Volume 7. Number 6. January 4, 1830, pp. 614-623.

• Remarks on a Circular Letter, Found in the Minutes of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Association, for 1829 by Alexander Campbell, pp. 614-616.
• Ancient Baptisms by Alexander Campbell, pp. 616-617.
• For the Christian Baptist by A Western Baptist, pp. 617-618.
• The Happy New Year by Alexander Campbell, pp. 618-621.
• Extract of a Letter to the Editor of the Christian Baptist, Dated, Londonderry, Nov. 5th, 1829 by W. T., pp. 621-622.
• Extract of a Letter to the Editor, Dated Cincinnat, December 14, 1829 by An Inquirer for Truth, pp. 622-623.

      IT has long been a custom to repudiate, by opprobrious names, a sentiment or a doctrine which cannot be refuted by argument. Men who can refute by argument, have never been accustomed to use the weapons of calumny and detraction. A Mr. Rogers, in the state of Missouri, converted the circular letter of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Association into a vehicle of slander and personal abuse. The custom of addressing circulars from and in the name of associations, originated from a desire to address the brethren once a year on some evangelical topic calculated to enlighten the understanding, to purify and cheer the hearts of the brotherhood. But behold, this letter is a little acrimonious anathema upon some sentences, torn from their connexion in the Christian Baptist, and tortured and gibbeted by the evil genius of sectarian jealousy until they appear as much to disadvantage as an Indian victim painted for massacre. I am clothed in the mantle of Sandemanianism and led forth as a heretic of the deepest atrocity, to an auto de fe, because I have asserted and proved that faith is only the belief of the testimony of God, and that, when [614] God commanded all men to believe and reform, he did not command that which is impossible for them to do.

      The writer of this letter casts his eyes over Fuller's Strictures on Sandemanianism, and Buck's Theological Dictionary on the article of Sandemanianism, and there thinks he sees all the "doctrines" found in the Christian Baptist, in miniature or in full life in those sketches. The term Sandemanianism is, I suppose, an opprobrious name in his country, that will answer my heterodoxy. I will not kill thee, said the Quaker, but I will call thee mad dog. Thus the work is done. It does not, however, succeed so well in this country as in Old England, the native place of the erudite gentleman. For the people of these United States are a little more inquisitive, and are wont to inquire, What has he done? What, say they, do we know of Sandeman or of Glass? Will their names condemn a sentiment to hell or exalt it to heaven! Now I would inform the same disciple who nicknames my remarks, Sandemanianism, that he is much more of a Sandemanian than I am. But this will neither, I hope, condemn his sentiments to heterodoxy, nor justify them as righteous. But it is a fact, if he be a good hypercalvinistic Baptist, or if he be a believer in physical and accompanying special influences producing faith. This I have shown in the Christian Baptist to be an essential part of Sandemanianism; not from Buck or Fuller, but from Sandeman's letters on Theron and Aspasio. I disclaim Sandemanianism as much as I do any system in Christendom; but I agree with Sandeman in making faith no more than the belief of the truth, and I agree with the Roman Catholics in the belief of the resurrection of the dead. But I differ from Sandeman in making this belief the effect of physical influence, and I disagree with the Catholics in the doctrine of Purgatory.

      But I would inform this Son of the church militant, that I would not give a grain of wheat for any faith that does not purify the heart, work by love and overcome the world. And if he could speak with the tongue of an angel, and write with the pen of an apostle, and exhibit no more regard to truth and Christian love than this circular evinces; I would not give a farthing for his faith, though he may think with Fuller, that he was regenerated before he believed the Gospel.

      As I have seen this letter nearly four hundred miles from home, I cannot write an elaborate criticism upon it; but I will inform those into whose hands it may fall, that it is a most unfaithful and unchristian representation of my views. All the scriptures quoted in it, I believe in their plain, literal, and obvious import. For example, I believe and I know, that "God who fills all things in all places, did fill the Gentiles who were dead in trespasses and in sins, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit;" yea, that, "us who were dead in trespasses and sins, he has raised up together, and has set us down together, with the Jews who believed in the heavenly places by Jesus Christ," and this he has done for us out of pure favor. I believe that it is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing; "that the wicked will not seek after God--God is not in all their thoughts." "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understands--there is none that seeks after God--they are all gone out of the way--they are together become unprofitable--there is none that does good, not one--there is no fear of God before their eyes." All these sayings I believe most sincerely, in the connexion in which they stand in the volume. I say, these and every other sentence of scripture found in the circular letter, I most sincerely believe in the connexions in which they stand; and in the fullest and most literal sense the words will bear, according to any legitimate rules of interpretation. But if the gentleman has any private interpretation of these words, or any appropriated sense of them, either borrowed, or invented by himself, I beg leave to dissent from such appropriations and private interpretations. I will also inform the worthy gentleman, that the name Calvinism is worth no more in heaven than the name Sandemanianism, or Fullerism. But I rejoice to know that the gospel does not need to be put into any of these distilleries to make it either intelligible or healthful. It is glad tidings of great joy to all people. It demands of no man what he has not to pay. It calls for no powers which he has not: it enjoins no duty which he cannot perform. It is adapted to men just as they are, and therefore it is a scheme of pure favor--of divine love and mercy. No man can complain and say, that it only tantalizes him by offering him what he cannot receive--by requiring what he cannot perform--by presenting what he cannot accept. Such a scheme would not be glad tidings to all people. It would be only good news to the qualified, to the regenerated, to them who are made able to receive it. Such a gospel did not Paul preach; and he that preaches a gospel which is not adapted to unconverted sinners, preaches another gospel--a gospel of his own, or some other person's invention.

      I do hope that every man who feels any interest in examining any thing I have written, or may write, on the great questions which divide the religious world, will put himself to the trouble to examine it in my own words, and in the connexions in which they are placed, and not in the garbled extracts which party spirit and the spirit of this world please to present them. I protest against having the Christian Baptist treated no better than these gentlemen treat the apostolic writings. The apostles are dead, and must submit to the textuaries, to be handled as the textuaries please. The Calvinists and the Arminians tear them limb from limb, and make Paul say just what they please. The Universalists and the Quakers, the Socinians and the Arians are very adroit in making the sacred writers affirm or deny what they please. But I cannot conscientiously submit to have my writings treated no better than these popular sermon makers treat the holy scriptures. Those, then, who feel any interest in understanding what I teach, will do me and themselves the justice of examining in my own words, my own statements. One scripture says, "There is no God;" another says, "I could wish myself to be accursed from Christ;" another says, "Worship the Beast." and another says, "Go and do likewise." Put these together, and what does the Bible teach!! It will teach any thing men please to make it teach, only let them have one liberty--and that is, of quoting it just as they please. Yet if treated according to the only fair and just rules of interpretation, it will only teach one and the same thing to every reader.

      The editor of the Utica Register, New York, has given some weeks since, as I have lately seen in a paper forwarded to me to Richmond, from Rochester, what he is pleased to call [615] doubtless "a fair summary of the sentiments and doctrines taught by Alexander Campbell." I would seriously ask this gentleman if he ever read one volume which I wrote, and whether he has examined for himself the whole of my writings. If he have not, I ask how, in the name of truth and righteousness, could he solemnly affirm a most libellous caricature of my sentiments on one or two topics, to be a fair summary of my sentiments!!! If this gentleman would look back into history only a few centuries, he could find many brief summaries, which he would doubtless call blasphemous libels on his own sentiments; nay, he would find as ugly things said of Baptist sentiments and practices as he can now say of mine. And if he would read the history of the apostles, he would find that one of the "fair summaries" given by some of his contemporaries, was that Paul taught that Moses ought not to be regarded, and that men should "do evil that good might come." No doubt but Paul had said something which gave rise to, or afforded a pretext for such summaries; and so may I have said or written something which ungodly men may have perverted to such an extent. I therefore call upon this Utica Register either to make good his allegata, or eat up his libel.

EDITOR.      

      SACRED history is, of all reading, the most instructive, entertaining, and profitable. It presents God and man to our view in such a way as engrosses all the energies of our minds, and all the feelings of our hearts. We think and we feel at the same moment. All true history is profitable to all attentive readers. It is the best substitute for personal acquaintance. It brings to light and developes that most wonderful and interesting of all themes, the human heart. But in this the sacred writings claim, as they deserve, all precedence. The hidden springs of human action, and the great attractives of human passion, are there laid open and pictured out by a master painter. Reality, and not shadows, pass before us in every character which these writings portray. No portrait so approaches real life as these characters exhibit man, both good and bad, to human meditation; but sketches only are given of the most brilliant and eminent characters. But these sketches present, in the most instructive attitudes, the great characters which God selected for human admiration.

      Events are but the results of human action, or of divine interposition; and those great events which the Mosaic history records, are, of all others, the most instructive, if we except the eventful history of the New Testament. But there is one peculiarity in the characters and events recorded in the Mosaic history which I wish to notice here, because it proves the authenticity of the sacred volumes, while it greatly illuminates the pages of the apostolic writings. I allude to their emblematic reference. No pencil but that guided by an eye which penetrates all futurity, could have in ten thousand instances painted out the christian institution, with all its influences, moral and religious, ages before its author was born--Adam the first, and Adam the second--the Fall, and the Resurrection of man--Hagar and Sarah--Ishmael and Isaac--Jacob and Esau--Elijah and John--Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Jesus--circumcision and baptism--the passover and the Lord's supper--and a hundred other allusions, symbols, and emblems, need only be mentioned to revive the remembrance of the exact adaptation of Jewish and patriarchal history to the developement of the divine philanthropy in the christian scriptures. To this subject the apostles only occasionally glance. I will only allude at present to two instances:--The first preacher, not only of the New Testament, but of the Old, was what some now call a Baptist. I allude to Noah and John. Noah preached reformation or drowning to the Antediluvians. John preached reformation or burning to his cotemporaries. Noah was saved by water, and the old world was baptized in water without a resurrection, because it would not reform. The earth was buried and rose again before a rainbow of peace spanned hill or valley. After the resurrection of the earth Noah was born of water. The waters which drowned the sinners saved the righteous Noah, and made him the father of a new world. The heavenly proclamation believed brought him into the ark, and God's promise brought him out. After his baptism, or second birth, God promised him life, and enlarged his privileges. Water translated him from the old world into the new; and while it purified the earth for him, it fitted him for the earth. But he was born of promise too. His faith in the resurrection of the earth sustained him in entering, and while immured in the ark; and when born of water his faith in God's promise gave him a lively hope that there should never be a second baptism of the earth, nor an entire withdrawal of the influences of heaven from the earth. So after Noah was born of water, he was begotten again to a lively hope by the promise of God.

      All this and more Peter saw in this event when he was inspired to say, "The antitype of this water, immersion, does now save us christians." As water saved Noah, so baptism saves us. He had faith in the resurrection of the earth; and we have faith in the resurrection of Jesus. He believed God's promise of bringing him out of the water, and we his promise of raising us from the dead. We leave our sins where Noah's baptism left the ungodly. They were buried and Noah saved. As Noah entered a new world by being born of water and the promise, so we enter the kingdom of heaven by being born of water and the Spirit. As life and temporal blessings were promised Noah after his second birth, so eternal life and spiritual blessings are promised us after we are born of water and the Spirit. As no one entered into the second world who was born in the first world, unless those born again; so Jesus said, "Except a man be born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

      The baptism of the Israelites is the next event of this sort to which we now allude. This is found in the 14th and 15th chapters of Exodus. Faith in God's promise had brought the Israelites from their houses and their homes into one assembly, on the coast of the Red Sea. Faith in the divine call and mission of Moses, had induced them to put themselves under his conduct and guidance. But notwithstanding this faith, they could not leave the land of their nativity and get on the way to Canaan until they were baptized into Moses and born of water as Noah was. Hence they could not cross the Red Sea in ships. They must descend into the bottom of the Red Sea before they could ascend into the relation of the saved people. The cloud covered them also. "They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea." So says a high authority--Paul the apostle to the Gentiles. But the water which saved Israel drowned the Egyptians. Faith led the Jews under the guidance [616] of Moses into the Red Sea; but rage, and envy, and resentment led Pharaoh and his hosts in the pursuit. Pass on, however, did not bring the Egyptians out; but faith placed Israel on yonder side. So soon as they were born of the water and of the cloud--so soon as they came up out of the Red Sea, God promised to feed them and lead them. The heavens then dropped down manna upon them, and they eat the bread of heaven. Now, these things, says Paul, happened to them as types--as figures--and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world have come. The christian institutions were thus pictured out to us by the pencil of Omniscience ages before the founder of our religion was born. We should not have ventured to trace these analogies had not the apostles Peter and Paul directed us. Following their guidance, we cannot but see that the one baptism of christians is an institution of so great moment as to have had two resemblances of it in the two most extraordinary events in Jewish and Patriarchal history--the one baptism of the fathers of the once baptized earth, and the one baptism of the once baptized fathers of the Jewish people. How interesting, then, this sacred institution! How important is it for christians to know its meaning well, and to teach it accurately to others. We shall find it, on examination, to be the most gracious institution, and the most instructive, with which any age of the world has been favored.

EDITOR.      

      BROTHER BRANTLY:--I HAVE read, with regret, your remarks copied from the "Star" of the 29th August last, in the October number of the "Christian Baptist;" in which you say, "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."

      It is not my object to defend brother Campbell's views of the "moral law," because I am sure he is able to defend himself; yet I am far from thinking that there are not hundreds, besides him, that are more than "stout enough" for you upon that subject. If you feel it your duty to "lift up the warning voice" against brother Campbell because he may have denied the existence of any such a law to the bible, you must surely plead that your obligations to defend scholastic divinity are greater than those you acknowledge under the oracles of God. And if you say that there is such a law as the "moral law" in God's revealed word, do tell us, brother Brantly, where it is to be found; give us book, chapter and verse. "Come and help us." But I have said that it was not my intention to defend brother Campbell on this subject.

      I should not have taken up my pen to address a D. D. if it were not in self-defence. I acknowledge myself one of the avowed friends of brother Campbell and the cause which he advocates in the "Christian Baptist;" viz. "the restoration of the ancient order of things." And I am much mortified at seeing such a charge as you have made in your strictures against the christian character and standing of those brethren who are avowedly united with brother Campbell in defence of primitive Christianity. Your charge is thus stated:--

      "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."

      You have here made seven charges or allegations in your bill. "Affirmanti incumbit probatio;" consequently you must either make good your allegations, or else defeated you are, and must pay the cost. Is not the "norma disputandi" the same in Pennsylvania as in Kentucky? I presume it is. I now call upon you, as a brother in Christ, to establish your charges if you can; for I am bold to say that there is not one word of truth in all that you have said about them, as far as I know or have learned, and I know many of them well. Who told you, brother Brantly, that those Baptists were "Sandemanians or Arminians," and that they were "ready to take up with the first leader of discontent and faction?" What a pity, brother, that you have made such assertions, when you must have known, that, for your life, you could not establish one of them as true. Are these the fruits of your "moral law" of which you are so tenacious? If they be, we need not trouble ourselves much about opposing it, for you yourself will shortly put it to death. God's law forbids bearing false testimony against any man; and that you have done so against many in this instance, is as certain as that two and two make four.

      Again you say, in speaking of those whose religious sentiments correspond with brother Campbell's, that "they are such as never stood firm on the basis of truth." What do you define to be "the firm basis?" for you have not told us. All the friends of brother Campbell, with whom I am acquainted, believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world; and brother John says, 1st Epistle, chapter v. "Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is begotten by God." Have you not again slandered your brethren, who love the Lord Jesus and look for his second appearing? 'Tis a thousand pities that you should have so little regard for your standing both as a man and a Christian. You have sinned against God, and I beseech you to repent in sackcloth and ashes.

      You should never have appeared in public as an accuser of brethren, of whom, perhaps, you knew nothing, except through their enemies, who are most likely to misrepresent them. You have not only endeavored to pour contempt upon them, but to destroy their character as christians. You represent them as extremely ignorant; in which, however, you have assertion only to bear you out; and if assertion only is considered good proof, you have and can prove your allegations as well as any other Star on this terrestrial globe.

      You have attempted to act the part of a critic in your strictures of the 29th August; but if I do not convince every candid reader that you are equally ignorant with brother Campbell's friends, before I bid you adieu, I shall be much disappointed. And in order to fulfil this promise, I shall beg leave to offer a few remarks on a sermon which I had the honor of hearing you deliver on the fourth Lord's day in September last in the city of Philadelphia, in your new meeting house. Your text was the 19th verse of the 5th chapter of I. Thessalonians; "Quench not the Spirit."--Your first position was, that there was "no Holy Spirit except through the word of God;" but before five minutes had gone by, you declared that you did not "wish to be understood to say, that [617] God did not regenerate sinners without the word." In this you displayed logic worse, if possible, than a schoolboy of the age of fifteen; for you say that "there is no Holy Spirit except through the word of God," and that "the Spirit, independent of the word, regenerates the sinner." Then God regenerates sinners without his own word, and, of course, without the Holy Spirit. What a display of biblical acquirements! Query--Judging from this illustration, is its author much superior to those ignoramuses, who you say "never stood firm on the basis of truth?" Your whole sermon from the above text was made up of the Spirit and its influences. You and brother Paul, who gave the exhortation, do not agree; for in exhorting his son Timothy, he says, "Preach the word; be instant in season and out of season." Brother Brantly preaches the Spirit, stripped of the word, ergo, "out of season," and not the "word in season!" After a discourse of at least one hour's length on the subject, you prayed to the Holy Spirit to come down and do his work among the people. Tell me, brother Brantly, I beseech you, in what part of the sacred oracles you are authorized to pray to the Holy Spirit, for we, the readers of the bible, are totally ignorant of any such authority? If you know of any, I pray you to point us to it; and if you should be unable to find it in the scriptures, perhaps by a reference to some of your popular creeds, you may find it. In John's gospel, 16th chap. 13th verse, thus says the Lord, "And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If you love me keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth." Again, xvi. 7. "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send him to you." Thus speaks the great King of Saints. Is not this "the firm basis of truth" in regard to the office of the Spirit? Yes, I am persuaded it is.

      Now, brother Brantly, upon what principle of reason, or scripture, can you sustain the prayer made by you as above? Was there ever a similar one in God's oracles, either in the Old or New Testament? Surely they who pay you two thousand dollars annually will be poorly remunerated if they wait till the Spirit obeys your illegal request, and, divested of the all-conquering word, regenerates them. What! pray to the Holy Spirit to come down and do his work among the people! Can it be possible that any man may fail seeing that you have displayed a great ignorance of the scriptures! Now, I think it will appear by and by, that you are equally ignorant with those Baptists who have, through ignorance, joined brother Campbell in the cause of truth. In the case above quoted the Lord Jesus prayed to the Father, or promised to do so, that he would send the Comforter; and again he promised, in an after discourse, upon the same topic, to send the Comforter himself. Think you that he understood the office of the Holy Spirit? If he did, it is self-evident that you do not; for, according to his own word, the Comforter is controlled by the Father and the Son; but according to your word, the Spirit may come or do as he pleases! I have never understood from my Bible that it was proper to pray to the Holy Spirit for any thing.

      Again, let us hear the Lord Jesus once more, in the 14th chanter and 26th verse of John. "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things," &c. &c. I have given you at least three quotations from the Lord Jesus hostile to what is contained in your prayer. And by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established. And that being the case, it must appear evident that the weight of testimony is against you.

      Your prayer being ended, you then sang to the Holy Spirit, as follows:--

      In the singing this hymn, which is very ingeniously adapted to your sermon and prayer, you have very unfortunately fallen into two errors. First--you are singing to the Holy Spirit, as you prayed to it, without any example from any one of the old saints, either in the Old or New Testament, and without the possibility of ever receiving an answer to your prayer. The second error into which you have fallen, is this: you acknowledge your church to be the church of Christ: and if the church of Christ, its members of course have the spirit of Christ. Hear brother Paul, Gal. iv. 6, "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father;" and having the Spirit, "a flame of sacred love" had long since been kindled in their "cold hearts," and yet you request in your song that the Holy Spirit would come and kindle that which had long since been set on fire! This is fine logic, brother Brantly! Why, sir, I should blush for any of our backwoods Baptists were such logic displayed before me by them.

      Do you not think, brother Brantly, that you had better read your creed less and Bible more, before you undertake another stricture upon the character of those ignorant and factious Baptists, of whom you have said so many hard things? You must know, air, that we closely adhere to God's word, and delight in such ignorance and faction. That we have never opposed united effort in promoting the spread of the gospel; but that we have long since opposed "education" such as yours, for I perceive that you have drawn largely from the distilleries of scholastic divinity.

      Before I bid you adieu, I beg you never again to offer such an insult to the word of God as you did in your sermon. The time has been, when the unwarrantable dissections of an ungodly and supercilious priesthood were endured without a murmur; but remember that that Virgin of the Skies which heretofore has borne with their sacrilegious innovations, is now appearing in her heavenly power and majesty; and what she has gently suffered she will endure no more; but being "living and effectual, and more cutting than any two-edged sword," she will pierce "even to the parting both of animal life and spirit, and the joints also and marrow;" and thus satiate her vengeance in their destruction, if they reform not.

A WESTERN BAPTIST.      

      PATERNUS had been accustomed to call together his descendants to celebrate the anniversary of his birth, which happened to be on this first day of the year. On these occasions he was wont to recite to his children and grand children the most interesting incidents of his life, and to deduce such moral lessons as the occasions suggested and the exigencies of [618] the times required. He was now entering upon his eightieth year, and the wife of his youth had more than completed her seventy-sixth. He had assembled the eight families of his sons and daughters, and two families of his grand-sons, amounting in all to seventy-five sons, and all residents of the county in which he lived. The old mansion of his grandfather and the large dining hall, the scene of this happy new year, was filled with the prattling objects of his parental solicitude and affection. The affectionate greetings of the little cousins, uncles, and aunts, and the little exploits of the young talkers and walkers imparted much gaiety and cheerfulness to the scene. After they had all refreshed themselves with the liberal collations which the season afforded, and had retired from the festive table, they were arranged, according to seniority, around the cheerful fire, which a fierce north wind had made most comfortable. Meanwhile the prattling of the little ones had been lulled to repose, and all who had not capacity for rational entertainment were found at rest in the arms of sleep. Paternus sat in the old fashioned armed chair, in which his own grand father had sat, and the fondest object of his youthful affection, and the comfort of his old age, sat by his side, in the very chair on which she had often sung to repose her first born son. Thus placed, they all sang a hymn of thanksgiving, after which the old patriarch with a clear and tremulous voice, thus began:

      "Kind and indulgent Heaven has once more brought us all together under the roof of our ancestors, and surrounded us with his guardian arms, and with favors more than we can tell. I have yesterday completed my seventy-ninth year, hallowed be his name! and yet continue to enjoy both health of body and vigor of mind. But my withered face and hoary locks admonish me that soon I must go the way of all the earth and sleep with my good forefathers. I am glad to see my children and my grand-children all around me on this my birth day; and now that I am permitted to see and salute so many of the objects of my dearest affection, I wish to make this opportunity an occasion of inculcating one lesson upon all of you, which I have often suggested to you before, but now from new considerations and more mature reflections. But to do this with the most advantage, I will give you the history of our family for three generations, which is as far back as I am able to trace it. This I have often purposed to do, and have occasionally given to some of you some sketches of it, but have never done it fully, nor even partially, to all of you. I do this not to gratify your pride, nor to inflame your worldly ambition; for in our history there is nothing, or very little, adapted to cherish the former or augment the latter. 'Tis true that both my father and my grandfather attained to the distinction of a good name, and left to me the rich inheritance of an unspotted integrity, which I have endeavored to transmit unimpaired to you. They were respected in their day for their virtues; and their industry and christian morality obtained a patrimony which afforded themselves a competence, and gave to their children a good and useful, though not a learned education. I had two brothers and one sister who shared my father's inheritance with me; and I, being the eldest, inherited this farm and the old mansion, which, for the same reason, my father inherited from my grandfather, who obtained it by his own industry and some little aids which a distant relative extended to him. Our family has, indeed, become numerous. My sister left behind her eleven children, and my two brothers have together more descendants than I have. But it is neither the number, wealth, nor political respectability of our family on which I have any desire to expatiate; but the moral virtue and christian excellence of many of your relatives which I desire to lay before you for the purpose which I have supremely in view. Of my grand father's family seven brothers and three sisters lived and died members of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. My grandmother was reputed to be the most eminent christian in her vicinity in her day, and is said to have been a sort of mother to the whole church in Hellensborough on the banks of the Humber. My grandfather was proverbially a just and pious man, and some of you have seen and known both my father and mother. Their virtues are known, and, I trust, appreciated by the elder branches of my family, and are yet alive in the memory of many of our neighbors in this vicinity. Sixty-three persons of our family, including my grandfather and grandmother, my own father and mother, uncles, aunts, and cousins, are enrolled in the church books of our parish, as having lived and died members of the family of God; and there are yet living, including those here present, of our family, eighty-five persons professing godliness. But why, you will ask me, do I make these enumerations and go into these details? I will answer you. It is to open to your view the instrument and source of all this good, from which I am to draw my moral, and which I am about to present to you all as my new year's gift--and, perhaps, my last new year's gift to my dear offspring. All the christian excellence and christian happiness possessed and enjoyed in our family can be traced to the mother of my grand father, and through her to another disciple of our glorious Master and Redeemer. The history of my great grand mother is briefly this:--Her father was a wild and profligate character, whose vices brought him immaturely to the grave at the age of twenty-seven. Her mother pined away and died heart-broken and disconsolate, leaving behind her two daughters, my great grand mother and her sister, the former aged two years, and the latter four, when they lost their mother. A kind and amiable christian lady, Mrs. Richardson, daughter of the pious and learned William Tindal, took my great grandmother, when two years old, into her own family, and brought her up, when a proud and unfeeling aunt, Mrs. Stockton, refused the trouble. Her sister fell into the hands of another aunt, who had no more religion, but a little more humanity, and a good deal more natural affection than Mrs. Stockton. She brought her up after her own heart and example: and having married an officer in the army, she accompanied him to the Indies, where, in a few years, she died. Concerning her descendants I have no information.

      "To return to Mrs. Richardson. This amiable lady, like Job, "the case which she knew not she sought out." She spent the greater part of her time in ministering to the saints, and in acts of christian sympathy and tenderness. Tradition has informed me that she was one of the most diligent matrons in her day in educating her family in the knowledge of the sacred scriptures. Her husband was a barrister of some note, but not a christian himself, he left the management of his daughters entirely to his wife.--She is said to have read the scriptures to her children, accompanied with her prayers, in her own closet; and so soon as they could understand the meaning of the most familiar language, she imbued their minds with the knowledge of God and his Son Jesus Christ. She was wont to [619] interrogate them on the subjects which she read to them; and so soon as they could read, she induced them, by every sort of allurement, to read and commit to memory many passages of the evangelical history and of the devotional part of the Old and New Testaments. She brought up my great grand-mother as one of her own children, and it is said that she did not know that Mrs. Richardson was not her own mother until she was in her sixteenth year. She is, moreover, said to have shed many tears of sorrow when she heard, for the first time, that she whom she had always called mother was not her mother, but her benefactress. Mrs. Richardson said to her, "Mary, Do you not love Jesus Christ?' 'I do,' she replied. 'Why do you love him?' she next asked her.--'Because I believe that he loved me and died for me,' she rejoined. 'Well, then, was it not I who made you acquainted with him, who first taught you who he was, and what he had done for you; and if you have been born again, as I trust you are, I am your mother in the Lord; and although not your natural parent in the flesh, I am your mother in a relation and sense dearer than nature knows, and more durable than time itself. Weep not, my dear Mary; I am your mother, you are my daughter in the Lord; and I trust that as I have hitherto been to you a mother, I will so continue, and that you shall always be my daughter.' Thus speaking, she fell upon her neck, and embracing her, said, 'The Lord bless you, my daughter, and keep you from evil, and make you a mother to many as I have been to you!" This prayer, said the venerable Paternus, while the tears were rolling down the furrows of his wrinkled face--this prayer has been answered as certainly as I live; for this very Mary was in her nineteenth year married to him who was the progenitor of all those families of which I have told you, and from whom we are all descended. I can trace our history no farther back, and I am glad that so far I can trace it with perfect certainty, through channels the most authentic.--Behold, then, the source of all our nobility, of all that has given respectability to our family, and religion and happiness to so many now living, and so many already dead. I have now, my dear children, told you the history of our family, and I hope you will each of you preserve it with as much fidelity and accuracy, and transmit it to your families with as much precision as I now give it to you.

      "But now for the moral. You will, no doubt, have seen that all the good, religious and moral, which our family has enjoyed, has been instrumentally derived to us from the piety of Mrs. Richardson. Had my great grand-mother fallen into the hands of her who took charge of her sister, how different in all human probability, would have been our lot at this day! 'Tis true she was but the instrument in the hand of our Heavenly Father; but he always works by means; and what a scheme of benevolence is that which honors and rewards the instrument as though it had been the author of so much good! And such most certainly is the scheme of divine philanthropy. Now let me present this matter to you in another light. If it be true, as it most unquestionably is, that all human beings will be rewarded according to their works, how great will be the reward of those who, like the christian matron, the benefactress of our family, have originated a cumulative system, which, as the current of time advances, transmits in deeper and wider channels its blessings and its bounties to men? How long must this stream flow before the actual result can be computed and decided? Perhaps a thousand years may be completed before her good works have ceased to follow her! And if you transmit these blissful influences, precepts, and examples, which have descended by a sort of inheritance to you--I say:, if you hand down the cup of bliss to your offspring uncorrupted, I am sure many more will drink of it. But as yet we have not considered the influence which acts collaterally upon our contemporaries. We have only considered those which descend in the direct lines of succession. I cannot form any estimate of the good that has passed from my progenitors to their associates in life. I have heard much, and know a good deal, of what happiness has accrued to other families, and to the neighborhoods with which they conversed. They were lights in their day and salt to the generation in which they lived; but I am without sufficient data to conclude, or form a correct idea, of how much was achieved by them to the glory of God and the good of men. When the book of God's remembrance is opened I know much will appear to their praise, and honor, and glory, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

      "There is another light in which this subject is to be viewed. You are not to think that she who originated this wide diffusive scheme of benevolence is the only individual who is to be rewarded for all that has grown out of it, or is yet growing out of it. God's rewards are not so few, nor his favor so parsimonious, as that he can distinguish but a few of his faithful servants. He can afford to reward the originator of a scheme of benevolence for all the good it produces, and each one of the continuators, as though he had no fellow-servant assisting in the cause. Were it otherwise, the twelve apostles would have all the rewards for all the temporal and eternal good which christianity has produced, or is capable of producing. Each and every one of the faithful laborers to the Lord's vineyard will receive a reward for all the good he does and produces, although he had no predecessor nor successor in the work.

      "But if, and I know no reason why it should not be so--I say, but if the negligent and the indifferent are to be charged with evil which they might have prevented, and condemned for not having done the good in their power, how cumulative, too, is the system of iniquity, and how awful the condemnation of them who instituted a course or system of sinning, which has increased and is increasing with every revolution of time. The apostles of infidelity, the propagators of error and of schemes of immorality, diffusive and operative in their nature, are as worthy of condemnation for the remote, as well as for the proximate evil effects of their respective systems. And upon the same principles of remunerating justice, the originator and the coadjutor, the continuator and his abettor, will each receive a recompense according to his deeds. Thus it is that we are not like isolated beings, each one acting for himself alone, as angels do; but the condition of this department of the universe, of the human family, is, that we are all standing together in a peculiar chain or concatenation of causes and effects, of parents and children, mutually dependent on, and responsible to one another, and to our common parent, the Creator and Judge of All. It is a department of the universe sui generis, of its own sort, and can be understood correctly only when the parts are viewed in relation to the whole, and the whole in relation to the parts. But the bible is the best, for it is the only expositor of the whole, and he that is not governed by it in his [620] reasonings, as well as in his conduct, has ever proved himself to be a fool. But I feel disposed to hear in return your views on all that I have suggested, and will yield to you when I have expressed one, and the most ardent wish of my heart, and that is, that you may transmit to your posterity every christian quality you have inherited from your ancestors; that you may not only yourselves enjoy the blessings of the salvation of God, but that you may hand them down with your names to the remotest times, ever remembering that the mercy of God is upon them that fear him to many generations, even to thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments."

      After singing the ninetieth psalm, the venerable Paternus knelt down and prayed with them all, recounting the mercies of God through many years, and commending his children, grand children, and great-grand children to the God of his fathers, with a fervor and affection that none of the adults present can ever forget.

      If you think this incident worthy of reading, I may furnish you with another, of a similar character, on some future occasion.

"LONDONDERRY, Nov. 5th, 1829.      

      "VERY DEAR BROTHER--Although personally a stranger to you, I have enjoyed an acquaintance with your writings for a length of time. From them I have received great advantages. Many opinions which I formerly held very strenuously, I found, upon examination, were unfounded; and many truths, of which I was ignorant, have been brought before my mind through the instrumentality of that ably edited periodical, the Christian Baptist. Many of my friends in this your native land have reason to bless God that ever they saw it; and although their prejudices were against you at first, they yielded to the evidence of all-powerful truth. Many of us (for I class myself among them) were so prejudiced, that when we read a few pages of the Christian Baptist we resolved on reading no more, conceiving your sentiments to be heterodox, &c. &c. thus condemning you unheard. When we gave you a hearing, however we found that your sentiments were in general accordance with the revelation of the King of kings and Lord of lords.

      "I, in common with my brethren, am greatly pleased with your Essays on the Clergy, the Work of the Holy Spirit, the Ancient Order of Things, &c. &c. Whilst, however, we agree with you in the main, and consider you a zealous, fearless, and able champion of truth, we cannot assent to all that you have written. You know that faith depends upon evidence, and that your motto is, "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." Now, my dear brother, as a professed disciple of Christ and a student of his word, I would open my mind to you, and hope you will consider and answer the following:--

      "1. Would not your arguments against missionaries to the heathen militate equally against the proclamation of the gospel in these lands; and could not the same evidence be produced in heathen lands for its authenticity, as in Britain or America?

      "2. You consider it right for an approved brother to act as a messenger of the churches, and you consider him as the representative of the church. Now could not an individual represent a church in heathen lands as well as in those parts of Ireland where there is no christian church?

      "Is it right for any individual to deprive himself of an opportunity of meeting with a church on the Lord's day, for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the world? And are there any means to operation for the conversion of the heathen upon the plan you think scriptural?

      "4. In your essays upon immersion, you say that Peter on the Pentecost proclaimed reformation and immersion as equally necessary to forgiveness. Faith is not more evidently connected with immersion than is immersion with the forgiveness of sins.' In essay 5th, 'Where there is a guilty conscience there is an impure heart; in such a heart the Holy Spirit cannot dwell. Without immersion nothing can be done acceptably,' &c. Now if this be true, how can any individual be a believer, enjoy, peace, the pardon of his sins, have the Holy Spirit, and ultimately arrive at heaven, and yet unimmersed?

      "5. You say, 'No acts of devotion are enjoined on the unbaptized.' How can you, then, join them in prayer, praise, the Lord's supper, &c. upon this hypothesis, no matter how excellent their christian character may be?

      "6. I think you are very inconsistent with yourself in admitting unimmersed persons into the church, seeing you lay so much stress upon immersion. If immersion be necessary to forgiveness of sins, as you endeavor to prove, can remission of sins be enjoyed without it? And if not, why admit the unimmersed into that kingdom concerning which the Saviour said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God?"

      "7. I am decidedly hostile to the admission of unimmersed believers into the church, finding neither precept nor precedent for it in the sacred record, and considering with you that it would be dangerous to the empire of Emanuel.

      "8. How inconsistent your Review of the History of Churches, No. 3. vol. 5, page 379,--I mean how inconsistent the latter part of the first paragraph with the former part of it and the second paragraph, and with the views of this subject contained in your debate with M'Calla.

      "9. You call those weak-headed Baptists who blame you for calling that creature named Stone a brother. I must class myself among those weak heads; for I cannot conceive how any man can be a christian and worship a created intelligence, no matter how exalted. 'Neither theories are worth an hour.'--What! not worth an hour's reflection to consider whether we are worshiping God or one of his creatures? Oh! think of this. If Christ be not God, it is idolatry to worship him. If he were not God, he could not have made an atonement for sin. His obedience would have been circumscribed by his own individuality. How, then, can we call them christians or brethren, who would degrade him to the rank of a mere creature? The best kind of Arianism I consider as bad as the worst Socinianism. Both strike at the root of christianity. Besides, I consider your answer to Mr. Stone very uncandid. Why did you not vindicate that unanswerable dissertation upon John i. 1.? If it be right to make assertions, it is right to defend them; or if you consider speculation upon the incomprehensible Jehovah wrong, why did you attack the Trinitarians at all? and is it not of infinitely greater consequence to vindicate what you term 'the proper divinity of the Saviour,' against the Arians and Unitarians (these worst of all sects) than to prune the redundancies of the Calvinists? [621] "10. Your friends in Ireland would feel very much obliged by your writing an essay on the divinity of Christ, not in the language of Ashdod, but in language consonant with that of the Holy Oracles. We would wish you to express clearly your views of his character, so that we may have more gags to stop the mouths of some little creatures even in this country, who are 'striving to undo your influence by the charge of Arianism, Socinianism, and other obnoxious isms.'

      "Thus, my dear brother, have I opened my mind to you. I think it necessary to say, that in general I approve of your Essays on Immersion; but I cannot account for the above-mentioned inconsistency. Your Remarks on Missionaries I also approve of; but wish my mind to be satisfied about what I have stated. Your works are read by a good many in the north of Ireland.--Would to God they were generally diffused, that the community might be no longer duped by a race of creatures calling themselves ambassadors of Christ. We see the dawn of that day when the inhabitants of Ireland shall be emancipated from religious slavery and surrender themselves to the guidance of the great and mighty Lord.--Oh! that all the saints would exert themselves in their Master's cause. There is scarcely an individual in Ireland to proclaim the ancient gospel, save those who have received a college education. And I verily believe that the gospel preached by the generality of such characters is not more ancient than John Calvin or John Wesley.

      Since I wrote my last to you, a church of Christ, near Dungannon, ordained two of their brethren to the office of overseers. These are unlettered men, but possess the qualifications mentioned in Timothy and Titus. The Baptist churches in Ireland are increasing a little. In America you are a century before us. All the churches with which I am acquainted request me to present their Christian salutation to you. They also send their love to all those congregations in the New World who worship Christ as the God of the Universe, regard his sacrifice as the sole basis of a sinner's hope, and walk in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord blameless. Praying that your body, soul, and spirit may be preserved blameless until the King Eternal calls you home; and having no reason either for publishing or concealing my name, I remain, with much affection, your brother in the hope of glory,

W. T.      

      "P. S.--I am well pleased with your New Testament, and generally with your Preface and Appendix. We are very anxious to see your Debate with Mr. Owen. He has got a great hackling in the Irish prints. All parties in Ireland rejoice in your triumph over him."

"CINCINNATI, December 14, 1829."      

      "DEAR BROTHER CAMPBELL--FOR some years past I have occasionally heard Campbellism spoken of as a very heterodox and dangerous thing; but feeling myself tolerably well established in the orthodox creed, I did not trouble myself much about it until within a short time. A few months since there were many in these parts who manifested an increasing desire to investigate the New Testament on the subject of religion, and endeavor, if possible, to understand what was meant by what is called the "Ancient Gospel." My wife was one who soon became entangled with "Campbellism," (as the good brethren called it,) and much engaged in what she conceived to be the ancient order; and tried to teach myself and others, almost night and day, the way of the Lord more perfectly. This ancient order I could not understand, believing that the Baptist order was the most ancient, as they were in the habit of baptizing, (not rantizing.) I concluded, however, to pay some attention to the subject, although I had been a professed Baptist for about thirteen years. So soon as I began to reflect and examine whether there was a "more excellent way," I found a mountain of prejudices in my mind which must be broken down and levelled to the earth. I found, too, all of my opinions; and, in addition to these, there were the "Articles of Faith and Practice" to be laid aside, which you know the Baptists look upon as almost or quite sound.--Horrible thing! With these conflicting sentiments, I at length concluded to lay aside all--Campbellism, Calvinism, and all other isms, and take the New Testament as my creed, rule of faith and practice.

      "The word of the Great King appears to be simple and plain, and that he meant just what he told the people--so plain, that "the wayfaring roan, though a fool, need not err therein." The simplicity of the gospel is the glory of it: and I think that thousands would have embraced it, who are now infidels, had not our clergy shrouded it in such dark mysticism that they themselves cannot understand it. Now is it possible that the great God, in making his last revelation to man, on the reception or rejection of which depends his salvation or condemnation, should make it in unintelligible language which they could not understand, or have any just conception of? I think not. The world appears to be in an awful state. Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people. Prejudice and bigotry seem to pervade the minds of the christian world. Professors are wedded to their creeds, and preconceived opinions; and it is like taking off a right arm, or plucking out a right eye, for them to lay them all aside as they would an old worn out garment, which had become entirely useless, and embrace the truth as it is in Jesus.

      "I have said much more than I at first intended, but I will observe further, that I have come to this conclusion, that the gospel is plain and simple, and is yet the power of God to every one that believes it; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. That our brethren are in darkness as it respects the simplicity of the gospel, and its superiority over the inventions of men, and yet they know it not. That it is high time for a general reformation, and that it ought to begin among the professed followers of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. But while I deplore the present state of things, I rejoice that a glorious reformation has commenced, and that there are many who dare to be singular, and preach the ancient gospel; that its light is spreading like fire in a dry stubble; and although it will meet with opposition and persecution, I am confident that it will prevail and spread until all shall believe in one Lord, one faith, one baptism; that opposers might as well attempt to stop the sun in its course, or pluck the moon from its orbit, as to stop the spreading of this glorious light, emanating, as it does, from the gospel of the blessed God. And while I feel thus confident of the present and ultimate success of the truth, I feel to groan and lament over the prejudices of our dear brethren, who cannot, (at present) enter with enraptured delight into these views. They cannot, I say, because they will not [622] seriously and impartially investigate the subject. So soon as they consent to do this, they will, they must, embrace them. I would say, then, Go on, combat every opposition by the word of eternal truth! and while you have opposers on every hand, there are here and there one who feels disposed to encourage your heart and strengthen your hands in the good work. As such I would, for this time, subscribe myself.

AN INQUIRER FOR TRUTH.      

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