Volume 7. Number 1. August 3, 1829, pp. 569-578.

• Preface to Volume VII. by Alexander Campbell, pp. 569-570.
• Religious Bequests, &c. by Alexander Campbell, pp. 570-571.
• [Letter to the Editor] by R. T. P., pp. 571-573.
• To the Religious Public by Thomas Campbell, pp. 573-574.
• Essays on Man in His Primitive State and under the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian Dispensations.--No. X.: Jewish Age.--No. II. by Alexander Campbell, pp. 574-576.
• Extract from Appendix by Alexander Campbell, pp. 576-577.
• [On Human Invention] by Alexander Campbell, pp. 577-578.

      THIS is the fourth day of July, the day on which this nation was born, and the day on which Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died. On this day I wrote the preface to the first volume of the Christian Baptist, and it is the day on which I write the preface to the seventh and last volume of this work. On this day the Materialists of the Old World founded the city, and proclaimed the era, of Mental Independence. Like the French decree which abolished the Christian times and seasons, this new epoch of the Free Inquirers is like to die before its own progenitors.

      Every year, natural and political, teems with new and unexpected events. On the thirteenth of April last the king of Great Britain signed the law of emancipation, which broke to pieces the Protestant yoke of proscription, so long fastened on the necks of the Catholic worshippers of the image of St. Peter; and on the same day Robert Owen, Esq. and myself commenced a discussion which we have some reason to expect will emancipate some hundreds of the Free Thinkers from the chains of their own philosophic necessity. How absurd it is to claim the honors of free thinkers and free inquirers in a world where circumstances alone are free from human control, and where free agency and "free will" are aliens from the commonwealth of reason and philosophy, and exiles from the land of New Harmony and the city of free inquirers!

      The weak heads and the strong heads are likely to become parties in the new war. The strong heads are on the side of the world, the flesh, and the grave: while the weak heads are thinking about heaven, future bliss, and a glorious immortality. The strong heads are pronouncing eulogies upon reason and common sense; while the weak heads are only following the former, and practising the latter. But this pen of mine is too soft in the point, and needs to be mended. We shall therefore apply it to the knife, as the philosopher would say; or, as the man of common sense, we shall apply the knife to it.

      I have sharpened my pen; but while it is so well pointed I must not touch the free inquirers. Sharp instruments are for hard substances, and therefore we shall proceed to the word rights. This word, physically, politically, and morally considered, has had many a sermon preached on it. Some argue that a man has a right to be born black--another has a right to be born white. One has a right to be a nobleman without a noble sentiment, a noble idea, or a noble action. Another contends that he has a right to get drunk when he pleases; and some aver that any class of citizens has a right to go to perdition just in whatever way they please, either under the decent garb of hypocrisy, or in the rough homespun of profanity and vice.

      It would be endless to enumerate all the various sorts of the rights of men, for which there are many pleaders; or to show by what sophisms men wish to make their own interests natural and unalienable rights, and to vindicate with sword and faggot that every thing is right which gives them advantage over others. The Pope has a right to the keys--the King, to the crown; the Bishop, to his tithes--and the Free Inquirer to have no wife, or two, or three, as he pleases. Liberty, too, (what a sweet word!) has her different sects of worshippers and admirers. The King has liberty to sway the sceptre; the High Priest liberty to wear the mitre; the Sceptic liberty to laugh at superstition, and to pity the weak heads; and the Free Inquirer has a liberty to repudiate his wife after the honeymoon. But it is right that I should keep to the rights of man, as I have proposed to wear out one pen upon them; and it is wrong that I should indulge in this liberty of roaming from theme to theme, as my fancy wanders over the wide fields of speculation.

      By glancing at the natural rights of men, I may, perchance, hit upon some of the natural rights of Christians.

      Whatever the natural rights of men are, they belong to all men naturally; consequently the natural rights of men are equal rights. For whatever belongs to all men naturally, must equally belong to all. To give to others what belongs to them, is a duty we owe them; to withhold from them what belongs to them, is a sin. There can be no favor, donation, or gift, in conferring natural rights upon others; for natural rights cannot be conferred; they belong to man merely because he exists. Now if it be duty to give to others what belongs to them, it is our duty not to invade the rights of others, but to protect and guarantee them.

      Whatever a man has received from his Creator it is right for him to preserve. He owes it to Heaven and himself. He is bound by the relation in which he stands to the donor, and by the laws of his own constitution to preserve it. And, in the second place, whatever a man has acquired by the consent of the society in which he lives, he has a right to possess and maintain. The former is the principle or basis of natural rights; the latter is the principle or basis of political rights. The former are invariably the same; the latter vary according to circumstances. Man has received certain animal and intellectual endowments. These he has an underived right, as respects human society, to possess [569] and retain. To preserve life, to pursue happiness, or to seek food and entertainment for mind and body, is the right and the duty of all men.

      Dependence is the lot of the infant man. The new-born infant is necessarily dependant on its parent for support and protection. From dependence naturally arises obligation. Hence gratitude and obedience, or subjection, originate from our circumstances and from nature. Children are not naturally free. They are, and must be, under restraint. This restraint must continue while necessary. The period of its continuance is called minority. Minors are not to decide when this period terminates. This is a question for fathers and seniors to determine. Whenever this restraint is taken off, then liberty of action becomes the right of all who are released. All persons, then, who are of full age, are equally free. Of these we say that liberty is a natural, inherent, and unalienable right. To preserve life, to form a character, to acquire property, are the equal rights of all. To defend life, reputation, and property, is the common and inherent right of all.

      Infants have rights as well as adults. These rights are to be regarded. Society owes them certain duties. But if society owes them any thing, it is because of natural rights which they possess. For where a person has no right there is no duty to be performed towards him. Where there is no debt there can be no payment. Sustenance, protection and education, are the claims of children. Parents owe them all these, or rather society owes them. The reason is, society were once infants, received this sustenance, protection and education from previous society, and can only pay those debts by recognizing and attending to those rights in others, circumstanced as they once were.

      But the first society were adults, all equally free, independent and happy; and the rights of infants descending from this first society, were suggested by natural relation and by the law of the Creator. The passions and the feelings of the first parents were the natural and unbribed advocates of the rights of infants. From this general view of the natural, inherent and unalienable rights of man, and of infants, we wish to argue the necessity of political society providing for the education of every infant born within its precincts. But this only by the way.

      Religious society is the object of our present concern. Christian society is composed of infants, or minors, and adults. These, when admitted into the kingdom or commonwealth over which Jesus Christ presides, have certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights. Amongst these are the preservation and enjoyment of christian life, the acquisition and enjoyment of christian reputation, and the pursuit and application of christian wealth. These are the inalienable rights of christians. They are all born equally free and equally independent of foreign agency. They are equally the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, have an equal and undivided share in the eternal inheritance, and are mutually dependent on each other for christian health and prosperity. They are under all the same reciprocal duties and obligations. No citizen of this kingdom is under more obligation than another to seek its good and promote its prosperity. They may have different talents and opportunities, but the obligation is equal upon all to make the same efforts, and contribute to the same extent, according to their means. There is no principle in the kingdom which obliges one citizen to spend three hundred and sixty-five days in one year, and another to spend only ten days in promoting the interest of the kingdom. In the kingdoms of this world men are taxed according to their property. The law does not take all from one, and a little or a part from another. The proportion is equal, and the obligation to payment is equal. So in the empire of truth and life: the demands upon each citizen are the same. If a tenth be required from one, a tenth is required from all: if no thing be required from one, nothing is required from all. Men may volunteer in any cause beyond the requisitions of government; but never beyond the wants of society. Volunteers have their own rewards. But if it be my duty or my privilege to spend aught, time, learning, or money, in the service of the Great King, it is the duty and privilege of every one proportionately to spend time, learning or money.

      No law but that of love, suggests the principle; and no rule but that of the first disciples, regulates the practice of christians in these particulars. But the rights of christians are just as clear and are as inferrible as the rights of man from the same stock of common sense, enlightened by religion; and he that is blind to the rights of christians, is so from choice, and not from necessity.

      I now commence a volume which I hope will bring this work to a natural close. I wish to close it, not because it is irksome to me to continue it--not because its readers are decreasing--not because there is less need for the press than formerly--not because my opponents have gained any advantage over me--not because I have run short of matter. No: it is with pleasure I write; and my readers have increased with every volume. I have got a new reader or subscriber for every day since I commenced this publication, now six years. All my readers see that my opponents have dwindled to nothing. Numbers of them are converted to the very sentiments which they opposed before they understood them. But there is need for much yet to be said and written, both on the present, past and future order of things, and we have much to say. But of this again.

      Because of the hurry and despatch necessary to complete the Debate now in press, I cannot issue this volume in the same regular proportions I contemplated, namely, two numbers per month. I intend still, however, to furnish it in six months, and soon to issue the plan and conditions of that work in contemplation. I have devoted my energies to this cause, and will, God willing, prosecute it with perseverance. The prospects of emancipating myriads from the dominion of prejudice and tradition--of restoring a pure speech to the people of God--of expediting their progress from Babylon to Jerusalem--of contributing efficiently to the arrival of the Millennium--have brightened with every volume of this work. To the King eternal, immortal and invisible, the only wise God our Saviour, we live and die. To him we consecrate the talents, information, means, and every influence he has given us, and, we trust, the day will come when all shall see, acknowledge and confess that our labors in the Lord are not in vain.

EDITOR.

July 4, 1829.

      THE love of money is the root of all evil. So said an infallible teacher. I believe it in the fullest sense of the word. The day of judgment will, I think, disclose a secret which will astonish millions. It is this--that all [570] sectarianism and sectarian zeal spring from the love of money. I am not now about to show how this can be. But I will say that legacies for ecclesiastical purposes are very ill devised expedients for promoting peace on earth and good will among men. They are often roots of bitterness, springing up as pestilential as the deadly nightshade, and frequently more deleterious than the open assaults of the foes to the christian faith. I doubt not but the well-intended legacy of Mr. Paulding, of Kentucky, has already done more harm, and been productive of more rancor, strife and ill will, than the wisest appropriation of it will efface in a hundred years. And if it could be the means of making a hundred preachers of particular sectarianism, how much would mankind be the better of it? If each one of its beneficiaries should inherit the spirit of our good brother, who would shut the doors of his synagogue against every one who advocates the all-sufficiency and alone-sufficiency of the sacred writings of the apostles and prophets for the teaching, discipline, and edification of the church, what would Kentucky and the world gain from such appropriations of money? If it must operate to rivet men in the antiquated prejudices of dark ages, to secure the rising generation from the liberal spirit of christianity--I say it had better be tied up in a bag and attached to an upper millstone, and cast into the sea.

      Some of the terms in the following communication I object to, particularly the term predestination. I object to this appropriation of it. Although I cannot find in the holy oracles any countenance for the dogma of Calvinian predestination, yet I am taught that God predestinated the Gentiles to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ and all the saints to everlasting life. Words, then, which are in scripture appropriated to express the mind and will of God, I do not like to see abused to any sectarian purpose, or treated with disrespect, because others have misapplied them. We should discriminate between the terms and their appropriation of them, lest when opposing a peculiar and an appropriated sense of them, we may be suspected as opposing them in their legitimate acceptation. The same may be said on this much talked of, and very imperfectly understood subject, called "the operations of the Holy Spirit."

      But is it so, that any congregation in Kentucky has decreed that no person except he be just five feet ten inches high, and wears green spectacles, shall preach within their brick walls!! Tell it not in Spain! publish it not in Rome! lest the Inquisitors rejoice, lest the Cardinals of the Holy See triumph! I will not believe that the congregation in Frankfort will decree that neither myself nor any one who proclaims the ancient gospel, or advocates the ancient order of things, shall enter their pavilion. No, I will not believe until I see the decree signed in the proper handwriting of the Bishop and all the members. I must see the autograph itself. I proclaimed in the Bishop's own house, at his own fireside, to a congregation, and repeatedly to the private circle of his friends and neighbors my most obnoxious principles. And I doubt not were I in Frankfort again, the gates of the new church would open to me of their own accord. And if they did not, who would gain or lose by holding the keys!! I hope yet to proclaim the ancient gospel even in Frankfort.

      This singular intimation concerning the proscription of the brethren Creaths, (I will name them out in full, for they are men whose talents, information, zeal and piety, and actual services to the saints and to the public indiscriminately, are of the highest order of which Kentucky can boast,) I must think is some way or other exaggerated. If it be not, it is as ridiculous as a motion that was made some few days ago by a foster child of a celebrated Rake respecting myself; "I move," said he, "that this congregation declare non-fellowship with Alexander Campbell." And the poignancy of the wit was, that Alexander Campbell rarely travels to the mountains of Pennsylvania, and never asked the mover for any sort of fellowship or hospitality, civil, political, or religious. I view such a motion pretty much in the same light as I would the motion of a musselman who would have it decreed in a mosque that I should never be the Dey of Algiers. For the honor of the fraternity in which this motion was made, I must state that the mover was laughed out of his motion.

EDITOR.      

      MR. EDITOR,--SEEING you request that information should be unceremoniously communicated to you from the different sections of the country, I have determined on making the following communication, and leaving it discretionary with you to publish it or not.

      The matters involved in it I consider important to this vicinity, however unimportant they may appear to others. I will first premise a few things: it will be remembered by your readers that you have assailed human creeds, which are nothing more than religious politics--the strong fortification of clerical power, tyranny, and domination--the rallying and central point of all who prefer the traditions of the fathers to the traditions of the twelve Apostles. You have also done much towards the dethronement of the clergy, and much towards the enthronement of the twelve ambassadors: and, as you stated in your letter to Bishop Semple, this constitutes the front of your offending. This is the sum and substance of your heresies: you have denied the operations of the kingdom of clergy, and therefore they are unwearied in their efforts to prove that you deny the operation of God's Spirit. This charge is preferred against you because you maintain that the Apostles first exhibited the gospel testimony; they heard and believed it--then were immersed for the remission of their sins--then were sealed, cheered, and blessed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. In support of this position I refer your readers to the apostolic congregations themselves. First, the Jerusalem congregation--Acts ii. 38. 39. 2. The Samaritan congregation--Acts viii. 15. 17. 3. The Corinthian congregation--Acts xviii. 8. Many of the Corinthians hearing, believed and were immersed. 4. The Ephesian congregation--Acts xix. 6. Eph. i. 13. Not to mention the many thousands who believed before the Spirit was given, when they saw our Saviour's miracles, these instances are sufficient to show that the Spirit was given to the apostolic churches after faith and immersion. Let him that saith to the contrary produce the proof. All who preach as the apostles did are charged with denying the operation of the Spirit. If the apostles were now upon earth, and were to preach as they formerly did, would they not be charged with denying the operations of the Spirit. They never preached the Spirit to the idolatrous Gentiles, nor mentioned him until after faith and immersion; see Acts xix. 6. Paul preached to the Jews and Gentiles that Christ ought to have suffered, and to have risen from the dead. This was preaching Christ and him crucified, and was saying [571] nothing but what Moses and the prophets had said before him.

      We have become so accustomed to the slanders of the clergy, that when we hear you and your friends charged with denying the operations of the Spirit, we understand that you deny their operations; that the Spirit is in them, and through them, and that they have the keys to open and to shut. All who continue stedfast in the apostles' doctrine (among whom are some of our ablest men) are subject to the same slanders, and, to worse treatment than you were when through this country, without having the same means of defending themselves; for I do not recollect that any Baptist congregation shut their doors against you when in this country; yet our good brother Noel (as he is styled by the Baptist Recorder) and his church in Frankfort, contrived to shut their doors against the Messrs. Cs., who went to fill up Mr. Morton's appointments, who was hindered by indisposition; and it appears that neither this good brother, nor the church, nor any individual of it, is willing to have the honor of this noble deed; for they now skulk off by saying, "The church" (the wood or stone house I suppose) "passed a resolution three years ago, that neither Mr. Campbell nor any of his friends should preach in their house." Thus it seems that they are good predestinarians, as they ordained this act before it came to pass. This is their story; but the current belief is, that after you proved too hard for our good Doctor on the creed question, that he then decreed you should not preach in his house; and last winter, when it was rumored that Mr. Morton was expected in Frankfort, a second decree was passed in his favor; and when he heard last May that the two Messrs. Cs. were to accompany Mr. Morton, that he and his secretary of state, and some of the ruling spirits in secret conclave, passed a third decree in their favor. He predestinated in his own mind that the Great Crossing Church should shut their doors against the Messrs. Cs.; but the Johnsons and other principal members proved themselves not to be predestinarians in this case, and consequently the decree did not pass. Our "good brother" decreed that the donation of Mr. Paulding for the education of indigent and religious young men, should be fixed upon the Philadelphia confession of opinions, as the Will is said to have been in his handwriting. But this decree was not like that of the Medes and Persians, unalterable.

      The indefatigable diligence and the luminous and eloquent orations of Doctor William Richardson, and the determined opposition of others, frustrated this wise purpose. There was also a decree passed by this and other good particular predestinarian brethren, that the first donation of said Paulding, made to our good brother Noel, amounting to four thousand five or seven hundred dollars, should be appropriated exclusively to the benefit of the particulars or predestinarian Baptists, after they heard that said Paulding determined that the donation should be built upon the terms of general union between the Elkhorn and Licking associations, one article of which says, that "preaching that Christ tasted death for every man, shall be no bar to communion." This Particular or Licking association grew out of an individual dispute, and when one of the parties was defeated they took shelter under the cool and secure covert of predestinarianism, and charged the other party with Arminianism. Notwithstanding, the Baptist education society, at their last meeting in Versailles, in June, by and with the consent and instruction of the donor, determined that the college should be erected on the terms of general union or liberal principles; it is feared by many that it will, through intrigue and management, prove to be nothing more than a hot-bed of predestinarianism, and that every man who prefers a divine creed (the New Testament) to the Philadelphia confession of opinions, will be excluded from the benefit of this liberal donation. When the donation was about to be made, it was supposed that our good brother decreed that the Transylvania University should have the benefit of that money, as he used the president of that institution in procuring and securing the donation, and as it was permanently located, possessed of competent and liberal-minded Baptist instructors, and meriting, as it does, the support and confidence of the western Baptists, and the community at large; but when he discovered that this institution, with its manager, could not be wielded to answer predestinarian and sectarian purposes, it was then decreed that a rival college should be built in Georgetown, a soil and atmosphere happily adapted to the culture of such predestination as terminates in a moderate and liberal inquisition.

      As a proof of the liberality, christianity and the orthodox catholicism of this eminently pious people, they have under the administration and auspices of its present chief, appointed a standing committee (inquisition) whose pious business shall be to examine heretics, before they are executed or burnt, or delivered over to Satan to buffet their flesh for the good of their souls; or before they are admitted to behold the greater and lesser mysteries of predestination and effectual calling of the Spirit, exclusive and independent of the Bible, which is a revelation unrevealed to mankind. After "sovereign grace" falls upon and is made known to the elect, and after the Spirit has regenerated them, without any regard to the gospel or his wise and efficacious appointments, he then infuses spiritual life into the lampblack and paper. This almanack, newspaper, this dead letter, this sealed book is unsealed, and this unrevealed revelation is revealed a second time, to the elect only, and they are slowly and regularly initiated into the five sublime degrees of Dort and Westminster, and into all the chivalrous exploits of knight-errantry and Calvinism. There are certain great fundamental points (idols) which the chief of this congregation said the other day in his speech, (after he was defeated by Doctor Richardson, in his attempt to have all the young men initiated into these sublime mysteries,) he was not very anxious to have deposited in the Philadelphia oracles, provided he could move them about as the Jews did the tabernacle of Moloch, or the Pagans did the image that fell down from Jupiter, by which the craft said they had their wealth. As the priests sold these little silver shrines or images, to those worshippers who lived at a distance, and who could not conveniently come to Ephesus, to worship in the temple of Diana; so doctors of divinity and other priests and craftsmen, sell out an explanation of these mysteries of grace, to those who cannot comprehend a revelation unrevealed, and by this trade they also have their wealth and power--two powerful stimulants to diligence and persecution. All who refuse to subscribe to, or to be initiated into these mysteries of sovereign grace, which can neither be begged nor bought for any but those who were chosen from eternity--for the rest there is no revelation, no operations of the Spirit, no grace, no atonement, no Saviour, no possibility of salvation from the [572] wrath of this Sovereign, who puts his feet upon their necks, and then damns them for not rising up.--All who deny this, deny the operations of the Spirit.

      They have been publicly challenged, as I have been informed, in different places, and by different persons, to prove their charge of denying the operation of the Spirit, yet they will not do it, but continue to repeat the slander, and expect to ride down and over these persecuted men, and refuse to publish their meetings for them, and shut their doors against them upon this slander. When I say 'they,' I mean the good doctor and the old party of particulars, who were defeated by the elder C. twenty years ago; because it is now generally understood that this party is under his command, notwithstanding he professes to belong to the united Baptists, and to be for and against creeds alternately, just as suits his purpose, as you have shown from his own circular letters. He secretly charged the Messrs. Cs., upon mere suspicion, with furnishing the materials for the dialogue relative to the Indians being carried to Frankfort; and when they publicly denied it, after hearing of it accidentally, he never attempted to prove their guilt, nor to counteract the slander, nor to make the least concession nor reparation for the injury they had sustained in their reputation, among the people of the Great Crossing, who were much displeased with that dialogue. I wish it distinctly understood, that I do not involve any of his friends in these statements, as he tells them you abuse and persecute them, and as he involves all who are friendly to you in your sins. "This proverb shall no more be used in Israel, The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge: The soul that sins shall die. The father shall not die for the sins of the son, nor the son for the sins of the father. The soul that sins shall die for his own sins"--so says Ezekiel, and so says your reader.

R. T. P.      

      The following Queries, for the purpose of promoting a genuine scriptural reformation amongst the sincere professors of Christianity, are respectfully submitted to their consideration.

      1. Is not the christian community in a sectarian condition, existing in separate communities, alienated from each other?

      2. Is not such a condition the native and necessary result of corruption; that is, of the introduction of human opinions into the constitution, faith, or worship of christian societies?

      3. Is not such a state of corruption and division anti-natural, anti-rational, anti-christian?

      4. Is it not the common duty and interest of all concerned, especially of the teachers, to put an end to this destructive anti-scriptural condition?

      5. Can this be accomplished by continuing to proceed as hitherto; that is, by maintaining and defending each his favorite system of opinion and practice?

      6. If not, how is it to be attempted and accomplished, but by returning to the original standard and platform of Christianity, expressly exhibited on the sacred page of New Testament scripture?

      7. Would not a strict and faithful adherence to this, by preaching and teaching precisely what the Apostles preached and taught, for the faith and obedience of the primitive disciples, be absolutely, and to all intents and purposes, sufficient for producing all the benign and blissful intentions of the christian institution?

      8. Do not all these intentions terminate in producing the faith and obedience, that justifies and sanctifies the believing and obedient subject?

      9. Is not every thing necessary for the justification and sanctification of the believing and obedient, expressly taught and enjoined by the Apostles in the execution of their commission for the conversion and salvation of the nations; and fully recorded in the New Testament?

      10. If so, what more is necessary, but that we expressly teach, believe, and obey what we find expressly recorded for these purposes? And would not our so doing happily terminate our unhappy, scandalous, and destructive divisions?

      N. B. The two following queries are subjoined for the sake of a clear definition of the leading and comprehensive terms, viz. faith and obedience--which comprehend the whole of the christian religion:--

      11. Are not law and obedience, testimony and faith, relative terms, so that neither of the latter can exist without the former; that is, where there is no law, there can be no obedience; where there is no testimony, there can be no faith?

      12. Again, is not testimony necessarily confined to facts, and law to authority, so that without the latter the former cannot be? that is, where there are no facts, there can be no testimony--no authority--no law. Wherefore, in every case faith must necessarily consist in the belief of facts; and obedience in a practical compliance with the expressed will or dictate of authority.

      N. B. By facts is here meant some things said or done.

      Upon the whole, these things being so, it necessarily follows, that Christianity, being entirely a divine institution, there can be nothing human in it; consequently it has nothing to do with the doctrines and commandments of men: but simply and solely with the belief and obedience of the expressly recorded testimony and will of God, contained in the Holy Scriptures--and enjoined by the authority of the christian community.

      The affirmative of each of the above propositions being, as we presume, evidently true, they most certainly demand the prompt and immediate attention of all the serious professors of Christianity, of every name. The awful denunciations and providential indications of the divine displeasure against the present anti-christian state of Christendom loudly call for reformation,--the personal and social happiness of all concerned, and the conversion of the unbelieving part of mankind equally demand it. Nevertheless, we are not authorized to expect, that any party, as such, will be induced by the above considerations, or by any other that can possibly be suggested, spontaneously and heartily to engage in the work of self-reformation. The sincere and upright in heart, however, ought not to be discouraged at the inattention and obstinacy of their brethren; for had this been the case in times past, no reformation had ever been effected. It becomes, therefore, the immediate duty and privilege of all that perceive and feel the necessity of the proposed reformation, to exert themselves by every scriptural means to promote it.--Seeing the pernicious nature, and anti-scriptural effects of the present corruptions of Christianity, both upon professors and non-professors, in producing alienations amongst the former, in direct opposition to the law of Christ; and in casting almost insuperable obstacles in the way of the conversion of the latter; the serious and upright, of all parties, must feel conscientiously [573] bound to endeavor, to the utmost of their power to effect a genuine and radical reformation; which, we presume, can only be effected by a sincere conformity to the original exhibition of our holy religion,--the divinely authorized rule and standard of faith and practice.--To such, therefore, we appeal; and for the consideration of such alone, we have respectfully submitted the above queries.

      "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." Paul, I Cor. i. 10.

      "Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, I pray for them who shall believe on me through the word of my Apostles: that they may all be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me; that the world may know that you have sent me; and have loved them as you have loved me."--John xvii.

      "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."--Christ.

      "From the days of your fathers you are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts."--Mal. iii. 7.

      "Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues."--Rev. xviii. 4.

      "He that testifies these things says, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus."

THOMAS CAMPBELL.      

      THE first essay on this head was merely preparatory, or at most, introductory to the creation of the Jewish people into a national form. One important reason was assigned "taking this people into a peculiar relation to the Governor of the Universe. In pursuance of an original promise, now 430 years old, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, assumes the peculiar relation of the God and King of the people who went down into Egypt. He made himself known to the most enlightened nation and court of that age, as Lord of lords, and as above all gods, venerated on earth. Moses, his ambassador to the court of Pharaoh, acts in a manner worthy of his sovereign, and makes the Proud Pharaoh and his courtiers own the supremacy of the God of Israel. The nation was brought out in heavenly style, with a strong and mighty arm. Pharaoh, his princes, and his mighty army were drowned; and Israel about two millions strong, having six hundred thousand warriors, encamped on yonder side the Red Sea. But not a bow was bent, not a sword was drawn, on the part of the sons of Jacob. They stood still and saw the salvation of God.

      But so soon as they were entirely out of the precincts of the Egyptians it became necessary to give them a national existence, or to constitute them into a kingdom. Hitherto they were an unorganized assembly, under the conduct of the ambassador of the Sovereign of the Universe--Moses was their leader. But so soon as they reached Horeb, the purposes of the Almighty were disclosed to them. They are informed of the grounds on which they are to stand, and the preliminaries of a new relation are proposed to them, accompanied with many ample and sublime signals of the presence of God. They see and hear what they never heard nor saw before. They are prepared to accept of whatever the Lord was pleased to appoint.

      In taking them thus by the hand, and in signalizing this people, it became necessary for the ends proposed, that they should be placed in the most enviable circumstances. It was necessary that they should exhibit a picture of the greatest earthly happiness.

      The first thing necessary to this was a good constitution--this was therefore the first thing proposed. Although their King had a right to impose upon them as his creatures, such a one as he pleased, without asking their consent, or giving them a single vote in the whole transaction, he proposes to the whole people en masse by his own ambassador, whether or not they would adopt or accept such an instrument from him. The articles of negotiation, entrusted to Moses, containing the original preliminaries, read thus: The Lord said to Moses, "Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel? You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you as on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my institutions (or covenant,) then you shall be a peculiar treasure to me, above all people: for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel." Now, as Moses could not speak viva voce to the whole 600,000 militia, he called the seniors together, rehearsed the stipulations to them, and they to the people. Finally, all the people answered and said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." And Moses returned the words of the people to the Lord.

      Constitutions in old times were called covenants, because both parties, the governors and the governed, stipulated and agreed to the items; and the whole transaction was confirmed over dead bodies. But an error obtained all over Christendom from an inadvertence of the teachers of religion and morals, to a peculiarity in this transaction. The error is this, that the government and the people are two parties, and that each has its own interests; that all national compacts are but articles of agreement between those who have a divine right to govern, and those who have a divine right to be governed. The propagators of this error may have innocently fallen into it from not noticing that the first constitution which was ever written emanated from him who stood in a relation towards the governed in which no other being stood, or ever could stand--he was their Creator, and they were his creatures. Besides, in this transaction, there were really two parties of a nature and of a relation essentially different, and yet the happiness of one party only was sought by the arrangement. These peculiarities never did occur in any other case. Now to place the governors in the character of creators, and the governed in the character of creatures, has been the erroneous practice of all the (so called) Christian nations of the old world. It never occurred to any nation until long since the art of printing was discovered, that there could not be two parties in a nation having interests as different as Creator and creatures: nor that neither the dignity nor happiness of a nation could comport with the idea that the interest of the governors was different from that of the governed. It is scarcely yet sufficiently known, even in this country, where the science [574] of government is better understood than in any other upon earth, that there never can be amongst an intelligent people, two parties in forming a constitution; or that there is any other interest to be consulted than that of the people. But it cannot be too distinctly stated, nor can it be too well known, that all the miseries of the old world, all the political degradations, privations and exclusions of monarchical christendom, grew out of the error which I am now combating; and for which some religious people of this country still have a religious hankering. The king of Israel was the Lord of Hosts. THE WHOLE EARTH IS MINE, said he, when he condescended to become the king of Israel. Yet he set us an example in this instance never to be forgotten. He gave a vote to every man on the muster-roll of Israel, in adopting the magna charta or constitution under which he would live. This single fact is worth all the arguments in the world against the right of suffrage, as being a natural right.

      There are few people who are aware of the influence which a superstitious view of this constitution has had upon forming the present governments of Europe and Asia. We cannot now sufficiently trace the formative influence which the first written document, and the most public document on earth, has had in constituting the kingdoms of the earth. But we can see in the most despotic governments in the east and in the west of the old Roman empire, evident traces of the mistake just now noticed: and that superstition has converted this mistake into an engine of fearful influence upon the present happiness of men. Every thing now in Europe, called a "constitution," is neither more nor less than a league, or articles of agreement between the governors and the governed. The government promises not to cut the heads off the people, so long as they will allow the government to take out of their labors just as much as they want for their use and behoof. This compact is ridiculously called "a constitution," though as unlike it as a full-blooded Turk is to Paul the Apostle.

      But to return to Mount Sinai. The preliminaries were una voce, without a dissenting voice agreed to. The constitution was pronounced by the living God, in words audible, and distinctly heard by about two millions of people. It was written also by the finger of God upon two blocks of marble. This constitution was perfectly political. Few seem to appreciate its real character. Many insipid volumes have been written upon it, both since and before Durham wrote a quarto volume on the Ten Commandments. Some have called it the Moral Law, and made it the law of the whole spiritual kingdom; affirming that Adam was created under it, and that even the angels were under it as a rule of life; nay, that it is now, and ever will be, the law of the whole spiritual world. Yes, indeed, though it speaks of fathers, mothers, wives and children, houses, lands, slaves and cattle; murder, theft and adultery; yet it is the moral code of the universe.

      I remember well when I was about to be cut off from a Baptist association for affirming that this covenant or constitution at Sinai was not the Moral Law of the whole universe, nor the peculiar rule of life to christians. Another shade of darkness, and one degree more of political power on the side of three or four very illiterate, bigoted and consequential Regular Baptists, would have made a John Huss or a Jerome of Prague of me. But there was not quite darkness nor power enough, and therefore I am yet controlling this feather which makes the mould for those characters you now read.

      But I have said it was a political constitution, though religion and morality are delineated in it. Now "strike, but hear me!" It reads thus:¹ "I am the Lord your God who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of servants."

      Article 1. You shall have no other gods besides me.

      Art. 2. You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor the likeness of any thing, which is in the heaven above, or in the earth below, or in the waters under the earth: you shall not worship them; nor serve them; for I, the Lord your God am a zealous God, retributing to them who hate me the sins of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation; but showing mercy for thousands [of generations] to them who love me and keep my commandments.

      Art. 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord your God will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

      Art. 4. Remember the day of the sabbaths to hallow it. Six days labor and do all your works, but on the seventh day are sabbaths to the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man servant, nor your maid servant, nor your ox, nor your ass, nor any of your cattle, nor the stranger who sojourns with you; for in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.

      Article 1. Honor your father and your mother that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in that good land which the Lord your God gives you.

      Art. 2. You shall not commit adultery.

      Art. 3. You shall not steal.

      Art. 4. You shall not commit murder.

      Art. 5. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

      Art. 6. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; you shall not covet your neighbor's house, nor his field, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any of his cattle, nor any thing belonging to your neighbor.

      Now let the following matters be attended to.

      1. The stipulation or grand preliminary of this whole procedure was to make them a religious, wise, powerful and happy nation.

      2. All the people were allowed to vote the adoption of this constitution.

      3. The only qualification for this right of suffrage was implied in being brought out of the land of Egypt, and from the house of bondage. And the whole people, whether what we now call regenerate or unregenerate, alike adopted this constitution and submitted to it as their charter of national incorporation.

      4. Protection, prosperity, and national renown were promised on the part of the government; and submission to him, honor and respect, admiration and homage, as the rightful sovereign, were agreed to by the people.

      5. Idolatry, under this constitution, was treason, and this the first article declares. The second and third articles guard against the least approximation to mental treason. The fourth article of the first table institutes the revenue of [575] time which results to the king, not merely as such, but because he was their God also. As their king, he required other appropriations of time and property, but this he constitutionally requires, as due to himself as Creator, and essential to their national prosperity. Every day, it is true, was due to him, but this was to be formally sanctified or set apart to him in commemoration of his works of creation in general, and of his particular interposition on their behalf.

      As a nation, therefore, the whole people were in guarantee of their political rights and advantages, most scrupulously to regard these four articles of the first table. The homage required in these four articles was such homage as a whole nation could yield--and such as could secure to them, according to stipulation, the friendship, protection and support of a governor, against whom there could be no successful opposition in the upper, nether or middle world.

      6. All the social relations, rights and privileges of the confederates, or of the individuals, composing this nation, were defined and secured in the six articles of the second table. To be religious and moral was the policy of this nation, and hence religion and morality were the politics of the commonwealth of Israel.

      A constitution is a law. But it is the supreme law or the general principles which authorize all the other laws and regulations of a people. That all the laws afterwards promulged to the Jews by their king, were accordant in their nature and obligations to the spirit of this constitution, needs not a single argument to prove. But that this was the covenant or constitution (for the latter term is the modern one corresponding with the obsolete term covenant, in both Hebrew and Greek originals) of the nation, and distinguished from all other laws, is evident from the seven following facts:

      1. The preamble to it evidently declares that upon these principles Israel became a nation.

      2. Because God pronounced these articles aloud, and no other were ever promulged by him, viva voce, to the Jewish people.

      3. Because he wrote them with his own finger on two tables of stone.

      4. Because the two stones were ever afterwards called the two tables of the covenant or constitution.

      5. Because a chest was made and placed in the sanctuary in which these tables were deposited, and this chest was called the ark or chest of the constitution.

      6. Because when the constitution of the second or new kingdom was foretold by Jeremiah, and developed by Paul, it was contrasted with this one.

      And 7. Because the breach of no other law could dissolve or impair their national existence or character--but so soon as the nation departed from the articles of this constitution, God ceased to protect them, and gave them up to their enemies.

      But here we shall pause for the present.

EDITOR.      

      FROM the whole scope of Mr. Owen's discussion, and most unequivocally from his appendix, it appears that his whole scheme of things is founded upon one fundamental position. This position is;--MAN IS NOT A FREE AGENT. That no man forms his own character but that every man's character is formed for him, is one of his consequences from this position--Another is, that merit and demerit, praise and blame, reward and punishment belong not to man, nor, in truth, to any being in the Universe. Such is the soul or life of his whole system.

      He declaimed much against metaphysics in his speeches and in his writings--But I now make my appeal to the learned world, and ask;--Is there in the whole science of metaphysics more abstruse speculations or questions than those constituting and proceeding from the above positions?--If there be such a thing as the quintessence of metaphysics--I say, it is the question about free agency in all its sublimated ramifications--But this only by the way.

      Men of the most gigantic talents have fatigued themselves in writing octavos, quartos and folios upon the doctrines of liberty and necessity--From the learned folio of Peter Sterry down to the unanswerable octavo of President Edwards, there has been written a wagon load of learned lumber on this very question.--Before a popular assembly, and to the great majority of readers the plan of reductio ad absurdum appears to us the shortest way of settling these wordy disputes--And, therefore, we generally preferred this argument while on the stage of discussion, whenever Mr. Owen presented these metaphysical dogmas. That there is no moral difference on Mr. Owen's hypothesis between the actions of a machine and those of King Solomon, Sir Isaac Newton, and the apostle Paul; that a man, a fish, an oyster, a tree, a watch, are equally voluntary agents, alike praiseworthy, blameworthy, virtuous, vicious, good or evil, was repeatedly shown during the discussion. The tree that cools us with its shade, that refreshes us with its fruit, and that kills us by its fall, is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy. So the patricide, the matricide, the homicide, and the philanthropic, the affectionate, kind, and benevolent son, daughter, brother, neighbor, are alike praiseworthy, alike blameworthy--in truth, neither to be praised nor blamed at all. All the feeling which Mr. Owen professes to have for such evil doers is pity--He may pity the child that kills his father, as he pities the widow which the wickedness of a son has made. He pities too the religious man as a deluded being--and, indeed, I cannot see why he may not equally pity every thing that exists, and be as much grieved for the virtues as the vices of men--I think his metaphysics which places the idiot, the madman, the philosopher and the sage upon the same footing with each other, and with all things animal vegetable, and mineral, excludes pity altogether and divests man of all feelings as well as of all free agency.

      Whenever the idea of merit and demerit is exiled from earth the idea of pity must follow it. No body pities a tree because the wind has torn a branch from it. No body pities the lion who kills himself in pursuit of a lamb; nor the hawk that breaks its head in the pursuit of a chicken. We pity suffering innocence--But take away the idea of innocence and we destroy all pity. Destroy merit and demerit, and we have no use for the word innocence; and then we can have no suffering innocence, and so no pity.

      But the idea of a Philanthropist is just as inadmissible upon Mr. Owen's principles as that of praise or blame. Now Mr. Owen professes to be a philanthropist, that is, a lover of men. But is love a reasonable or an unreasonable thing? If reasonable, Mr. Owen cannot, upon his own principles, be truly a philanthropist. For what reason can induce him to spend his days in benefiting men more than crows or squirrels, more than in cultivating hellebore or hemlock? A lump of animated matter, of vegetable matter, [576] whether in the form of a biped, a quadruped, or a tulip, is matter still, and as necessary in its figure, properties, and powers as it is in being material. There is nothing in man, upon his principles, amiable more than in a goose.--The goose which furnished this quill, and on whose coat I slept last night, and on whose carcass I feasted last Christmas, was a benefactor of man, and a philanthropist, upon Mr. Owen's theory, as worthy of praise as himself, because as reasonable and as unreasonable. If the size, figure, and animal qualities of man prompt Mr. Owen to be a philanthropist, he ought for as good reasons, to devote his life to the care of horses and elephants. If longevity, an erect position, and a peculiar organization make man worthy of so much love from him, the goose who lives longer, the tree which grows taller, and the crocodile which is as curiously organized as man, equally merit his labors of love. To say that he is a philanthropist because he belongs to the race of men, is to place philanthropy upon the same foundation with those animal affections which pervade most species of the quadrupeds and bipeds for their own. This is an unreasonable philanthropy and unworthy of the name. There cannot be a philosophic philanthropist upon any principle which divests man of merit and demerit, of praise and blame, of reward and punishment; upon any principle which excludes from the human mind the idea of a God and a future state. Men who deny these may call themselves philanthropists, they may labor for the good of men, but they are no more philanthropists than the bee which makes honey, nor the sheep which yields its fleece. They do not bestow their labors nor their coats on man from a love to him. Other motives prompt their actions. So Mr. Owen may spend time, money, and personal toils on what appears to be philanthropic objects; but these may be demonstrated to proceed from vanity, by a much more convincing logic than can be employed to shew that they proceed from the love of man, properly so called.

      For my part if I were compelled to give up the doctrine of immortality, or could be induced to think that man differed from other animals merely in so far as he differed from them in the organization of one hundred and fifty pounds of matter, I would think it just as reasonable and philosophic that I should spend my life in raising and teaching dogs and horses, and improving their condition, as in training men and improving their circumstances.

      The materialist, or philosophic necessarian, who says that the earth is an immense prison, and the laws of nature so many jailors, and all mankind prisoners bound in chains which cannot be dissolved; or, to speak without a figure, who says that the actions of all men are as unavoidable as the ebbing and flowing of the sea, or the waxing and waning of the moon, can never rationally be a reformer. For what could he reform? He could not pretend to reform nature, nor any of its laws. On Mr. Owen's principles the present state of the world is perfectly natural and unavoidable. Nature in the regular operation of causes and effect has issued in his trinity of evils--Religion, matrimony, and private property. Now if nature has gone wrong, and man without free agency has landed in religion, matrimony, and private property, how unphilosophic is the philosopher of circumstances, who would preach up the necessity of a change in society when he cannot change necessity!!

      It is a climax in the eloquence of absurdity which Mr. Owen is aspiring after. He preaches that all things are just as they must be. The uncontrolable laws of nature have issued in the present system of things; and yet he would have us to make things what they ought not to be; that is, he would have us to abolish religion, matrimony and private property, which his own eternal and unchanging laws of nature, in their necessary and uncontrolable operations have originated and established. On Mr. Owen's theory all things are natural and unavoidable. It is mother nature working by her own laws, and yet he would make us all matricides!!! If Mr. Owen is not stranded here there is not a shoal in the universe.

      From all eternity, according to Mr. Owen's scheme, the particles of matter have been in incessant agitation, working themselves up into ten thousand times ten thousand forms. A few of them at one time produced a Nimrod, a Pharaoh, a Moses, a Cyrus, a Nebuchadnezzar, an Alexander, a Julius Cæsar, a Buonaparte, a Paul, a Robert Owen, and a few such manufacturers of human character. Not one of them could help being born, nor being such characters, nor producing such effects on society. Blind and omnipotent Nature cast them forth as she does so much lava from the crater of a volcano.--She tied them fast in adamantine chains of inexorable fate and gave them no more liberty to act than the Peak of Teneriffe has to emigrate to New Harmony. Yet strange, surpassing strange, as it is, this singular piece of animated matter called Robert Owen, which required old Nature in her laboratory six thousand years to produce, would now teach us to rebel and become seditious against the queen of fate; and would have us claim and take the liberty from nature of forming human beings to our own mind, and of changing the powers of nature; in fact, of binding her fast in our own cords, so that we shall abolish religion, matrimony, and private property; put the old queen Nature into jail at New Harmony and never let her out upon a parole of honor, so long as grass grows and water runs.

      Mr. Owen is, without knowing it, or intending it, the greatest advocate of free agency I have ever known; for he would have the present generation to adopt such arrangements and so to new modify the circumstances that surround us as to prevent the goddess Nature from having it in her power ever to make another religious animal, another wedding, or to use the words mine or thine. And yet the chorus of his new music is, that we have no more liberty to act than Gibraltar has to perch itself upon the cupola of the State House of Ohio.--Such a philosopher is my good natured friend Robert Owen.

EDITOR.      

EDITOR.      

[TCB 569-578]