THE Church established by Christ and his Apostles was a unit, and was designed to remain so through all time. It had the one sure "foundation," and the one Divine rule for building thereon. The gospel was preached to the people; they heard it, believed it, and obeyed it. These obedient ones were instructed to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," to "continue steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and of prayers."

      Now, it is evident that there have been many innovations upon and departures from the teaching and practice of the primitive Church as laid down in the New Testament Scriptures. Divisions, strifes, and speculations exist; and while these exist, the world cannot be [145] converted to Christianity. The aim of the Disciples of Christ is to restore the faith and practice of the Apostolic Church, to unite all of God's people on the "one foundation," and to have the gospel preached among all nations.

      As individuals, this people wear the name of "Disciples of Christ," or "Christians." In their organized capacity they are known as "The Church of Christ," "Church of God," or simply "The Christian Church," believing that these names are authorized by the Word of God, and were, by the Holy Spirit, applied to the Church in the days of the Apostles.

      Scarcely fifty years have transpired since the reformatory movement began, yet it has attained large proportions already, and is rapidly extending its influence. Churches of this faith are found in all parts of the United States, in the Dominion of Canada, in England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, and Jamaica. They number fully 600,000 communicants. They have 3000 preachers in the field, many of whom are distinguished for their talent and scholarship. They publish 30 periodicals: 9 of these are weeklies, 1 quarterly, and the rest monthlies. 1 is published in Canada, 2 in England, 1 in Australia, and the rest in the United States.

      The Disciples are, distinguished, for their interest in education. Their oldest, literary institution is Bethany College, founded by Alexander Campbell, who for many years presided over it. Kentucky University, at Lexington, Kentucky, has 800 students in attendance. The university at, Indianapolis, Indiana, is in a flourishing condition. Besides these, they have 12 or 15 colleges and a large number of academies and seminaries under their control. They have taken steps to found a college in Australia to meet the wants of the Church in that locality. [146]

      They are a missionary people. They have a general missionary society, directed by a "Board of Managers," through which the offerings of the brotherhood are applied for the extension and upbuilding of the Church. They have also State and local organizations of a missionary character, which co-operate with the General Society.

      The following statement, taken from the writings of Mr. Campbell and others, is a very explicit declaration of the object and principles of the Disciples of Christ:

      "The constitutional principle of this Christian association and its object are clearly expressed in the following resolution:--'That this society, formed for the sole purpose of promoting simple evangelical Christianity, shall, to the utmost of its power, countenance and support such ministers, and such only, as exhibit a manifest conformity to the original standard, in conversation and doctrine, in zeal and diligence; only such as reduce to practice the simple original form of Christianity, expressly exhibited upon the sacred page, without attempting to inculcate anything of human authority, of private opinion, or inventions of men, as having any place in the constitution, faith, or worship of the Christian church.'

      "But to contradistinguish this effort from some others almost contemporaneous with it, we would emphatically remark, that, whilst the remonstrants warred against human creeds, evidently because those creeds warred against their own private opinions and favorite dogmas, which they wished to substitute for those creeds,--this enterprise, so far as it was hostile to those creeds, warred against them, not because of their hostility to any private or favorite opinions which were desired to be substituted for them; but because those human institutions supplanted the Bible, made the Word of God of non-effect, were fatal [147] to the intelligence, union, purity, holiness, and happiness of the disciples of Christ, and hostile to the salvation of the world. We had not at first, and we have not now, a favorite opinion or speculation, which we would offer as a substitute for any human creed or constitution in Christendom.

      "With various success, and with many of the opinions of the various sects imperceptibly carried with them from the denominations to which they once belonged, did the advocates of the Bible cause plead for the union of Christians of every name on the broad basis of the apostles' teaching. But it was not until the year 1823, that a restoration of the original gospel and order of things began to be advocated in a periodical, edited by Alexander Campbell, of Bethany, Virginia, entitled 'The Christian Baptist.'

      "He and his father, Thomas Campbell, renounced the Presbyterian system, and were immersed in the year 1812. They and the congregation which they had formed, united with the Redstone Baptist Association; protesting against all human creeds as bonds of union, and professing subjection to the Bible alone. But in pressing upon the attention of that society and the public the all-sufficiency of the Sacred Scriptures for every thing necessary to the perfection of Christian character, whether in the private or social relations of life, in the church or in the world, they began to be opposed by a strong creed-party in that association. After some ten years' debating, and contending for the Bible alone and the apostles' doctrine, Alexander Campbell and the church to which he belonged, united with the Mahoning Association of Ohio--that association being more favorable to his views of reform.

      "In his debates on the subject and action of baptism with Mr. Walker, a seceding minister, in the year 1820, [148] and with Mr. M'Calla, a Presbyterian minister, in 1823, his views of reformation began to be developed, and were very generally received by the Baptist society, as far as these works were read.

      "But in his 'Christian Baptist,' which began July 4, 1823, his views of the need of reformation were more fully exposed; and as these gained ground by the pleading of various ministers of the Baptist denomination, a party in opposition began to exert itself, and to oppose the spread of what they were pleased to call heterodoxy. But not till after great numbers began to act upon these principles, was there any attempt towards separation. After the Mahoning Association appointed Walter Scott an evangelist, in 1827, and when great numbers began to be immersed into Christ under his labors, and new churches began to be erected by him and other laborers in the field, did the Baptist associations begin to declare non-fellowship with the brethren of the Reformation. Thus by constraint, not of choice, they were obliged to form societies out of those communities that split upon the ground of adherence to the Apostles' doctrine. The distinguishing characteristics of their views and practices are the following:--

      "They regard all the sects and parties of the Christian world as having, in greater or less degrees, departed from the simplicity of faith and manners of the first Christians. This defection they attribute to the great varieties of speculation and metaphysical dogmatism of the countless creeds, formularies, liturgies, and books of discipline adopted and inculcated as bonds of union and platforms of communion in all the parties which have sprung from the Lutheran Reformation. The effects of these synodical covenants, conventional articles of belief, and rules of ecclesiastical polity, has been the introduction of a new nomenclature, a human vocabulary of religious words, [149] phrases, and technicalities, which has displaced the style of the living oracles, and affixed to the sacred diction ideas wholly unknown to the apostles of Christ.

      "To remedy and obviate these aberrations, they propose to ascertain from the Holy Scriptures, according to the commonly received and well established rules of interpretation, the ideas attached to the leading terms and sentences found in the Holy Scriptures, and then to use the words of the Holy Spirit in the apostolic acceptation of them.

      "By thus expressing the ideas communicated by the Holy Spirit, in the terms and phrases learned from the apostles, and by avoiding the artificial and technical language of scholastic theology, they propose to restore a pure speech to the household of faith; and by accustoming the family of God to use the language and dialect of their heavenly Father, they expect to promote the sanctification of one another through the truth, and to terminate those discords and debates which have always originated from the words which man's wisdom teaches, and from a reverential regard and esteem for the style of the great masters of polemic divinity; believing that speaking the same things in the same style is the only certain way to thinking the same things.

      "They make a very marked difference between faith and opinion; between the testimony of God and the reasonings of men; the words of the Spirit and human inferences. Faith in the testimony of God and obedience to the commandments of Jesus are their bond of union; and not an agreement in any abstract views or opinions upon what is written or spoken by divine authority. Regarding all the opposing theories of religious sectaries as extremes begotten by each other, they cautiously avoid them, as equidistant from the simplicity and practical tendency of [150] the promises and precepts, of the doctrine and facts, of the exhortations and precedents of the Christian institution. They look for unity of spirit and the bonds of peace in the practical acknowledgment of 'one faith, one Lord, one immersion, one hope, one body, one Spirit, one God and Father of all;' not in unity of opinions, nor in unity of forms, ceremonies, or modes of worship.

      "The Holy Scriptures of both Testaments they regard as containing revelations from God, and as all necessary to make the man of God perfect, and accomplished for every good word and work: the New Testament, or the living oracles of Jesus Christ, they understand as containing the Christian religion; testimonies of the four evangelists they view as illustrating and proving the great proposition on which our religion rests, namely,--that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the only begotten and well-beloved Son of God, and the only Saviour of the world; the Acts of the Apostles as a divinely authorized narrative of the beginning and progress of the reign or kingdom of Jesus Christ, recording the full development of 'the gospel' by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, and the procedure of the apostles in setting up the Church of Christ on earth; the Epistles as carrying out and applying the doctrine of the apostles to the practice of individuals and churches, and as developing the tendencies of the gospel in the behavior of its professors, and all as forming a complete standard of faith and morals, adapted to the interval between the ascension of Christ, and his return with the kingdom which he has received from God.

      "Every one who sincerely believes the testimony which God gave of Jesus of Nazareth, saying, 'This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I delight,' or, in other words, believes what the evangelists and apostles have testified concerning him, from his conception to his coronation in heaven, as [151] Lord of all, and who is willing to obey him in everything, they regard as a proper subject of immersion into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and no one else. They consider Christian baptism, after a public, sincere, and intelligent confession of the faith in Jesus, as necessary to admission to the privileges of the kingdom of the Messiah, and as a solemn pledge on the part of heaven, of the actual remission of all past sins, and of adoption into the family of God.

      "The Holy Spirit is promised only to those who believe and obey the Saviour. No one is taught to expect the reception of that heavenly monitor and Comforter as a resident in his heart, till he obeys the gospel. Thus, while they proclaim faith and repentance, or faith and a change of heart, as preparatory to immersion, remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, they say to all penitents, or all those who believe and repent of their sins, as Peter said to the first audience addressed after the Holy Spirit was bestowed after the glorification of Jesus, 'Be immersed every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.' They teach sinners that God commands all men everywhere to repent or turn to God; that the Holy Spirit strives with them to do so by the apostles and prophets; that God beseeches them to be reconciled through Jesus Christ, and that it is the duty of all men to believe the gospel and turn to God.

      "The immersed believers are congregated into societies according to their nearness to each other, and taught to meet every first day of the week in honor and commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus, and to attend to the Lord's Supper, which commemorates the death of the Son of God, to read and hear the living oracles, to teach and admonish one another, to unite in all prayer and praise, to contribute [152] to the necessities of saints, and to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord.

      "Every congregation chooses its own overseers and deacons, who preside over and administer the affairs of the congregations; and every church, either from itself or in co-operation with others, sends out, as opportunity offers, one or more evangelists, or proclaimers of the word, to preach the word and to immerse those who believe, to gather congregations, and to extend the knowledge of salvation as far as their means extend. But every church regards these evangelists as its servants, and therefore they have no control over any congregation, each church being subject to its own choice of presidents or elders, whom they have appointed. Perseverance in all the work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope, is inculcated by all the Disciples as essential to admission into the heavenly kingdom.

      "Such are the prominent outlines of the faith and practice of those who wish to be known as the disciples of Christ; but no society among them would agree to make the preceding items either a confession of faith or a standard of practice; but, for the information of those who wish an acquaintance with them, are willing to give at any time a reason for their faith, hope, and practice.

      "On the design of baptism, and the benefits resulting from this ordinance to the penitent believer through the blood of Christ, the Disciples have been greatly misunderstood. That the blood of Jesus is the only procuring cause of the remission of sins, is believed by every Disciple. Baptism, they teach, is designed to introduce the subjects of it into the participation of the blessings of the death and resurrection of Christ, who died for our sins, and rose again for our justification. But it has no abstract efficacy. Without previous faith in the blood of Christ, and deep and unfeigned repentance before God, neither immersion in [153] water nor any other action can secure to us the blessings of peace and pardon. It can merit nothing. Still to the believing penitent it is the means of receiving a formal, distinct, and specific absolution, or release from guilt. Therefore none but those who have first believed in Christ and repented of their sins, and that have been intelligently immersed into his death, have the full and explicit testimony of God, assuring them of pardon. In reference to regeneration the Disciples teach that an individual who is first begotten of God, whose heart is imbued with the word of God, is enabled to enjoy the life thus bestowed when immersed into Christ, as it gives him an introduction to the happiness and society of the pardoned and the spiritual. Baptism, succeeding faith and repentance, consummates regeneration. The new birth as a change of state, is a formal ingress of a penitent believer, a prior spiritual creation, into the family and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Formed for a new state by faith and repentance, he enjoys its heavenly adaptations the moment he enters the kingdom by being baptized in the name of Christ. The waters of baptism in connection with the death of Jesus, afford him as great an assurance of safety, as did their type, the waters of the Red Sea, to the redeemed Israelites, when they engulphed Pharaoh and his hosts. Thus are we taught that penitent believers are born the children of God by baptism--that salvation is connected with baptism when accompanied by faith--that remission of sins is to be enjoyed by baptism through the blood of Christ--that persons, having previously believed and repented, wash away their sins in baptism, calling on the name of the Lord--that they profess to be dead to sin and alive to God in the action of baptism--that believers put on Christ when baptized into Christ--that the church is cleansed by baptism and belief of the Word of God--that men are saved by baptism in connection with the renewing of the Holy Spirit--and that the answer of a good conscience is obtained in baptism through the resurrection of Christ.

      "As the Disciples endeavor to call Bible things by Bible names, they have repudiated all words and phrases in respect to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not sanctioned by divine usage. Never employing such terms as 'trinity,' 'eternal generation,' 'eternal filiation,' 'eternally begotten,' 'eternal procession,' 'co-essential and consubstantial,' and all others of the same category, they have sometimes been denominated, but most unjustly so, Unitarians. They believe that Christ is absolutely divine, infinitely above any super-human or even super-angelic being. They believe Christ to be 'God' in nature, and not in office only, or because he is invested with divine prerogatives, as Moses is said to have been made 'a god unto Pharaoh,' and as the magistrates of Israel are called 'gods,' as being engaged in administering divine laws."

[RDW2 145-155]

      Vincent L. Milner's "Disciples of Christ" was published in his Religious Denominations of the World (Philadelphia, PA: Bradley, Garrettson, and Company, 1872), pp. 145-155. Milner's sketch of the Disciples in this edition has been re-written; the text from the writings of Alexander Campbell remains the same as the first edition (1860).

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. Inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and typography have been retained; however, corrections have been offered for misspellings and other accidental corruptions.

            Printed Text [ Electronic Text
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 p. 155:    'a god unto Pharaoh," [ 'a god unto Pharaoh,'
 

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
373 Wilson Street
Derry, PA 15627-9770
724.694.8602
stefanik@westol.com

Created 27 December 1998.