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Alexander Campbell
The Christian Baptist (1889) |
| NO. 11.] | JUNE 2, 1828. |
To Bishop R. B. Semple.--Letter IV.
BROTHER SEMPLE,--YOU say that "the bible is the charter of the corporation called the church, and that this charter contemplates such regulations to be made by the church as answer to the by-laws of corporate bodies." This is precisely, as I understand your epistles and your language, your views of the system of church government. To express this idea fully, you allow that "the charter is not enough" for the government of the members of a church, but absolutely requires the church to make by-laws. And you aver that when the church is making "the by-laws" she is to take care only of one thing, that she "does not violate the word or spirit" of the charter. This, then, is a very luminous and clear view of your plan of church government. I am pleased with its clearness and intelligibility, though I have some formidable objections to such a representation of the matter. I must always commend perspicuity and precision in definitions, although the definition when given may be every way objectionable. That our readers may fully understand your definition, I will state the matter more fully; and, believe me, brother Semple, it will give me no little pleasure to receive from you either a retraction or counter exposition of the matter. When a legislature grants a charter to a bank, a borough, or a manufacturing company, it incorporates them into a separate, independent body, with full power to manage their own concerns; and they may appoint and must appoint either directors, a council, or managers, who have full power to make as many by-laws as they please for the government of their body, provided these bylaws are sanctioned by the charter; but the charter itself contains no particular or special laws for their government. It merely erects them into a body known in law, and grants them the privilege of legislation, and full power to enforce their own regulations and by-laws; that is, the same power which the legislature itself possesses.
The following are some of the more prominent objections to your plan of church government:--
1. I object to considering the bible merely as a charter granted by a legislature or civil government, because the bible does more than erect congregations, or constitute religious bodies invested with peculiar privileges. It gives them many laws for their general and particular [444] behavior. It authorizes the existence of congregations, or, as you call them, "corporate bodies," but it does more than any charter ever granted by any legislature ever did. It prescribes to the members in particular every requisite rule of behavior, for their thoughts, words, and actions. In fact it transcends any charter on earth in every respect: for if it was like other charters it ought to have left every thing, but the definition of the powers and privileges granted, to the management of the individuals incorporated. Now all the apostolic writings are filled with matter and laws entirely subversive of such a representation of the matter. The apostles taught christians a thousand times more than any charter teaches; and while the constitution of the christian church is laid down most fully in these writings, every important item of christian duty requiring the attention of christians, either in public or private capacity, is also laid down. In representing the bible, then, only as the charter of the church, injustice is done to it as great as I can conceive of. And the book is divested of all its utility as regulating the conduct of individuals. For you know, brother Semple, that charters regulate public bodies, and not individual persons; whereas almost the whole New Testament is engrossed with the regulations, and rules, and precepts which are to govern individuals. I am therefore constrained to differ essentially from you in this part of your plan of church government. But I hope, when you more maturely reflect upon this matter, you will differ from yourself as far as I differ from you; and indeed I must say, that I think you will agree with this view of the matter, and that your public lectures to congregations are at variance with your whole theory.
A second capital objection to your scheme of church government is, that it terminates in the same systems with those fashionable in Rome, Constantinople, and Edinburgh. In giving to the church the incorporated powers of legislation, even upon the subject of by-laws, the question is, Do the whole church, male and female, old and young--or do the rulers in the church make these laws? Or do you use the word church in the classic sense of presbyterians, or the New Testament sense of a single congregation? As a baptist, I suppose you use it in the latter sense. Well, then, the congregation in Washington city, for example, is chartered by the bible, and authorized to make its own by-laws or particular laws for the government of its members. The whole congregation must, then, make these laws, or their rulers. Now, to say nothing of the principles involved on either hypothesis, where do the sacred writings authorize or give directions for either? What command, law, or precedent, says, You may make year own by-laws or regulations? I must candidly say, I know of not one. If you know of any such, do, for the sake of the churches, declare it. The presbyterians and episcopalians, when pressed on this subject, have universally failed. The command, "Let all things be done decently and in order," has been oppressed until it has refused to carry one pound of by-laws. For "the decency and order" are declared in the volume. The 15th of the Acts absolutely refused to aid any of these councils unless they could say that their decisions were infallible and suggested by the Holy Spirit. But if you will have a church representative of churches, in the popular sense, then you are off the ground on which the baptists in former times always stood, and in union with the modern hierarchies.
But a third objection to this platform is, that if the charter authorizes a congregation to legislate in matters of faith or practice, it authorizes it to enforce, by proper sanctions, every act of disobedience or infraction of its by-laws. What then are the penalties? If no penalties, it all goes for nothing. And if the sanctions are enforced, then the decrees of the church are tantamount to the commandments of the Head of the Church. Divine institutes and human enactments are therefore at par. But I only glance at the incongruities of the scheme.
As I do not think you were aware of what was involved in this sentence, I will pursue it no farther and state no other objections to it until I learn that you are disposed to defend it. These three are, in my opinion, invincible.
What the Sandemanians or Haldanians say or do, it matters not to me. I defend them not. I am not answerable for their improprieties. I contend that the constitution of the church and its laws are found explicitly declared in the New Testament. And that in all matters of faith and christian practice it requires not one by-law to amend or adapt it to any christian society. And if you call the appointment of one bishop to four churches, a by-law, or the annual meeting of delegates to regulate the internal polity of congregations, or the system of text preaching, monthly communion, &c. &c. I say, if you call these by-laws, I protest against them as papistical and as anti-scriptural as any of the dogmas or sacraments of the Roman hierarchy.
I will finish my replies to your first letter in my next; and while I am discharging what to me appears an imperious duty, I beseech you, brother Semple, not to consider me in any other light than as faithfully and affectionately remonstrating against sentiments which I am convinced are of very injurious tendency and subversive of the grand characters of the divine volume. This I do without one unkind feeling for your person; and my reluctance to undertake this work was altogether owing to my high esteem for you as a good and great man, and a desire to have your co-operation in a cause which is triumphing and must be triumphant as certainly as the promises of God are all yea and amen in Jesus our Lord.
The public mind is aroused from its slumbers. The day is past when old usages and loose declamations can be passed current as the Oracles of God, or the decisions of reason. A thorough, a radical, a mighty revolution is not now to begin. It has actually commenced. And it is as vain to attempt to check its progress as to forbid the appearance of to morrow's dawn. The good and the wise do not wish to limit the expansion of the human mind; to retard the advancement of that happy period which you and I, and millions more, every day pray for. I would rather be found rolling the stumbling blocks out of the way when the King Eternal calls me home, than to be called from the chair of the most magnificent establishment which the East or the West ever saw.
O Lord! hasten then the glorious day, when the light of thy philanthropy shall cheer the sons of men to earth's remotest bounds!
| Truly your obedient servant, | |
| EDITOR. |
Ancient Gospel.--No. VI.
Immersion.
IN writing so much upon immersion under the head of the ancient gospel, I am not to be under stood as identifying christian immersion with the ancient gospel. Immersion we have before said is the gospel in water; or the gospel exhibited [445] in symbols the most significant and impressive. The truth to be believed is one thing, and the belief of the truth another. Both are prerequisites to immersion. The truth must be known and believed before we can be benefited by it. And one item of this truth is, that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's only Son, cleanses us from all sin. Yet God has made it accessible to us through water, as certainly as Jesus came by water and by blood. The virtue that cured all the blind, the halt and the maimed: the virtue that raised to life the dead, dwelt in the person of Jesus Christ; but something was necessary to elicit this virtue. The will of Jesus was the only absolute requisite. But he was pleased to institute certain media through which this virtue was to pass from him into the frame of the dead or the diseased. The media through which this virtue was communicated were various, but universally sensible. A word to the ear, a look to the eye, or a touch addressed to the sense of feeling, are equally sensible, and were occasionally employed in the impartation of divine restoratives to the sons and daughters of distress. As the electricity is drawn from the cloud at a certain moment of time, and by an established law in the material system; so the restoring virtue in the person of Jesus was elicited and communicated at a certain instant of time by a law in the spiritual system, as firmly established as any law of nature. So it is in the impartation of the blessings of salvation to the souls of men. There is an instant of time, and a medium through which the forgiveness of sins is imparted as well as the other blessings growing out of adoption into the family of God. This point is worthy of much investigation, and capable of the clearest demonstration. That there is a definite instant of time in which all former sins are absolved, is generally admitted; but that there is any sensible means ordained by which this blessing is conveyed, is not so generally apprehended. When Peter and John were addressed by the cripple at the beautiful gate of the temple, (Acts iii.) Peter said, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I you; in the name of Jesus the Nazarene, rise up and walk." The virtue which was reposed in the person of Peter was not imparted in the pronunciation of the words, "Silver and gold have I none," nor in the pronunciation of the words, "Such as I have I give thee;" but in saying, "In the name of Jesus the Nazarene, rise up and walk," and at the instant he took him by the hand, the healing virtue was communicated. But why select particular cases, when it was universally the case since the time when God put the rod of wonders into the hands of Moses, down to the imposition of the apostle's hands, that at a certain instant of time, and by sensible media, the powers called "supernatural" or "miraculous" were exhibited. Even the brazen serpent imparted no healing powers unless looked at by the stung Israelite. In respect to the remission of sins also in the religion of types, there was a definite moment, and an instituted way in which the conscience of a guilty Israelite was released. It would then be an anomaly in the history of the divine government, a defect to which there is nothing analogous in the natural or moral systems, should it have happened that there is no time fixed, nor sensible means appointed for the remission of sins in the new economy. Faith, indeed, is the grand medium through which forgiveness is accessible, but something more is necessary to the actual enjoyment of the blessing than a conviction that it is derived through the blood of Jesus. Hence those who had obtained this belief were commanded to be immersed for the remission of their sins, or to arise and be immersed and wash away their sins, invoking the name of the Lord. The miracles wrought by Moses, by Jesus and the apostles, the sacrifices under the law, and the doctrine and commandments of the apostles, all concur in teaching us that there is a fixed time and instituted means in which all divine favors are communicated.
From the time when Moses was shown the glory of God, down to the close of the Jewish ages, it was known that the God of heaven was merciful and gracious, abundant in goodness and compassion. But until Peter the Apostle opened the kingdom of heaven, and announced the coronation of Jesus as Universal Lord, the means by which this mercy was exhibited in the actual remission of sins as communicated to, and enjoyed by, sinful men, was not clearly and fully developed. And one of the better promises on which the new economy is established, one of the superior excellencies of the New Covenant, is, that under it the forgiveness of sins is imparted, and the conscience perfected in and by means addressed to our senses, and of the easiest access to every believer of the philanthropy of God. So that the instant of time, and the means by which, the formal remission is granted, is an object of sense, and a proper subject of remembrance. Hence those who apostatized from the faith are said to have "forgotten that they were purified from their old or former sins;" i. e. sins committed before immersion. From which it is as clear as demonstration itself, that the forgiveness of sins was through some sensible means, or it could not have been a proper subject of remembrance.
But the documents which the scriptures afford for the demonstration of this most important fact, are as extensive as they are luminous and convincing. We shall attend to another illustration in the present essay. It is this: Jesus represents himself as the bridegroom; his people are compared to a bride; and their union is explained under the similitude of a marriage. Now, we know, that if the relation between christians and their Lord be at all analogous to that of a husband and wife, it must follow that something analogous to a marriage must be celebrated between them. This must be done at some definite period, and in some formal way. Hence persons are said to "put on Christ" as a woman puts on the name of her husband. We christians are said to be married to him; and in consequence of this marriage we are invested with an indefeasible right to all the honors, emoluments, and felicities originating from such an alliance. The property that Christians derive from this alliance is thus described by the apostle Paul, "All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Because we are Christ's, we have all things. So reads the inventory of the Christian's estate. Among these "all things," we can easily find the forgiveness of our sins. This, then, becomes ours when we become Christ's; and if we formally and actually become Christ's the moment we are immersed into his name, it is as clear as day that the moment a believer is immersed into the name of Christ, he obtains the forgiveness of his sins as actually and as formally as he puts him on in immersion. But as no woman is legally or in fact her husband's property, [446] nor his property hers, until the marriage covenant is ratified and confirmed according to law; so no person can legally claim the blessings of pardon and acceptance who has not been according to law espoused to Jesus Christ. But so soon as the marriage is consummated, that moment the right is established and the blessings secured. And as nothing but a legal divorce can disannul the marriage covenant, so nothing but apostacy from Jesus Christ can alienate us from the rights and immunities guaranteed in immersion.
Some persons have thought that because they did not understand the import of christian immersion, at the time of their immersion, they ought to be immersed again in order to enjoy the blessings resulting from this institution; but as reasonably might a woman seek to be married a second, a third, or a fourth time to her husband, because at the expiration of the second, third, and fourth years after her marriage, she discovered new advantages and blessings resulting from her alliance with her husband, of which she was ignorant at the time of her marriage. It is true she may regret that she lived so long in that state without enjoying the privileges belonging to her; but her having the rites of matrimony celebrated ten times, or once for every new discovery she makes, would give her no better right to these enjoyments than she possessed through her first marriage. Nor will her repetition of the nuptial rites cause her to enjoy more fully the comforts of which she was deprived during the past years of her ignorance, than the mere consciousness that she now enjoys them. But of this more hereafter. We shall thank any of our intelligent readers for any objections they can offer to these essays on immersion so soon as we have brought them to a close.
EDITOR.
THE following extract of a letter from Col. J. Mason, of Kentucky, is published without his knowledge or consent. This is a liberty which I have sometimes taken when I thought the cause of truth could be promoted by either the information or the sentiment contained in any communication with which I have been favored, and especially when there is nothing in the communication, which ought to make the writer blush, either as a man or a christian. The writer is a gentleman of the first respectability both in church and state; and the information and sentiment contained in the extract cannot fail to be useful and interesting. If I have, in taking such liberties, ever given offence, I will confess my fault, and ask forgiveness, so soon as I am convicted of having done wrong.
ED.
"MOUNT STERLING, KY. April 19, 1828.
"Dear Brother Campbell,
"YOUR interesting favor of the 4th April has been received, enclosing a prospectus for a new edition of the New Testament. I have no doubt, had I time to attend to it, I could obtain a number of subscribers. I shall, however, subscribe myself for ten copies, out of which I intend to present each of my children with one; for I am constrained to believe that the few copies of your first edition which have been scattered amongst is, together with the light issuing from the Christian Baptist, have been the instruments in the hands of God, of doing more good and producing happier times in Montgomery and Bath counties than was ever before witnessed. You are no doubt correct in your opinion of brother Smith: he certainly is in himself a host, and the sectarian priesthood and their satellites have found it out, and are barking at him prodigiously; but the people are following him in crowds, and he is teaching them the ancient gospel with astonishing success. Indeed, sir, I am persuaded you would be amazed yourself were you present, and see with what adroitness he handles those arms which have been cleaned up and refitted in the Christian Baptist. The old and profane swearer, the long professed Deist, and many such as to all human appearance were given over to a hard heart and reprobate mind, have come forward and bowed to King Jesus.
"The second Lord's day in this month was our meeting. At Grassy Lick thirty-six were immersed and added to our church: on last Lords day at Mount Sterling thirty-seven were immersed, and six others between the two days, which make seventy-nine in about eight days; amongst which are some of our most respectable citizens of the highest standing in civil society, particularly one of our most distinguished lawyers, who has long stood at the head of the bar, and an ornament to society.
"But I cannot deny myself the pleasure of telling you how much my soul is filled with joy at seeing a beloved brother according to the flesh, who unconscious of it himself, (till he heard brother Smith proclaiming the ancient gospel) has been a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ for more than twenty-six years; but because he could not tell what we have always been in the habit of calling a "christian experience," such as knowing the time and spot of ground when our souls were converted, things which the New Testament knows nothing about, he has been kept out of the fold of God ever since; till a few days ago he found that to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to obey his commands, was all that the Gospel required, he went down into the water, and told brother Smith he wished him to say he immersed, &c. instead of baptized, and, like the eunuch of old, is now going on his way rejoicing, as happy a man as can be found. His case is not the only one: but many within my knowledge, have been kept out of the church of God by our ignorant Doctors who profess to be teachers of religion, who in fact are no better than "blind leaders of the blind." It is true that when I joined the church and was baptized more than twenty years ago, in relating the exercise of my mind, or what we call "giving in our experience," (which was in accordance with the teaching I had received,) I was enabled to tell what was called "a good experience" and such a one as would bear the scrutiny of our ablest and most orthodox Doctors in Divinity; and, indeed, I got to believe myself that I could as easily tell a convert from one that was not, as I could distinguish black from white, and never was shaken in that, opinion till I saw your Essay on Experimental Religion in the first volume of your Christian Baptist.
"O! my dear brother! what havoc has been made among the saints of God by the blindness the ignorance, the superstition, and bigotry of the professed-to-be-Called and Sent--how man of God's dear children have been kept out of his fold, exposed to beasts of prey, and been wandering in darkness all their days, when they might have been ornaments in the house of God, and letting their light shine to all around."
Address to the Readers of the Christian Baptist.
THIS is one of the most momentous and eventful periods of the history of christianity since the commencement of our recollection of the [447] religious world, and, we think, from the commencement of the present century. All religious denominations are shaking. Christians in all parties are looking with inquisitive eyes into the sacred books, and examining the platforms of their respective schismatical establishments. Many run to and fro, and knowledge is increasing. What religious sect is not at this moment waking from its slumbers? Even the establishments of Rome, of England, of Scotland, fed and feasted as they are with political patronage, and bolstered up with their charming antiquity, are not likely long to retain their place in the veneration of their own children. The peaceful Quaker and the dogmatical Presbyterian, the zealous Methodist and the orthodox Baptist, together with the little hosts of more recent origin, are all on the tiptoe of expectation, and the cry of "Reform!" is now the loudest and longest which falls upon the ear from all the winds of heaven. Light mental, as light natural, is one of the most insinuating powers, and the most irresistible and rapid in its progress, we know any thing of. Its "swift-winged arrows" pierce the deep recesses of human hearts, and carry down the true images of things to the retina of the human soul. The bible, the fountain of religious light, is more generally distributed and more generally read now than at any former period. Even the measures often designed to uphold religious sects, are becoming battering rams to break down the walls of separation. Every day's report brings to our ears some new triumph of light over darkness--of truth over error--and of liberal minds over the enslaved and enslaving genius of sectarian despotism. The very efforts and measures of the abettors of sectarian schemes demonstrate not merely the imbecility of human skill when warring against the light of heaven, but open to the slowest apprehension the corruptions which have secretly crept into the bosom of every sect.
But of all the means which can be employed to promote peace on earth and good will among men, which have any influence to destroy sectarianism, or which are at all adapted to introduce the Millennium, there is none to compare with the simple proclamation of the ancient gospel. It was the proclamation of this which broke down judaism and paganism, at first, and amalgamated men of all religions in a holy brotherhood throughout the east and the west of the Roman empire. This was mighty through God to the subversion of all the strong holds of prejudice, error, and iniquity, which opposed the subjugation of the heathen to the obedience of faith. It was the substitution of human dogmas and speculations in room of this, which brought on the dark ages of papistical domination, and which to this day keeps up a sectarian spirit, and caters to the appetites of the demons of discord which have found resting places ready, swept, and garnished, in the inner temples of every religious sect. As all the religions existing in the days of the Cesars, in the countries where the ancient gospel was proclaimed, finally gave place to its purifying and associating influences, so all the sects now in christendom must give place to that holy spirit which the ancient gospel inspires. The proclamation of the ancient gospel from the data before us, from the experiments already made, proves its perfect adequacy to this important end, and shews itself to be perfectly adapted to reconcile men to God and to each other. Of all the religious excitements which have been called Revivals, of which we have heard, there is nothing that it is exactly similar to the influences which attend the proclamation of the ancient gospel. I do not particularly refer to the great ingatherings mentioned in a former number, in Kentucky, amongst the friends and proclaimers of the ancient gospel and the ancient order of things, because I am not so well acquainted with all the circumstances attendant thereupon; but to what has been done in Ohio during the last few months, and what is still doing in sundry sections of that state. Many hundreds have received the ancient gospel within a few months, and have been immersed for the remission of sins, and have been filled with joy and peace in believing. Some of all religious parties embrace it and turn to the Lord, and it has wrought effectually in the hearts of all to produce the same benign and cheering influences.
I would not, however, test the true merits of any scheme solely by its effects on any partial experiments. Though this may be, and most generally is, the best proof of its true character. If we had always the fullest data which the nature of the case affords, submitted to our examination, we might then be fully able to decide upon the merits of any scheme by its actual success upon experiment. But this, from our limited information, is seldom, if ever, practicable. Reasoning, then, upon the nature of the means employed, in addition to the trials made, and sometimes in the absence of experiments, is necessary to the formation of right conclusions.--When, therefore, the obvious nature and tendency of any scheme, and the experiments made, concur in demonstrating its adaptation to the ends or objects in view, we are then in the possession of the best attainable means of deciding upon its real value.
The proclamation of the ancient gospel, we all know, was the grand scheme of Heaven to bring to nought all the false religion in the world. This is the highest commendation any thing can have. When God, the omniscient, and the all-wise, selects any means for any end, reason must humbly bow to it as the best in the universe. Now this is the fact, as all the intelligent declare. The proclamation of Christ crucified was both the wisdom and the power of God to salvation, and to bring to the dust all the boasted wisdom of Jew and Greek in ameliorating the moral condition of the world. It is now the only thing requisite to usher in the Millennium, or the reign of peace and good will among men. In other words, the clear apprehension and general diffusion of the ancient gospel, is all that is necessary, not to unite all sects; for this heaven designs not to do; but to grind to powder all sects and to destroy all sectarian feeling throughout the dominions of the Prince of righteousness and peace.
Do you not see, my christian readers, that in all Revivals, as they are called, the work of making Christians is the all-engrossing work, and after the flame is extinct, (and sometimes it is extinguished by it,) then the struggle to make sectaries. The gospel makes the Christian, and the schismatical theories make the sects. The preaching of the ancient gospel makes the christian: but the theory of Calvin or of Wesley makes the Presbyterian or the Methodist. In the language of one of our pious Presbyterian brothers, they must bring the new converts on "by degrees" to the spirit of the sect. Whatever real good is now done in the world is done by the simple narration of God's love of men, and all the mischief [448] is done by the dogmas of human speculation or the regulation of schismatical establishments. If the former is universally attended to and the latter abandoned, all christians would be one in name, in affection, in faith and hope.
Why, then, contend for shibboleths? Why fight about speculations and schismatical sentiments, when their tendency is, and must necessarily be, to procrastinate the approach of the events, for which we pray and ardently hope? 'Tis surpassing strange that we can believe ourselves sincere in praying for any thing which we are not using the means to obtain; nay, often using means to prevent. Should we see a nation preparing for war, and praying for peace, we would be led to suspect their sincerity. When then we see a people making new divisions and keeping up old ones, while praying for the Millennium or the triumph of love and harmony, we as naturally suspect that they are any thing but in earnest. I have called in vain for an exposition of one fact on the popular hypothesis. I wish to keep it before the public mind by frequent and various exhibitions of it. All sects that believe in revivals have them occasionally. The Lord is supposed to grant them. If then the Lord bestows these favors indiscriminately upon all the sects, does he not pour contempt upon all their little shibboleths by breaking through the cobweb fences when about to bestow his benefits? If the Lord makes no difference between the Presbyterian, the Methodist, and the Baptist, in these special interpositions, why should they keep up those schismatic walls when God overleaps them in his distributions? We must pause by again requesting some of our readers for a solution of this difficulty.
EDITOR.
Review of the History of Churches.--No. II.
THE New Testament contains no liturgy, no congregational service, as did the Old Testament. In the writings of the great Jewish apostle Moses, there is a ritual, a liturgy, a tabernacle or temple service laid down; but no such thing is found in the apostolic epistles. This point seems not to have been so clearly apprehended by some of these churches as was necessary to their consistency and comfort. Finding all the public, religious and social services of the Jews so clearly and emphatically laid down in the Jewish scriptures, many have expected and looked in vain to find similar regulations in the christian scriptures. And yet could such a ritual be found, or a liturgy made out for christian congregations, it would be a discrepancy not to be reconciled to the genius of the book. Does any one ask, How this can be? I will attempt an answer: 1st. It was necessary, while the age of symbols lasted, that a worship, symbolic in its nature, and intended to adumbrate, or foreshadow, with prophetic accuracy, a new order of things, should be most minutely stated and most explicitly propounded by that infinite mind to which the things that be not are as real and present as the things which are, or do now exist; in order that the desired ends might be gained--that the salvation of the gospel might be thus introduced and fully confirmed. This alone rendered a liturgy or a divine service in the sanctuary necessary. But, in the second place, the Jewish age was the minority of the religious world. During that period there was not a full grown man. The patriarchal was the infancy or childhood; the Jewish, the youth; and the christian age, the manhood of the religious world. Let none think that this is an arbitrary disposition of the ages or epochs in the religious world. There is the religious as well as the natural world, and both have their childhood, youth and manhood.1 We have the authority of the Holy Spirit for considering the saints, during the Jewish age, in the same predicament as minors. In this state they were kept under a ritual or prescribed form of worship. A remark or two on the 4th chapter of the Galatians may be sufficient for our present purpose. "Now, I say," says Paul, "as long as the heir is a minor, he differs nothing from a bondman, although he be Lord of all. For he is under tutors and stewards until the time before appointed by his father. So also we, whilst we were minors, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father."
Here the apostle asserts, First. That he and his brethren were, while under the law, in the state of minors. Second. While in that state they were in the condition of bondmen; kept under tutors and stewards, at whose command they must move obsequious. That the time appointed by the Father, in his Will and Testament, when this state of things should cease had actually arrived; and now they were raised from the rank of slaves to the standing of sons.
So soon as a person has terminated his non-age, or minority, and becomes a full grown man, he is no longer treated as a child or servant. He is allowed to have a judgment of his own, and to exercise it. This similitude the Apostle uses to represent the difference between the people of God under the old economy, and the people of God under the new. Under the latter they are permitted to exercise their reason, and to act from the principles infused into their minds from the development of the divine philanthropy. Hence the New Testament, after stating the ordinances and statutes of the kingdom of Jesus, prescribes no ritual or liturgy, but leaves the worshippers to act from that holy spirit which the gospel inspires. Being adopted into the family of God, they are to be treated as sons of God, and are to act as the children of God. Hence none of the circumstantials of the christian worship are laid down in the New Testament, as were all the circumstantials of the Jewish worship in the Old Testament. Take, for instance, the Lord's supper. The weekly and joint participation of the loaf and of the cup are clearly propounded and commanded, in commemoration of the Lord's death. But no rules are appended thereto regulating the sitting, standing, kneeling, or reclining of the members; no time of the day set apart; no particular form of a table or the furniture thereof; no arrangement of the seats; no [449] collocation of the disciples; no prescriptions concerning the quantity of either element to be used, nor advices concerning what remains, &c. &c. All of these items would have merited attention under the old economy; but for the reasons assigned would be incompatible with the genius of the new. These or similar observations might be made concerning every item of the christian worship; but this sufficiently illustrates our meaning, and demonstrates the weakness of those who would lay down rules binding upon individuals, prescribing forms on these points which are left to the discretion of christians. Every attempt, therefore, on the part of any christian society to institute forms or models of the circumstantiate, and to bind these upon individuals, or to require them in other societies before they can fraternize with them, is an attempt to judaize, or, what is the same thing in this connexion of ideas, to bring into bondage to the spirit of the elements of the world.
An attempt to find a liturgy in the New Testament, under the terms of "express precept or precedent for every thing," is what subjected those called Sandemanians and Haldanians to so much censure from many good men. How far they carried this attempt it matters not, or whether they deserved so much reproach on this account is not the question; the principle itself, if at all admitted, must lead to a stiff, unnatural, and formal profession of the christian religion, and to a spirit and temper not exactly in accordance with the spirit of adoption, and of high born sons of God. Most of those congregations which commenced their career with a good share of this spirit, and with the expectation of finding as much precision in the New Testament in laying down express commands or precedents for every thing, as was exhibited during the non-age of the religious world, have since found their mistake, and have accordingly changed their course, and found a different spirit resulting from a change of sentiment on this important point. While they have found all the instituted acts of social worship and of the discipline of the church clearly laid down, they have found also that the absence of that minutia of prescription as to time, place, and circumstances, which characterized the Jewish age, has left it necessary for them to possess and exhibit a tolerant, forbearing, and condescending spirit, and to make love the bond of perfection.
In our next we hope to bring this review to a close.
EDITOR.
The Triumphs of Scepticism.
WHEN scepticism triumphs in the heart, the hope of immortality is banished. It crowns the tyrant death forever on his throne, and seals the conquests of the grave over the whole human race. It wraps the tomb in eternal darkness and suffers not one particle of the remains of the great, the wise and the good of all ages to see the light of eternity. But consigns by an irreversible doom all that was admired, loved and revered in man to perpetual annihilation. It identifies human existence with the vilest reptile and levels man to the grade of the meanest insect whose utility is yet undiscovered. Man's origin and his destiny are to its ken alike fortuitous, unimportant, and uninteresting. Having robbed him of every thing which could make him dear to himself and proud of his existence, it murders all his hopes of future being and future bliss. It cuts the cable, and casts away the golden anchor; it sets man adrift on the mighty, unfathomable and unexplored ocean of uncertainty, to become the sport of the wind and waves of animal passion and appetite, until at last in some tremendous gust, "he sinks to everlasting ruin." Say then, proud reasoner, of what utility is your philosophy--what your boast.
You boast that you have made man ignorant of his origin and a stranger to himself. You boast that you have deprived him of any real superiority over the bee, the bat or the beaver; that you have divested him of the highest inducements to a virtuous life by taking away the knowledge of God and the hope of heaven. You boast that you have made death forever triumphant not only over the body, but the intellectual dignity of man; and that you have buried his soul and body in the grave of an eternal sleep never to see the light of life again--O scepticism! is this your philosophy, is this your boasted victory over the bible! And for this extinguishment of light and life eternal what do you teach, and what bestow! you teach us to live according to our appetites, and do promise us that in your Millennium man shall live in a paradise of colonies almost as industrious, as independent, and as social as the bees. Well then do you preach with zeal, and exert your energies; for your heaven is worthy of your efforts, and the purity of your life is just adapted to the high hopes of eternal annihilation.
The Triumphs of Christianity.
A TRUE believer and practitioner of the christian religion, is completely and perfectly divested of a guilty conscience, and of the consequent fear of death. The very end and intention of God's being manifest in the flesh, in the person of Jesus our Saviour, was to deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life time subject to slavery. Jesus has done this. He has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. He has given strength to his disciples to vanquish death, and make them triumph over the grave--So that a living or a dying christian can with truth say, O death, where now thy sting! O grave where now thy victory! He conquered both, and by faith in him we conquer both. This is the greatest victory ever was obtained. To see a christian conquer him who had for ages conquered all, is the sublimest scene ever witnessed by human eyes. And this may be seen as often as we see a true christian die. I know that a perverted system of Christianity inspires its votaries with the fear of death, because it makes doubts and fears, christian virtues. But this religion is not of God. His Son died that we might not fear to die, and he went down to the grave to show us the path up to life again, and thus to make us victorious over the king of tyrants, and the tyrant over kings. They understand not his religion who are not triumphant over those terrors of guilty man. The guilty only can fear, and the guilty are not acquainted with the character, mission, and achievements of Jesus our life. No one taught by God, can fear these horrors of the wicked. Jesus Christ made no covenant with death, he signed no articles of capitulation with the horrible destroyer. He took his armor away; he bound him in an invincible chain, and taught him only to open the door of immortality to all his friends. A christian then must triumph and always rejoice. Our gloomy systems say. Rejoice not always, but afflict your souls: whereas the apostles say, Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, we say, rejoice. The gospel as defined by the [450] angels of God, is, Glad Tidings of Great Joy; and who can believe glad tidings of great joy, and not rejoice? Deists, Atheists, and the whole host of sceptics may doubt, for this is their whole system; the wicked, the guilty, and the vile may fear, for this is the natural issue of their actions; but how a Christian, knowing the Lord, believing the promises, and confiding in the achievements of the Saviour, can doubt or fear as respects death or the grave, is inconceivable. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory.
Some persons may doubt whether they are Christians; and some may fear the pain of dying, as they would the tooth ache, or a dislocated joint: but that a Christian should fear either death or the grave is out of character altogether. For this is the very drift, scope, and end of his religion. They, who are under the influence of such fears and doubts, have much reason to fear and doubt whether ever they have known or believed the truth, the gospel of salvation. But a Christian in fact, or one who deserves the name, is made to rejoice and triumph in the prospects of death and the grave. And why? Because his Lord has gone before him--because his rest, his home, his eternal friends and associates, his heaven, his God, all his joys are beyond the grave. Not to know this is to be ignorant of the favor of God, not to believe this is to doubt the philanthropy of God, not to rejoice in this is to reject the gospel, and to judge ourselves unworthy of eternal life. But the Christian religion is not to be reproached because of the ignorance or unbelief of those who profess it. All rivers do not more naturally run down the declivities and wind their courses to the ocean, than the Christian religion leads its followers to the sure, and certain, and triumphant hopes of immortality.
EDITOR.
The Columbian Star.
MR. W. T. BRANTLEY, editor of this Columbian Star, gave us, some time since, his theoretic view of the "spirit of the reformers," and in his remarks upon the "pugnacious" Christian Baptist, he gave us a sample of the spirit of the opponents to reform. To assert in the wholesale, to dogmatize in the retail, to denounce investigation, and to extol the present "benevolent" schemes--appear to be the order of the day amongst all the great men who maintain that religious society is just, or very near, what it ought to be. I am not at present disposed to animadvert on the efforts, the temper, or style of those who are maintaining the schemes that maintain them. Perhaps gratitude, which is a fragrant virtue, obliges them to this course. But I complain of injustice, for which gratitude can make no reparation.
That the religious public may know the deportment of this same "Columbian Star" towards me, I will state a few facts. So soon as I commenced this work, I sent it on to the "Star," requesting an exchange. Six months revolved, but no star shone upon us. I wrote a second time, stating that I would pay the difference in the nominal value of the two papers; but no answer was received. After three months I wrote for the "Star" as any other subscriber, promising full compensation. But yet its conductors would not allow me a place on their list of subscribers. Elder Jehu Brown, of Ohio, to whom I related these facts, told me about the close of the first volume that he was "tired of the Star," and wished to discontinue it. I requested him not to discontinue it, but to order it to be sent in his name to Wellsburgh, Va. saying that I would take it out of the office and pay him for it. By these means I got to read the Star for six months but either because they found out the secret that I was a subscriber in the name of Jehu Brown, or for some other reason which was never assigned to me, they discontinued sending it. I got the "Star" no more. In 1826 I was favored with an interview with the Rev. O. B. Brown, in Washington city, who being one of the heads of departments, I supposed capable of explaining this mystery to me. But he could not. I complained to him, and on his engaging to have it forwarded to me regularly, I paid him for one year in advance, allowing the subscription price of the Christian Baptist in part pay. Before half of this year revolved, the "Star" again disappeared, and one ray of it I did not see till it arose in Philadelphia, in the latitude of my friend Brantley.
Hoping, as it had approximated towards my own latitude, I might be more readily cheered with its benignity, I made my prayer again for an exchange, but without obtaining a favorable answer. After waiting a few months I applied to Mr. Rhees, agent for this paper, in the city of Philadelphia, to ascertain why it did not come on; he wrote me in reply that friend Brantley, its present editor, some way hinted to him that there was a balance of one or two dollars per annum of difference in the nominal value of the papers, and that this balance must be paid to insure a regular exchange. I wrote to brother Rhees to stipulate the payment of difference, with a request to him to have it mailed himself that I might not again be disappointed. And owing to this arrangement, I have been able to read it regularly since.
So have the magnanimous editors and directors of the Columbian Star conducted themselves towards the Christian Baptist. This is only a little of the spirit of those who write essays on the spirit of the reformers. There is not a political paper in the union which we have solicited in exchange for the Christian Baptist, and some of them are at three and five dollars per annum, that would accept of the difference of price. But "the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." I complain not of paying the difference, (for I ask no favors from Stars;) but in this age of dissection of spirits, any facts throwing light upon men's souls cannot fail to be interesting. As the profits of the Columbian Star are sacred to missions in Philadelphia, it is likely that Mr. Brantley, wishes me to contribute to the cause in the way of an indirect tax.
EDITOR.
KENTUCKY, APRIL 15, 1828.
Campbellism.
THE following query was sent up to a small Association in this state for an answer:--
"What must a church do with her preacher who has embraced Campbellism?" To which the Association in her wisdom, replied, "As we know not what Campbellism is, we cannot tell her what to do."
A correspondent in Kentucky asks me, "What Campbellism is?" To which I answer: It is a nickname of reproach invented and adopted by those whose views, feelings, and desires are all sectarian; who cannot conceive of Christianity in any other light than an ism. These isms are now the real reproaches of those who adopt them, as they are the intended reproaches of those who originate and apply them. He that gives them when they are disclaimed, violates the express law of Christ. He speaks evil [451] against his brother, and is accounted as a railer or reviler, and placed along with haters of God and those who have no lot in the kingdom of heaven. They who adopt them out of choice disown the Christ and insult him; for they give the honor which is due to him alone to the creature of the Devil; for all slander and detractions are of the creation of the Devil. If christians were wholly cast into the mould of the Apostle's doctrine, they would feel themselves as much aggrieved and slandered in being called by any man's name, as they would in being called a thief, a fornicator, or a drunkard. And they who bestow such names are actuated either by the spirit of foolish jesting, or that vengeful spirit which would sacrifice the life as well as the reputation of those who deprive them of the means of self-aggrandizement at the expense of the intelligence, liberty, and true happiness of mankind. One uninspired man's name weighs as much as another's when put into the scales of the sanctuary, and where good information and moral character exist it is just as honorable: but no intelligent christian could be pleased to be named a Paulite, a Cephite, though either of these is a thousand times, ten thousand times more, honorable than a Calvinist or Lutheran. But neither Paul nor Peter would own that man as a consistent disciple of Christ who chooses to call himself by Paul, Apollos, or Cephas. I have always disclaimed every thing sectarian; and if the people of the different sects slander me or any of those who prefer the scriptures to any human creed, and the kingdom of Jesus the Messiah, to any sect; I say, if they slander us with the names and epithets which we disavow, they must answer to him who judges righteously. But for ourselves we protest against the name, the precepts, the feelings of any sect or schism in christendom.
Though some persons use such names without the intention of slander or reproach, and are not conscious of doing wrong, they ought to remember that in this way all sectarian names began to be approved. The time was that the terms Lutheran and Calvinist were a reproach. When these men died they became honorable, and are now gloried in. This was effected by the admirers of these men; first for the sake of distinction and to avoid circumlocution, and then with acquiescence, adopting the designation which their opposers gave them.
We wish all the friends of the ancient gospel and the ancient order of things, to remember that our motto is, and we hope ever will be, to call no man Master or Father, in the things pertaining to the kingdom of our Lord.
EDITOR.
Extracts of Letters, received by the last mail, stating
the success of the ancient gospel in different
parts of the country.
"Bishop Jeremiah Vardeman, of Kentucky, since the first of November last, till the first of May, immersed about five hundred and fifty persons."
"Bishop John Smith, of Montgomery co. Kentucky, from the first Lord's day in February, to the 20th of April, immersed three hundred and thirty-nine."
"Bishops Scott, Rigdon, and Bentley, in Ohio, within the last six months have immersed about eight hundred persons."
[We have heard a great deal said of the exertions and success of Bishop Morton; but correspondents have omitted to give the particulars.]
[Bishop Lane, of Washington county, Va. from whom I had a letter not many weeks ago, in his favor of the 16th April, received per last mail, says, "Since I last wrote you, I have immersed about sixty persons into the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of their sine."]
[A correspondent in May's Lick, Kentucky, under date of the 14th May, informs me that, "within a few months, about three hundred have been immersed into the name of the Father, Son, and holy Spirit, on a profession of their faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. These have been added to our church under the oversight of Bishop W. Warder. Great additions have been also made to other congregations in the same vicinity."]
[TCB 444-452]
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Alexander Campbell
The Christian Baptist (1889) |