensities, our corrupt passions and affections.--Such shall reap corruption. Remorse and its handmaid, Shame, must introduce them to the whole family of moral and physical agonies which terminate in the utter corruption of every sensual appetite and gratification. They reap rottenness and death, because they sowed the seeds thereof.

      "To sow to the Spirit," is to devote our energies to the teachings of the Holy Spirit; to attend to the mental, more sublime, and heavenly objects of spiritual enjoyment, which are the objects of christian faith and hope; and to aim at the extension of these enjoyments by the introduction of others to a participation in them.

      "To reap life everlasting," is to rise in bliss and exalted enjoyments, without any assignable point of termination. Such is the bright prospect of an eternal harvest to those engaged in sowing the precious seed which grows for an age, and ripens for ever.

      In every sense, then, life is the seed time. To-day for to-morrow, this year for the next. And as we are reaping what others sowed, let us, as christians, and as wise men, sow not only for ourselves, but that generations yet unborn shall arise and call us blessed. I trust seed is this day scattering, which shall be reaped in the Millennium by all those engaged in introducing the ancient order of things. If, then, with the wisdom which comes from above, we go forth scattering the precious seeds of true bliss and real good, how happy for ourselves, and for all that are dear to us, in time and to eternity! But let none despair because he cannot sow and reap in the same day. Remember the patience of the husbandman--and imitate him in preparing for the golden harvest which will never end.

EDITOR.      

[TCB 437-444]