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Alexander Campbell
The Christian Baptist (1889) |
| NO. 3.] | OCTOBER 5, 1829. |
DAYTON, August 25, 1829.
DEAR BROTHER CAMPBELL:--I HASTEN to inform you of the result of our meeting in this place, on Saturday and Sunday last. There were ten or twelve preachers here, all of whom were either partially or altogether reformed, as far as reformation now goes. The congregation was very large, and on Sunday looked extremely interesting, assembled in one of the finest groves our country affords. After three sermons on Saturday, in the evening, in the presence of many hundreds, in the meeting house, our public teachers rehearsed, one by one, accounts of the congregations with which they were respectively connected, informing us of their progress in grace and reformation; of their order, duties, relations and prospects; and all concurred in acknowledging but one law book, from whose decision they never attempt to appeal. This was one of the most interesting exercises in which I ever participated, or ever witnessed. Its influence was visible upon all the brethren. With each other they were immediately acquainted and mutual confidence and a reciprocation of christian feeling, were the consequences. At ten the next morning I immersed William R Cole, Esq.1 of Wilmington, with whom you are acquainted, and three others. After some of the brethren had labored in word and doctrine, two or three hundred feasted at the King's table upon bread and wine; all of them having previously had their hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and their bodies washed with pure water. I believe we had no sectarianism among us. Not a discordant note was heard in the house or among the trees. Brother Rains was with us. Our exercises were resumed and terminated pleasantly in the evening. Upon the whole, I believe, such a meeting is rarely held.
Week before last, I attended Todd's Fork Association, where I received encouraging news from Indiana. We had a very interesting meeting. It was resolved with but one dissentient vote, that the association request the churches to consider this question, "Shall we dissolve our association, and as a substitute, hold an annual meeting for worship and acquaintance?" and disclose the result of their deliberations at their next session.
By a letter from your father, which I have seen, I learn that the gospel is very successful with you.2 Remember me to him.
| Yours in Christ, | |
| D. S. BURNET. |
For the Christian Baptist.
BESIDE the unfounded imputation of want of plainness, which its pretended advocates, the clergy, have brought against God's address to perishing sinners, and out of which, false as the imputation is, they have extracted more gold than was ever dug from the mines of Peru, and more homage than was ever paid to crowned heads from Nimrod to the present hour: besides impious and vain attempts to remove from the divine message, such obscurities or silence as the communicating Spirit has thought proper to introduce into his original phraseology; or has suffered, in the course of his all-wise providence, to creep into the sacred pages; and, of course, to force the divine oracles to impart more information than God intended or fitted them to convey: besides a vast mass of dubious tales which a presumptuous priesthood have either incorporated with or stuck to the divine text, a mass entirely conjectural, and totally useless: besides [587] gross insults offered to the God of truth by audacious attempts to augment the credibility of his information by human researches or the exhibition of repeated declarations: besides, I say, these atrocious wrongs done to divine intelligence, complain heavenly visitant has just cause to complain aloud of another gross indignity offered to her hallowed person, by the rude hands of ungodly men. By them her fair celestial robe has been torn into fragments; the integrity of her sacred form has been violated; her graceful limbs have been dislocated or broken to pieces; and her very bones, stripped of their natural covering and made bare, have been deprived of every original tie. Upon her beautiful form every daring anatomist, learned, and unlearned, has exercised his dissecting knife; and, after mangling it into such slices as suited his perverted taste, locked them together again, in such ludicrous combinations as best comported with his wayward fancy. By this barbarous treatment the loveliness of her heavenly image has been destroyed, her power to captivate the human heart annihilated, and her graceful form distorted and disfigured by artificial and unnatural deformities; so that, instead of a visage possessed of irresistible charms, she is compelled to exhibit a mangled carcass, a haggard skeleton of naked bones hung together by human wires. Christian reader, there is no misrepresentation, there is no exaggeration here: there is but a faint outline of the indignity offered to God's gracious message, by a self-created order of men, who have had the address to procure to themselves unlimited human confidence, with the title, the honor, and the sanctity of God's lot.
But to use plain language, the outrage committed on the order, connexion, beauty and power of the divine message, by profane sinners who have broken it into chapters, frittered it into verses, ground it into catechisms, and after flaying, picking, and completely disjointing it, have sent it forth in the true skeleton guise of confessions and creeds, calls aloud for the severest reprobation of every real friend of Jesus Christ. Shall it be asked, Is not God's intelligence a most hallowed object? Has it not come from the sovereign Lord of all? What mortal, then, will dare to alter, or derange or displace even a jot or tittle found therein? Does not God know infinitely better than man the arrangement, both in respect to time, words, and matter, which it is proper for him to adopt, and which the benefit of his creature man requires him to observe? Is it then within the daring effrontery of miserable sinners to impugn, to deny this knowledge? Will they tell the infinitely wise God to his face, that he knows not how to arrange and connect the materials of his communication to the best advantage, nor how to render them as beneficial to the human race as they might be made, or as that race could themselves render them; and that therefore, his arrangement, connexion and diction must be changed, and the whole message new-modelled? Is there nothing horrible, nothing awfully profane in this impudent interference? Surely we ought to remember that all God's ways are perfect, and that to his work nothing can be added, or change performed on it, without manifest impairment of its fitness to answer its purpose. And we ought, also to remember that God is a great economist, a very summary agent, who accomplishes in an instant by a single exertion of his will, simultaneously, many objects; and that nowhere is this truth more illustriously displayed, than in the operations of sacred writ on the human mind. By every new idea which God conveys into the soul of man, he not only enlightens the understanding but electrifies his heart. By him light and heat are imparted together. He does not as human teachers usually do, first propose in technical forms and language, cold as polar ice, rules of action, and then discharge red hot bullets, glowing motives, to drive the enlightened into motion. God's precepts and motives as they stand in scriptural array come simultaneously on the conscience with all the light, authority and power of a God. On the whole soul they act at once. At the same instant do they inform the mind and move the heart. But by the chilling, ludicrous operations of the frittering, crumbling, dislocating, distorting and new-modelling system,, is God's message completely divested of this ineffable power. By its malign influence, the fitness of God's word to direct the understanding, and impress and impel the heart at once, or in other words to excite such feelings and emotions there, as the ideas presented in the divine message, are calculated to excite, is entirely destroyed; and no doubt, to this paralyzing process, to this impious, uncommanded, unauthorized interference of daring sinners with the order, arrangement and connexion in which God has judged it most proper and useful to send his instruction to perishing men, is its astonishing inefficacy to be ascribed. Did mankind do as the Saviour not only recommends, but peremptorily enjoins, and as David and other pious men constantly did; did they diligently and attentively read God's message just as it appears in sacred writ, unmixed, unaltered by man, and seriously reflect or meditate on its infinitely important information, it is impossible that the human mind could remain in that listless, careless, cold, unmoved state in which we generally behold it, even among those who loudly boast religion. But when God's address to sinners is stript of all the power and energy, of all the beauty and loveliness which it possesses, when presented to them unaltered, underanged, unadulterated, undiluted; and is exhibited in the form of a string of metaphysical questions or abstract propositions, is it any wonder that its energy should evaporate during the process of such an enfeebling transformation, and that the mortal torpor, so alarming to reflecting observers, should ensue?
But the gross impiety and enfeebling effect of this daring interference with God's word, are but two of the many sad evils, which this unhallowed practice has produced. Of these evils, however, I shall at present take no notice.
A. STRAITH.
Religious History of Dr. A. Straith.
Written by himself at the request of the Editor.--PUB.
DEAR SIR:--AN outline of my religious history is this. About thirty-years ago I determined to carry into effect a purpose, which had been occasionally visiting my mind from my boyhood, of investigating the two important questions, Has God indeed spoken to the human family; and if he has, what has he said? Upon forming this resolution, I determined to consult none of those productions called evidences of christianity, no sermons, no commentaries, no bodies of divinity, &c. but the volume alone which purported itself, and was generally admitted, to be a divine communication. This volume I consulted in the original Hebrew and Greek. After it was perceived, that I was seriously disposed, I was induced by my Presbyterian acquaintances, to unite myself to that society, and after some time, though I had never seen the inside of a theological school, and knew nothing of the drilling of a [588] preacher, I was induced to accept a licence to preach, which I continued to do for two or three years as it suited me, but without fee or reward. At last I found the arbitrary spirit of my party did not suit the independence of my mind, nor their views quadrate with the views that were daily opening to my inquiries; and, on the 20th day of April, 1811, I sent the Presbytery the following note. "It is my desire and request, after much deliberation, and for a variety of reasons not necessary to be stated in detail, that the Presbytery enter on their records a minute, purporting my voluntary separation:--it being my intention as soon as opportunity may present, to unite with that body of Christians known in the United States by the denomination of Independents; their principles of association being more congenial to my sentiments than any other."--The result of this movement was a bitter and unrelenting persecution, attended with the excitement of such prejudices, and outpourings of abuse, that I resolved to suspend my endeavors to communicate what little I knew, or thought I knew, of the divine message, and since that time I have seldom heard those foolish and unprofitable harangues called sermons. On the 9th instant, however, at Harper's ferry, I heard one from a Presbyterian orator, two thirds of which consisted of circumstances, which if they did exist, were certainly considered by the Holy Spirit too insignificant to merit his notice, and a considerable portion of it, of matters that related to the orator's dear self; so that, these superfluities being deducted, the residue was pretty nearly reduced to the diction of the Holy Spirit. On the same day I exhibited to a large collection of people the evidences which had satisfied me that immersion was the action enjoined by Christ on all his followers, and accordingly submitted to it. I have been requested to suffer the address to be published, and perhaps after some consideration I may consent to it.
I neglected to annex the Presbytery's entry. "Therefore Dr. Straith is no longer considered under the care of this Presbytery."
| I am, with respect, your ob't. serv't. | |
| ALEX. STRAITH. |
Essays on Man in his Primitive State, and under
the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian
Dispensations.--No. XI.
Jewish Age--No. III.
NEXT to the constitution or natural compact at Sinai was the institution of the symbolic worship. The Jewish religion is a wonderful display of Divine wisdom, goodness, and condescension to the wants and circumstances of mankind. No infidel ever understood it, no man can understand it and doubt the Divine truth of Christianity. To lay down a diagram in figures, which should one thousand five hundred years afterwards, and not before, be read and understood, by millions of human beings as plain as a literal description could be, containing a whole volume in the compass of a single sheet, exhibits such an insight into futurity, as no human being ever did, or ever could possess. Suppose that some person were to pretend to be divinely inspired and commissioned, and, in the mean time, would afford to the living indubitable proofs of his mission by a stupendous display of Almighty power, but designing to have the same credit with posterity a thousand years hence, that he has with the living, how would he most likely obtain that credit? The evidences, which, when living, he presents, he cannot present when dead. Let him, however, leave behind him any work which when examined shall be found to contain a knowledge of future events and developements, which no human being could possess, this knowledge being as supernatural as a power which could lift the mountains, must afford equal proof to all who examine it, as the miraculous display of physical energy. Could any man have written in symbols, or laid down a diagram in figures and numbers presenting a full description of America before Columbus discovered it, and a history of all the changes which have taken place since its discovery till the present year; I say, could such a work have been executed and deposited in the archives of the Spanish government, well attested as the genuine work of a Spanish prophet, who had died at any time, say a hundred years, before Christopher Columbus was born, no person could rationally doubt the inspiration of the author, nor the certainty of the yet future and unaccomplished part of it. Such a work is the symbolic worship of the Jews' religion in all its prominent characteristics and import, in reference to the institution of Jesus Christ.
On the doctrine of chances it would be more than two billions to one that any fifty incidents could all happen in any one character to live a thousand years after the incidents detailed were recorded. Now, more than one hundred distinct incidents are found in the Jews' religion and history detailed concerning the Messiah, all of which exactly met in him, and were circumstantially completed in him. This is an argument in proof of the mission of Moses and of Christ, against which the gates of scepticism cannot prevail.--Whatever proves the mission of Moses proves the mission of Christ; and whatever proves the mission of Christ proves the mission of Moses. This is a happy arrangement, which is in accordance with the whole Divine scheme of things.
If a pretended chemist should, in testing or explaining the affinities of certain elementary principles, mingle and combine such simples as have no chemical affinity, it would not prove the whole doctrine of chemistry a whimsical or imaginary science. Or should a pedagogue, when instructing infants in the powers of vowels and consonants, form unnatural combinations in syllabication, it would not prove that the powers of letters and the import of words were unintelligible and indeterminate. Neither does the foolish and whimsical interpretation of types and symbols prove that all symbols and types are arbitrary, unmeaning, unintelligible, and undefinable things. Yet in this way some reason. Because some young novices, and some old visionaries, have made types where there were none, and misapplied those that were; therefore, say they, the whole system of types and symbols is unmeaning and unintelligible.
It is well for man, that faith and not reason is the principle, on which all revealed religion is founded. For although some sceptics scowl at the idea of faith, and extol the superiority of reason, as a guide, yet the truth is, that faith is incomparably a more safe guide, than reason. Not one in a thousand reasons infallibly or even correctly. Numerous as are the falsehoods believed, they do not bear the proportion of one to ten to the errors committed in reasoning. And were a man to make reason his sole guide, even in the common affairs of this life, and reject all faith in human testimony, he would be in proportion as he lived conformably to his reason, the greatest errorist in his day. Hence it was that the Grecian and Roman philosophers erred more extravagantly, and [589] ran into wilder extremes in religion, than the tribes which implicitly followed tradition, or acted upon the principles of faith. Not a husbandman in ten, who attempts to strike out a new course in agriculture, but miscarries oftener than he succeeds. And so precarious are the best reasoners upon the plough and the shuttle, that nothing is relied upon but experiment. Not a husbandman in ten can rely upon his own judgment or reason in deciding the pretensions of a new plough, or of a new mode of cultivation, until experience has taught him its merits or its defects. Hence, experience is continually correcting the errors of reason. Hence an ounce of experience is worth a pound of reason in the common business of life. They then, who believe, or in other words, rely upon the experience of others in human affairs, err less frequently, and much less fatally, than they who rejecting faith, or the experience of others, set sail upon the ocean of speculation and reason. The wise man rests upon experience, until he is able to prove by reason, or by his own experiments, that his ancestors have erred. If every generation was to reject the experience and instructions of the past, there would soon be a rapid retrogression in the improvements of society. But, without being tedious, they use reason best, who pay a good regard to those who have lived before them, and never dare to rely on their own reasonings, any farther than they have proved them by experiment. He that drinks water to extinguish the burning sensations occasioned by swallowing vitriol, though he reasons plausibly, does not reason more discordantly with fact, than the majority of reasoners who reason themselves into universal doubt. If then, in the material world, and with reference to the common business of life, men more frequently err in implicitly following their own reason, than in following the experience related to them by others, how much dependence ought to be placed upon sheer reason, in the things pertaining to the invisible and future world. But there is one tremendous consequence attached to the errors of reason in things pertaining to the spiritual and eternal world, that is not necessarily attendant on errors pertaining to temporal affairs. Experiments may, generally do, and almost universally might, divorce us from these errors.--But if experience of our mistakes in religious faith, or in rejecting faith altogether and adopting reason, is to be the means, the sole means of detecting them, deplorable beyond the powers of expression will be the detection of our own sophistry.
But whither have I strayed from my purpose? Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and the pen writes; and as I have been preparing some documents of this sort for the appendix of the Debate in press, I find that when I write for the Christian Baptist, my pen will wander off into a much frequented path. To return, then, to the symbolic worship:--
There is a most ingenious and instructive symbolizing or adumbrating of the christian history or facts in the whole history of the Jewish people. Their history, as well as their worship, seems to have been designed for figures or types of the Kingdom of the Messiah.
Joseph was sold into Egypt by his own brethren. He was sold, too, for thirty pieces of silver. His own good conduct and the Divine wisdom bestowed upon him, after a few years degradation, sorrow, and suffering, placed him upon the throne, or made him viceroy of Egypt. He forgave his brothers and provided an inheritance for them. Israel went down into Egypt:--Moses was finally raised up to bring them out;--and then a new scene of things commences. Now he must be blind indeed, who cannot see in the decree that exposed Moses, in his exaltation, Divine call, and mission, in his leading Israel through the Red Sea, in the mediation at Mount Sinai, in the peregrinations through the wilderness, and in a hundred incidents of this history, an exact coincidence with the facts recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, concerning the Messiah. But these historic incidents though evidently figurative, and made to have a prospective reference to the incidents in the evangelical narrations, do not rank among those symbolic institutions, whose primary design was to prefigure the Messiah and his redemption. Such were the instituted acts of worship belonging to the tabernacle.
Sacrifice is as old as the fall of man, or at least was instituted immediately afterwards, and continued in practice among all those favored with divine revelations, till the sacrifice of the Messiah, when it legitimately ceased. All sacrifices since offered have been unauthorized by God. He accepted one sacrifice which forever perfects the believers as to sacrifices. This divine institution has spread all over the world. No nation of antiquity, and, perhaps, not a tribe now on earth is without some vestiges of it. It was an institution that human reason never could have originated. The idea that the blood or life of any animal could be acceptable to the Creator of the world has no archetype, model, or analogy, in the sensible or visible creation to originate it. The ancients confirmed all their covenants over the bodies of slain animals. But this practice seems to have originated from the sacrifices, which were offered at the times when God commanded them in confirmation of any promise, which he gave to any of the human family. Thus the patriarchs confirmed their covenants, and from them the custom obtained of confirming all covenants with blood. Hence the seals of all the articles of stipulation of solemn import were seals of blood. And when this custom was laid aside, and wafers instead of victims became the seals of written contracts, they were colored red, as the symbol of the seals of blood.
Among the ancients, the gradations in the obligation and solemnity of all agreements were, first, a mere verbal promise without witness; second, a verbal promise before witnesses; third, an oath; and fourth, a victim slain. Thus when the national constitution of Israel was consummated, Moses, after he had audibly spoken the whole items and conditions, had, by divine appointment, animals slain, and the blood was scattered over the parchment and the people. So the highest pledge or assurance of God's love ever given to mortal man, greater than promise, oath, or even human sacrifice, is the blood of Jesus, by which the new institution has been ratified. But after these generals, we may come to particulars in the symbolic worship at another day.
EDITOR.
Extract of a Letter from a Christian Brother at
Brookfield, N. S. to his friend at Eastport, Me.
dated July 18, 1829.
"WHEN the experience of professors is soothed by flattery, and moved by the breath of words, 'tis feverish, impetuous and unstable; like the furious tide it ebbs and flows, rises, and falls as circumstances change. But sacred, divine, immutable truth, the blessed source of [590] fortitude and faith in the christian's soul, holds firm empire, and like the steady pole star, never from its fixed and faithful point declines. Hence the apostle, "We walk by faith, not by sight." Sense is governed by what appears; faith by what God says. Sense looks inwards and rests on happy impulses; faith looks outward on the sure word of prophecy. Sense has her anchor cast in the midst of frames changeable as the wind. Faith has her anchor cast within the veil, whither the forerunner is entered, and is both sure and steadfast, and secures effectually from being tossed to and fro amidst storms of trouble and dark seasons of desertion. Sense judges by what is felt. Faith forms its judgment, not by the things which are seen, but by the things that are not seen, calling the things which are not as though they were. Sense says, now I am in the favor of God, for I feel it, now he is my God, for I find him so. (How so?) I feel nearness to him in prayer, I feel lively in duty with warm affections; these are my assurances and demonstrations of his love, and I am full of comfort. But what is the result when these are not enjoyed? These, depended on as the soul's sunshine, and lost, contrary inferences are drawn. Now I am not in the favor of God, for I do not feel it. Now he is not my God, for I do not find him so; I am dead and stupid in prayer, &c. &c. Thus, frames, feelings, and impulses, produce no solid ground of comfort. When these are enjoyed, the dependent thinks himself a christian; and when not enjoyed he thinks himself a cast-away;--changing his thoughts of his state as his feelings do, like the wind; and varying his comforts like the weather.
What an unsettled state of mind a professor is in, who has no way to judge of himself but by these changeable things! What doubting, trouble, and perplexity ensue from depending on sense and frames for comfort! But when comfort springs from the right source, it is pure and solid, and joy and peace abound because of the word of his grace.
"He that believes--He that believes not."
The extent of a moral obligation is not to be determined by man's limited disposition to obey or comply. That notwithstanding the decisive tone assumed by the sacred writers on the necessity of divine influence, how unconscious they seem of any thing like embarrassment and perplexity; when they exhort men to duty, they are not only free in the utmost degree from all metaphysical explanations and distinctions, but use plain, confident and energetic assertions of the obligations of men to repent and believe. On faith their statements are simple and intelligible, being a spiritual perception and cordial reception of divine truth. The object to which they direct its operations is the gospel; and such a statement the gospel affords as is adapted to impress such a conviction of guilt and wretchedness, as will compel the anxious mind to an immediate and cordial reception of the message of mercy, which, by the sacredness of its subject-matter, communicates a holy influence to the mind that receives it. This cordial and spiritual reception or belief, is regarded by the sacred writers not as a merciful succedaneum adapted to the impotence of our nature, for the more rigid obedience which the law demands; but as the instituted method of becoming personally interested in the divine favor, and of final salvation. Such a pistis or faith, such a peitnomai or divine persuasion, in consequence of the peculiar sacredness of its object, forms the only principle of acceptable obedience. It is that faith which "purifies the heart and works by love." While it leads the mind which possesses it to an entire renunciation of all meritorious claims derived rather from itself, or its influence or grace received, and to an exclusive, undivided reliance on the perfect atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, as able to save to the uttermost; and thus the believer has one object to look to and live by--Christ, the all in all. For me, Eternal Spirit, may truth's effulgence my path illumine. May I by your celestial guidance led, fix deep in my own heart your sacred testimony, and in my life its holy influence transcribe. O help me to note how all the parts of truth agree in one fair, one finished, one harmonious whole; which, in all its gradations and beautiful connexions, begins, proceeds, and ends, in love Divine! And may the blessing of the Lord go with you, and in all things keep you free of the fell venom and malignant tendency of error, which strikes at the root of truth--pollutes the heart, and is as a cup full of delicious ruin. May you go forth in "the fulness of the blessing of the gospel." The more that you are a man of one book, humble, and counting yourself "less than the least," the more will you enjoy primitive simplicity, and thus more acceptable to God, whatever you may be to the world; and as a minister of Christ, study to approve yourself to him who will not forget your work of faith and labor of love."
| I am, yours, affectionately, | |
| J. B. |
The Moral Law and the Christian Baptist.
WE did not intend so soon to return to the idle bravado of this publication; but our attention has been so forcibly arrested by its extravagant paradox respecting the moral law, that we consider it due to our readers to justify our former strictures, and to lift up the warning voice to them, by exhibiting the sentiments of Mr. Alexander Campbell, on the subject of the moral law. 1. As he never appears to write or think in a serious mood, it may be possible that he has thrown out the odd fancy to which we now refer, as a sort of rhetorical banter, or that he merely intends to try an experiment, and to ascertain how far he can lead his blind admirers upon the implicit faith which his authority alone challenges. He boasts of the number and of the attainments of his readers and partizans; but he should remember, that there is as much of ignorance and illiterature among his advocates, as among his opponents. 2. Who are the Baptists that have been converted to his new creed?--They are such as were previously Arminians, or Sandemanians, such as never stood firm on the basis of truth, such as were ready to take up with the first leader of discontent and faction, such as always opposed united effort in promoting the spread of the gospel, and the advancement of education; and those who through ignorance, become an easy prey to greedy error. 3. Of course there are many who read Mr. Campbell, and who fall in with his views in part, who are not included in the above description, they not yet being thoroughly indoctrinated. It is thorough converts to which we refer.
Among his other pre-eminent qualifications, it would appear that Mr. Campbell is an antinomian. 4. The following extract will show that he is one anti-nomos--against the law. These are his very words:--
"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 [591] 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."
Here we perceive that the law uttered from the mouth of God himself, ratified by the most awful interposition of the divine presence, and recognized and expounded by our blessed Saviour, is nothing more than a secular policy, a worldly constitution. See how extremes meet! Excessive Arminianism and Antinomianism are more nearly allied than at first we should imagine. Was the holy law given at Sinai nothing more than a form of government? 5. Was that tremendous covenant nothing more than a sort of treaty upon which the people were to coalesce? Were the Israelites not a nation before this time? What were they in Egypt? What were they during their sojourn in the wilderness? 6. Did ever any system of secular policy teach the love of God and the love of our neighbor? 7. The history of the world cannot produce an instance. Mr. Campbell is surely thinking of the coming debates of the Virginia Convention, of which it is understood he is to be a member. Perhaps he is already preparing his speeches. He is maturing the whole doctrine of Constitutions, and means to bring in Moses as the first Exemplar. 8. The fable of the river fish which played off into the sea, and was soon overmatched, one might suppose, would offer a seasonable hint to him. 9.--Columbian Star.
Note 1. I never wrote nor spoke one word against any "moral law." Define your moral law, Mr. Brantly; and then call bible things by bible names.
2. I will not rank among my advocates any so ignorant of the Old and New Institution, as the writer of these remarks, though ever so well skilled in the traditions of the elders, or in the dogmas of Egyptian theology.
3. Who told you, Mr. Brantly, that such were my converts? Do you know them all? or are you the judge of all hearts?
4. Yes; call me antinomian, then arminian, then heretic, then socinian, then deist, and the work is done. The ninth commandment says, in my Bible, "You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor." How does it read in your "moral law," Mr. Brantly?
5. Every law that the Most High promulged, was nothing more than a form of government. Did he ever promulge a law which was not to govern men individually or collectively?
6. This gentleman appears as ignorant of the Jewish history, as of the genius of their religion. It was only three months after their departure from Egypt, until this constitution was ratified and carried into effect.
7. Yes; God's constitution and secular policy did it. The "royal constitution, or royal law," governing Israel, and that of the Lord Messiah governing the New Kingdom, made piety and morality the best policy. But Mr. Brantly will have something else to be better worldly policy for a nation than piety and morality; and thinks that the, Governor of the world is like himself.
8. This is pitiful indeed! What convincing logic! What does it prove?--that I am doing what he says? No: for I have never written one sentence on the subject. What then does it prove?--that my views are erroneous? No. What then? that Mr. Brantly has the jaundice? Yes.
9. And that is what Mr. Brantly fears. I wish that he would keep in shallow water, only let it be clear.
I can find leisure only to remark, that I am sorry to witness such a spirit breathed from a "teacher in Israel" as that in the "Star" of the 29th August. If I thought Mr. Brantly was as ignorant of the constitution of the theocracy, and as negligent a reader of the essay to which he alludes, as these cynical remarks import, he and his readers would merit my sympathy rather than my censure. But I cannot think that there is such an ignorance or such a negligence. I must, in spite of all my charities, impute these invidious remarks to the spirit of this world. I am sorry to find Mr. Brantly so entirely unacquainted with me, and with the cause I advocate; and worse than all, that he has so little regard for the Author of the Christian Religion. It is of no consequence that I call him to an account, or enter into a discussion with him: for he will not argue a single point with me. He will occasionally aim a poisoned arrow at me; or he will ad captandum vulgus, to inveigle those who do not read, and will not read for themselves, occasionally throw out such slanders and insinuations as those above quoted. I will not now analyze them. They speak for themselves. My readers will please again read the essay from which he has taken his text. If I do not, before my essays on the Jewish and Christian Dispensations are closed make it manifest to the impartial, that these preachers of the law, neither understand what they say, nor whereof they affirm, then I will assent to be governed by the doctrines and commandments of men; and for the sake of an honorable editorship and a rich congregation, agree to preach whatever the prejudices of the age require.
| EDITOR C. B. |
| September 17, 1829. |
Election.--No. III.
THE following sentence is found in our last essay: "Having ascertained in a summary way the elector, the person first elected, the ends of the election, the time when it began, and when it shall terminate, I shall speak of the principle on which it proceeds," &c. Let us then speak of the principle on which a person might, at any time, be admitted into the elect institution, or church of God and Christ.
1. This election divides itself into two great [592] departments, the Jewish and Christian churches, the first receiving its members on the gross, limited, and partial principle of the flesh, i. e. relationship to Abraham by the line of Isaac and Jacob. The second, admitting its members on the exalting, universal, and impartial principle of faith in Jesus Christ.
2. The election of individuals to church privileges in the first of these principles, viz: Fleshly relationship, can be justified only by the fact, that in the infancy of the world, the rudeness of the age, &c. rendered the introduction of the higher and more refining principle of faith, if not impossible, at least altogether impolitic, in regard to the ends to be accomplished by the institution.
I need not observe that the change of principle from flesh to faith occurred at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that many of the Jews, who stood in the first apartment of the election, failed to be received into the second for want of the proper principle of faith in Jesus. But the limited nature of family descent, the extent of belief as the first principle of Christianity, the degradation of the infidel Jews, and the elevation of the believing Gentiles, are all set forth by the apostle, in the following beautiful allegory, in his letter to the Roman disciples: "Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, who are a wild olive, are engrafted instead of them, and are become a joint partaker of the root and fatness of the olive, boast not against the branches, for if you boast against them you bear not the root but the root you."
You may say, however, the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.
"True--by unbelief they were broken off, and you, by faith, stand; be not high minded, but fear--For if God spared not the natural branches, perhaps neither will he spare you. Behold then, the goodness and severity of God: towards them who fell, severity; but towards you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise, you also shall be cut off; and even they, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in. For if you were cut off from the olive, by nature wild, and contrary to nature were grafted into the good olive, how much rather shall those who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive?"
The Magna Charta of the whole elect institution are the covenants made by God with Abraham; from the superior and inferior branches of which are derived what the apostle, in Heb. viii. calls the new and old, the first and second, the inferior and better; or, in other words, the Jewish and Christian, covenants, i. e. the law and the gospel--the one enjoyed by the Jews on the footing of flesh, the other by men of all nations on faith. It is thus the apostle, by a metonymy of principle and privilege, styles the law flesh, and the gospel faith. The infancy and rudeness of the age of law, is indicated by the apostle in the following metaphor: "So the law was our school master until Christ." Again allegorically--"Now I say, 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." The grossness of fleshly relationship and the spirituality of faith, together with the substitution of the last for the first of these principles, is thoroughly enforced upon the Galatians, in the allegory of Sarah and Hagar: "Cast out (says the scripture) the bond maid and her son; for the son of the bond maid shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. Well then, brethren, we (christians) are not the children of the bond maid, but of the free woman: "i e. not of flesh but of faith. It must be manifest, therefore, from what has been written, that the entire election has been managed, first and last, upon these two principles, and that the one half now superseded the other.
I shall close this paper with two or three remarks upon faith and family relationship: It is on this limited and partial principle of birth or blood, that the old world has obtained its chiefs, judges, dictators, kings, sultans, emperors, priests, &c. and the consequence has been that an alarming proportion of such officers has proved the worst of tyrants and knaves. The fact is, that, in the old world, a man may, by family connexion, become the heir both of religious and civil offices, to which neither his talents nor character at all entitle him. Yet this was just the principle on which the Jews obtained their kings and priests; nay, it was the principle, also, on which they were introduced into the church. Their priests, therefore, were most corrupt. Nadab and Abihu were slain of the Lord, and the two sons of Eli also perished in their immorality and presumption. The arrogance of Rehoboam issued in the dismemberment of the kingdom: and but few of his successors were famous for piety. Religion flowing from family pride went on apace until the appearing of John and Jesus the first of whom told the people not (now) to, say "We have Abraham for our father;" and the last that they trust be "born again," if they would enter into the reign of the Messiah; not that the new birth and faith are the same thing, for they are not. The new birth is a thing proposed to the believer in Jesus--Nicodemus believed, and to him it was said, "You must be born again." i e. of water and Spirit. Preachers are very apt to mistake here, and to tell the unbelieving man that he must be born again; but it is a fact that no unbelieving man can be born again. The scriptures expressly assert that "to those only who received him he gave the power of becoming the sons of God, even to those who believe upon his name; who are born not of blood, nor of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God;" i e. by water and Spirit--the way which he wills his children to be born to him on the principle of faith. The apostle defines faith, in general, to be "the confidence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen;" of course christian faith, in particular, must be an assent to the evidence of the existence of the Messiah, though we do not see him, and a confident reliance on him as one who means what he says, and who will perform what he has promised. Thus true belief engages both the head and heart of a man. "He that comes to God must not only believe that he exists, but that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him." This definition is illustrated in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, by the faith of Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Moses, and his parents, Gideon, Barak, Samson, David, Samuel, and the prophets. But as Cain believed in the existence of God, without exercising any confidence in him as a rewarder of his worshippers; so, many now have only the one half of true faith, and believe that Christ exists, without having the least confidence in either him, his words, or his institutions. Hence they wont be baptized, they wont be born again, neither ought they, until they can trust his words. Sinners, look to the history of his faithfulness. I would observe that the teachers of christianity ought never to go out of the Bible for a [593] definition of faith. In regard to the origin of faith, I would just observe, that, like our affections, it is not dependent upon the will, but upon evidence. Other powers of the mind, as recollection, imagination, &c. are dependent on the will in their exercise, while the will itself is solely under the direction of that law which governs all animated nature: viz. the desire of happiness.
Man is possessed of other powers of acquiring knowledge besides the power of believing; for he is a creature of sense and reason, as well as of morality: but while for the propagation and education of mankind, God has laid hold of appetite, passion, reason, &c., rather than faith; yet it must be granted that we cannot see how our gracious Father, in bestowing upon our fallen family a system of morals, should make the practice of it to proceed upon any other principle than that of belief. Faith and sense act with supreme power among mankind, and are the two most universal principles of our nature. They are very closely allied to each other; and it is not easy to say where the one begins and the other ends. Had the Divine Father predicated our salvation upon a fine imagination, a strong memory, a piercing intellect; military, philosophic, and literary talent; upon high birth, or even good morals; then we should have seen coming up to the christian altar our Homers, Virgils, and Miltons; our Lockes and Newtons; our Washingtons, Alexanders, &c., and men might have complained. But so long as it is written, "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved," no one who has ears to hear, and feet to carry him to the water, has the least ground of complaint. The principle, then, on which christian election proceeds, is faith, a power of action in human nature alike distinguished for its utility, purity and universality.
PHILIP.
Election.--No. IV.
WE now come to speak of the sovereignty of God, and the point of our religion at which it appears.
In order to arrive at our conclusions with effect, I would observe that the following phrases are used in scripture to mean the same thing: "justification from sin," "righteousness of God," "righteousness of faith," "forgiveness of sins," "remission of sins." If the reader will bear these phrases in mind, I shall show him shortly how the same sentiment comes to be varied into five different expressions by the scriptures writers.
Meanwhile, let us peep at the history of the remission of sins among the Jews. The Jewish religion was exceedingly comforting to the man of God in this respect; much more so, indeed, than modern christianity; for if a man sinned, the Lord had appointed five different sorts of animals, as the mediums of remission. These were calves, lambs, kids, turtle doves and young pigeons, any of which the man of God could carry to the altar, and by confession at the sanctuary obtain forgiveness of the God of Israel.
If a man feared God, he would have been very poor who could not muster a pair of young pigeons. But if he could not, the Lord had appointed what was styled "the poor mans offering." If, says the law, "he (the sinner) be not able to bring two turtle doves, or two young pigeons, then he that sinned shall bring for his offering the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering; he shall put no oil upon it, neither frankincense; for it is a sin offering." Again--"Then the priest shall make an atonement for him as touching the sin that he hath i sinned in one of these (sins specified in the beginning of the chapter,) and it shall be forgiven him" Lev. ch. v. As rich and poor were liable to commit sin, these different animal offerings were evidently appointed with a reference to the different degrees of wealth among the worshippers--while the very poor and destitute were permitted to present what we have seen was called "the poor man's offering stript of every article, of oil, wine, and frankincense, which could render it expensive. Thus our heavenly Father, in giving a law, made all possible provision for the comfort of the worshipper; by instituting the above means of forgiveness.
In christianity the institution for forgiveness is baptism, which is not to be repeated, a real superiority over the law remission: the Lord Jesus, by his precious blood, sanctifying in this way the believer once for all (his life.) "Be baptized every one of you, in the name, (i. e. by the authority) of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Thus the symbol of remission in the true religion is changed from animal blood to water; while the blood of Christ, between them, like the sun at the equator, reaches to the ends of the earth, and forms the real cause of pardon to all who ever shall be forgiven, from Abel to the resurrection of the dead.
Now, I say, it is just here that the sovereignty of God appears in christianity in forgiving sins of men in the institution of baptism, upon the principle of faith in the blood of Christ, as the great and efficacious offering for all. And now we shall see how the same sentiment came to be expressed in five different ways by the scriptures, while the phrase "forgiveness of sins" was the expression used among the vulgar of the Jewish nation. The doctors and teachers of law, more affected and technical, varied from the civil style, for the more learned and juridical expressions, "justification from sins," "remission of sins." The Doctors, then, in speaking of the officers at the Temple, pronounced them "justified," and again they said they were constituted "righteous" according to law, i. e. in offering they had done just what the letter of the law demanded; for had they not done so, the Lord ordered that every such person should be cut off from among the people.
Now, the Apostle being a Jew, and infinitely skilled by his education in the technia of the Jewish lawyers, adopts their own phrases in discoursing with them on the subject of forgiveness, e g. he says in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia, "Be it known to you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." And as the lawyers made use of the word "righteousness" in reference to remission, or to describe a person whose sins had been forgiven: so the Apostle, speaking of the baptized believer whose sins had been forgiven, and was justified in the language of the law, calls this the righteousness of God; because it was a righteousness granted by God; and the righteousness of faith, because it was on the principle of faith in the Son of God, that any one was allowed to approach baptism. I pertinaciously keep baptism in view in this matter, both because the scriptures make it the institution of forgiveness, and because it is altogether unusual both in law and religion, either to forgive or condemn on account of a latent principle. Faith is not justification: [594] forgiveness or remission is justification; and faith is the principle, and the only principle too, on which remission can be obtained. Now both faith in Jesus, and baptism for remission, were novelties to the Jews; and it was in the promulgation of these things that they took offence; and God's sovereignty is exerted in the changing of the righteousness by law for the righteousness by faith, and in offering the last not to Jews only, but to Gentiles also, and in degrading the former from their ancient standing for not embracing the good message of favor.
When we consider the display of God's sovereignty in the introduction of christianity, it appears both immense and absolute: absolute, because he consulted no one among men or angels; immense, because it swept away at one stroke all that the world of both Jews and Gentiles accounted holy and venerable. The law was a ponderous and imposing establishment. Its theology and morality distinguished it from, and rendered it superior, infinitely superior to, all the systems of the Gentiles.
The sanctuary and its inestimable furniture, the altar, the priesthood, and the services, consisting of offerings, sacrifices, washings, meat and drink offerings, &c. their tithes, feasts, fasts, synagogues, and books of law, with their psalters and book of prophecies, that these, all these, founded upon divine authority, most flattering to the senses, and handed down to them from the most remote antiquity, should be abandoned for the sake of Christ and the remission of sins, with the other remote advantages held out by christianity, was what the Jews could not contemplate but with amazement mingled with abhorrence. Yet did the Divine Father, in his absolute and uncontrolled sovereignty, command all the Jews every where to do this, and to do it too on pain of incurring his highest displeasure: but the same sovereignty which withdrew authority from the law of Moses, denounced at the same time the superstition of the whole world besides, and ordered all men every where to repent and believe the gospel; and here it is that the, sovereignty of God appears in our religion in all its sublimity. What! denounce the religion of the world, and introduce a new one!! Yes, all, all was condemned and withdrawn, and the aspirant after immortality left with nothing before him to save and encourage him in the thorny road through which he followed his Master, but the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ; every thing now called for spirit instead of letter, and love instead of law, until righteousness should be established in the earth, and christianity became the religion of the world.
This exhibition of the divine sovereignty, gave birth to many questions between the Jews and Christians, the management and settlement of which devolved chiefly on the Apostles. Of these questions, the following are a few: the christian method of remission made them ask, "What profit there was in circumcision," i. e. the law of Moses? and the admission of the Gentiles to this remission on the same footing with the Jews, made them enquire, "What advantage then has the Jew?" These two questions are answered by the Apostle, in the 3d chap. of his epistle to the Romans. The third question, was levelled at the very vitals of christianity itself; for the remission being granted on the principle of faith, and consequently by a favor, and neither by works of law, or righteousness, which men had done. The Jews, from an ignorance of human nature, and the true character of God, mistook the tendency of the Apostolic doctrine, and ask thirdly, whether christianity was not essentially this, "Let us sin that favor may abound?" In reply, the Apostle shows that it was by faith and favor, that both Abraham and David were saved, and that law had originally issued in the death of the first of men, and in all who came from his loins while the law of Moses which they all knew was good only for showing how severe and universally sin had taken hold of mankind.
The casting off of the infidel Jews, gave occasion finally to the question--Whether God had not departed from his former character and violated his promise to Abraham? This question is answered in the famous ninth chapter of the same Epistle, a portion of Holy Scripture which some sectaries have most shamefully abused, but which I hope this view of the matter will ultimately redeem from their partial and limited systems--Here the Apostle shows them that they considered it no more infringement of the divine character when for popular purposes, he preferred their fathers, Isaac and Jacob, to Ishmael and Esau; and raised to the throne of Egypt Pharaoh by whom he wished to make his power known, and who on account of his own bad character, should have been damned long before he was either drowned, or even made monarch of the land of Ham; but both Ishmael and Esau and Pharaoh, and even they themselves, when cast off were treated by God in the only way their abominable character merited; and therefore, God dealt with them as the potter does with a dishonorable vessel; he dashed and would dash them in pieces.--Moreover, the Apostle lets them know that the blessings of christianity, were never held out or promised indiscriminately to Abraham's seed, but only to so many of them as believed Justification from sin is a blessing, which, indeed, it were folly to offer to an unbelieving man, whether Jew or Gentile.
Having given the reader a clue to the question of God's Sovereignty, I shall now review some Scriptures which have been quoted as opposing the doctrine of the Christian Baptist, against the partial pickings of sectarianism.
1. It is said, Romans viii. "Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren.--Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified."--Now what is this, but that God, as may be seen from fact and from the ancient writings of the prophets, foreknew, that the Jews and Gentiles, indiscriminately, would believe on his Son, and for that, had predestinated or appointed them to share in his honors; he therefore, in the fullness of time, called them; remitted their sins, and glorified them as his only worshipers, by making to rest upon them, the Spirit of God and of Glory.
But it is said: "Well then, he has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardens." This is true--and blessed be his holy name, that he will, if the scriptures mean what they say, have mercy on all who believe, not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also; and the unbelieving wretch who will not accept of pardon on the gospel plan, ought to be hardened and heated seven times in a furnace of fire; Romans ix. The ancient idolaters were hardened, and the case of the modern Jews illustrates this verse. Again it is said, Eph. 1st chapter, "According as he has elected us in him, before the foundation of the world." This is also very [595] true, and means just what it says; but, observe, that it is one thing to elect us in him, and quite another to elect us to be in him. It would be one thing to elect a Jacksonite, and another to elect a man to be a Jacksonite; the one would be to make him a Jacksonite, and the other to elect a Jacksonite to some other matter; but there it was "Before the foundation of the world." We many times determine who shall fill certain offices, so soon as we have succeeded in the election of a superior officer. Many Jacksonites were marked out for offices long before the general was inaugurated; and so the disciples of the Messiah, were chosen to love and purity, before the foundation of the world--while the disciples of Mahomet, Confucius, and others have been appointed to no such distinction.
But again, "No man can come to me unless the Father draw him." How common is this form of speech, even among ourselves! Who has brought you here, and what has drawn you here, are phrases which are current every where, and yet, who ever thinks that the charm or power by which one person is drawn after another is a physical one. The power of drawing is moral, not physical, and so the Saviour, in the 5th John, says that no man could come to him, unless the Father draw him, because the political mob which he addressed, had followed him, from the gross and animal reason of having got their bellies filled the night before with the loaves and fishes; paying no regard to the divine power which wrought the miracle, "Verily, I say to you, you followed me not because you saw the miracle, (Father in the miracle,) but because you did eat of the loaves and were filled."
PHILIP.
[TCB 587-596]
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Alexander Campbell
The Christian Baptist (1889) |