During that fearful gloom, justly called "The Reign of Terror," which was, in truth, the reign of Atheism, when in France--that broad street of the Apostate City--the Bible, like a condemned criminal, was dragged through the mire of its public highways by the minister of death--the cause of Protestant Christianity, the cause of true religion, the cause of humanity, was at its lowest ebb. The bodies of the Two Witnesses--the Prophets and the Apostles--the Law and the Gospel--the Old Covenant and the New, lay dead and unburied for three symbolic days and one half--from the midst of A. D. 1794 to the end of A. D. 1797. Then the Spirit of Life reanimated them. They stood upon their feet. They began to rise, and in A. D. 1800 they were taken up into heaven, when, in the English metropolis, the friends of God and man agreed to enter into a public covenant not merely to stand up for the Bible, but, through bad report as well as through good report, to honor it, and to send it on the wings of every wind to every nation under heaven. This covenant was called the British Foreign Bible Society. This covenant was not entered into between ecclesiastic parties for any secular or partizan purpose. Good men, of all parties, who felt their indebtedness to the Bible--who realized its untold treasures of wisdom and salvation--who were made partakers of its spirit of benevolence--bound themselves to make one grand effort--one strong co-operative and persevering effort, to send the message of mercy and hope to all the world.

      The Bible, "WITHOUT NOTE OR COMMENT," from that moment began to be plead as the sovereign remedy for Paganism, Infidelity, and Sectarianism. The cause was of God. The best men in the world not only prayed for its success, but took hold of it. They gave it both their heart and their hand. The spirit of the enterprise went abroad in the Protestant world. It crossed the English Channel. It crossed many a river and many a mountain in Europe. It crossed the Atlantic. It visited the New World. It entered into the Protestant brotherhoods. An AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY was conceived. It soon came to maturity, and was developed. It began to send the Bible over the New World. It thought of Asia, and of Africa, too, as did the British and Foreign Bible Society. It desired to send back to Palestine, to Jerusalem, and to the lands beyond these, the "light of [179] life," which once had irradiated them and radiated from them. But this called for translation, and for co-operation in translating. Differences arose in translating the apostolic commission. It was a serious matter. Conscience lifted up its voice, asserting its own rights and the rights of the Messiah. An "AMERICAN AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY" was the result. But it was not the field of labor so much as the true version of untranslated words, that possessed the hearts and constrained the efforts of the authors and founders of this new institution.

      It just meets our views and uses the arguments which we have always used for a new version. It has selected nearly all the important words we have selected, and given to them the same preference that we have given to them, and for the same reasons. They have done much abroad, and are now doing much at home, in this great work. They have raised up men, some eminent men--men of eminent attainments, of eminent sacrifices, of eminent piety, of eminent labors, of eminent success. Why not, then, add more contributions to their capital, and reap a share of their harvest at home and abroad? Why spend thousands in getting up new foundations, new agencies, and new officers?

      But we are told that these Baptist brethren have not dealt kindly by us; nay, that they have been cruel to us and proscriptive in the highest degree. For this reason, say some of our impulsive and uncalculating brethren, we ought not to pay them for abusing us!

      But are we paying them? and if we are to repay them, ought we, as Christians, to repay them with blessings or with curses, or with silent disdain? My New Testament says, "Overcome evil with good." I believe it is the one only way of overcoming it.

      The Baptists have greatly improved in many respects, while in some others they have retrograded to pedorantistic ceremonies. Their public worship is, in many places, fast degenerating into a few fashionable stale ceremonies. Still they have in their system recuperative and regenerating elements. They and we are one in all the grand distinctive principles of the Christian Institution. They teach the great truths--that "Christ's kingdom is not of this world;" that every man must be enlightened, convinced, and converted for himself. They repudiate god-fathers, spiritual fathers, and all proxies in religion. They believe and teach that the Christian religion is a personal thing, both subject and object. And, consequently, their and our views of a church, with its officers, duties, and obligations, are the same, etc.

      Let us, then, not be such partizans as to differ for the sake of differing from them. Let us cultivate friendship, brotherly kindness and forgiveness. Thus will we fraternize with all that is good, and triumph over all that is evil, among them. Surely if there can be [180] an antipapistical Evangelical Alliance, for the same reasons, and for one more, there may be an Evangelical Baptist Alliance, without an amalgamation of all church relations and usages. We do not oppose such of our brethren in the interior as choose to form a Christian Society for themselves, for one state or for several states. We would much rather aid than injure them in any way. Do they conscientiously feel it a duty to set up for themselves? Then let them please themselves. We will not only offer them no violence, but we will do them good. We only prefer a wider field, brighter prospects of usefulness, and larger hopes of a great reward, in giving our principal aid to that Society to which we have, for some years, contributed our mite. I do not pay them for either good or evil done to me. They have done me no favor, and they can do me no harm. But it is not to them we give. We do not repay them for good or for evil. We give to the Lord and to the human race. We scatter our bread upon larger waters, and we spread our net in broader streams than they who confine themselves to home distribution and to one version in the cities of the West.

      Indeed, I am tired of rival establishments in everything called Christianity. There is too much flesh and too little spirit in these antagonistic establishments. I wonder that we have not Baptist and Pedobaptist stores and shops, ploughs and penknives, as well as newspapers, Bible Societies, Schools and Colleges.

      Now, as a Bible is a Bible, no matter who prints it, sells it, buys it, or bestows it, there is nothing connected with the manufacture of the book, or with the flesh, blood, or bones of the colporteur who bears it away openly or incog., that would authorize the erection of a new Bible Society for every community in the land. Bibles are not party creeds, nor sectarian shibboleths, cast in a new or in an antique mould, deeply embossed with the ecclesiastic armorial of a party.

      We have something called a catholic faith and a catholic Bible. Let us, then, have a catholic spirit, and co-operate with those who are doing all they can.

[A. C.]      

Source:

Alexander Campbell. Extract from "The Bible Cause." The Millennial Harbinger 18 (January 1847): 5-7.

[MHA1 179-181]