UG. 17, 1809, was the date of the formal constitution of the Christian Association of Washington.

"Twenty-one of their number were appointed to meet and confer together, and with the assistance of Thomas Campbell, minister of the gospel, to determine upon the proper means to carry into effect the important ends of their Association; the result of which conference was the (following) 'Declaration and Address,' agreed upon and ordered to be. printed, at the expense and for the benefit of the society, Sept. 7, 1809" (A. Campbell, Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, p. 25).

How much the specified number aided in the construction of the great document, we are not informed. It went forth with the name of Thomas Acheson joined to that of Thomas Campbell. But while Thomas Campbell was thinking and writing, probably all of them were helping to construct a meeting-house near to the abiding-place of the "Advocate of Christian Union." The Mr. Acheson mentioned above was a general, and possibly it was, thought that his name would carry some weight. And it had been noised abroad that upon hearing that Mr. Campbell's "rule" would terminate infant baptism as a church ordinance, Mr. Acheson had left the place of meeting weeping [118] copious tears over what seemed to be, the renunciation of the Saviour's words, "Suffer the little children to come unto me" (Richardson's Memoirs, Vol. I., p. 238). His name on the new "Declaration and Address," would indicate that he had come to another understanding of the Saviour's words.

      The document of the Christian Association is a rather long treatise, consisting of almost thirty-five 16mo pages, and an Appendix of almost fifty pages. The Declaration relates particularly to the purposes, methods, of procedure and organization of the Christian Association of Washington. Under nine paragraphs are elucidated the name, monetary support for a pure gospel ministry and supplying the poor with the Holy Scriptures, organizing similar associations, disavowal of the Society's being a church, countenancing and supporting such ministers as conform to the original standard in conversation and doctrine, a standing committee of twenty-one, semi-annual meetings of the society, a program of semi-annual meetings and an avowal of duty to support the ministers engaged by the society. The Address embraces a section in which the evils of division are detailed in tender fashion, the need of preaching and worship in sparsely settled areas, the duties of Christians to remedy the pitiable situation and the timeliness and righteousness of the proposals of the Washington Association. The heart of the Address is found in thirteen propositions, which are not to be viewed as a new standard or term of communion, but rather

"designed for opening up the way that we [119] may come fairly to original ground upon clear and certain premises, and take up things just as the apostles left them; that thus disentangled from the accruing embarrassments of intervening ages, we may stand with evidence upon the same ground on which the church stood at the beginning" (Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, p. 48).

      Feeling that the propositions in full may be too long, we insert a leading sentence or two from each one.

      Proposition 1. The church of Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to Him in all things according to the Scriptures. . . .

      Proposition 2. Though the church of Christ upon earth must exist in particular and distinct societies, locally separate one from another, yet there ought to be no schisms, no uncharitable divisions among them. . . .

      Proposition 3. Nothing ought to be inculcated upon Christians as articles of faith, nor required of them as terms of communion, but what is expressly taught and enjoined upon them in the Word of God. Nor ought anything to be admitted, as of divine obligation, in their church constitution and management, but what is expressly enjoined by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles upon the New Testament church, either in express terms or by approved precedent. . . .

      Proposition 4. Although Old and New Testaments are inseparably connected . . . yet the [120] New Testament is as perfect a constitution for the worship, discipline and government of the New Testament church as the Old Testament was for the Old Testament church. . . .

      Proposition 5. The commands and ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ are to be observed so as to answer the obvious ends of their institution. Human authority has no power to impose new commands or ordinances upon the church, which our Lord Jesus Christ has not enjoined. Nothing ought to be received into the faith and worship of the church or be made a term of communion among Christians, that is not as old as the New Testament. . . .

      Proposition 6. Deductions and inferential truths ought to have no place in the church's confession. . . .

      Proposition 7. Doctrinal exhibitions of the great system of divine truths and defensive testimonies in opposition to prevailing errors . . . ought not to be made terms of communion. . . .

      Proposition 8. It is not necessary that persons should know and apprehend all divinely revealed truths in order to entitle them to a place in the church. Knowledge of self as lost, of the way of salvation through Christ, accompanied with a profession of their faith in, and obedience to, Him . . . is all that is absolutely necessary for admission into His church.

      Proposition 9. There should be mutual love and fellowship. [121]

      Proposition 10. Division among the Christians is a horrid evil fraught with many evils. It is anti-Christian, anti-scriptural, anti-natural. . . .

      Proposition 11. Partial neglect of the expressly revealed will of God, and an assumed authority that puts human opinions and human inventions as a term of communion, introducing them into the constitution, faith or worship of the church, are causes of division and corruption in the church.

      Proposition 12. Deals with conditions of membership, continuance in fellowship, ministers teaching the Word of God, and keeping close to the observance of all divine ordinances, after the example of the primitive church exhibited in the New Testament; without any addition whatsoever of human opinions or inventions of men.

      Proposition 13. If any circumstantials indispensably necessary to the observance of divine ordinances be not found upon the page of express revelation, such and such only as are absolutely necessary should be adopted under the title of human expedients. . . .

      This very fine summary deserves attention:

"To prepare the way for a permanent scriptural unity among Christians, by calling up to their consideration fundamental truths, directing their attention to first principles, clearing the way before them by removing the stumbling-blocks, the rubbish of ages, which has been thrown upon it, and fencing it on each side, that in advancing toward the desired object they may not miss the way through [122] mistake or inadvertency, by turning aside to the right hand or to the left, is, at least, the sincere intention of the above propositions. It remains with our brethren to say how far they go toward answering their intention. . . . If evidently defective . . . let them be corrected and amended, till they become sufficiently evident, adequate and unexceptionable. . . . If we have mistaken the way, we shall be glad to be set right; but if, in the meantime, we have been happily led to suggest obvious and undeniable truths which, if adopted and acted upon, would lead infallibly to the desired unity and secure it when obtained, we hope it will be no objection that they have not proceeded from a General Council" (Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, pp. 48-60).

Mr. Campbell believed that "union in truth" had been and ever must be the desire of all who yearn for union, and that prayer must be resorted to and used.

      The Appendix was added "to prevent mistakes." Effort is made in it to answer possible objections, such as to purpose first of all.

"We beg leave to assure our brethren that we have no intention to interfere, either directly or indirectly, with the peace and order of the settled churches, by directing any ministerial assistance with which the Lord may please to favor us, to make inroads upon such, or by endeavoring to erect churches out of churches, to distract and divide congregations" (Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, p. 61).

The place of creeds and confessions is touched upon; disavowal of wish or plan to be a party; the matter of [123] disfellowshiping and latitudinarianism--which may be charged against the plan, come in for exposition.

      It can not be successfully maintained that the materials and positions in the "Declaration and Address" are entirely original. Thomas Campbell had associated with men of thought and had been a great reader. Probably if he had taken time he could have, cited from church fathers and reformers sentences and paragraphs similar to or containing the germ of his thought. The excellency of the Scriptures above mere men's deliverances, the authority of the Bible, the New Testament above and instead of the Old, the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ as to authority, the dependence of the church upon the testimony of the apostles, salvation by faith, the Christ and obedience to Him, the unity of the church and other subjects, some or all of which had engaged the attention of Irenæus (Adv. Hear., 11, 27, 28; 13, 3, 4) and Origen (Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine, p. 105) among the ancients, and John Huss, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, John Knox and John Wesley among the moderns. But they or their followers had not consistently followed out their findings and deliverances. There was an opening, so to speak, in the religious world of Thomas Campbell's day for a plea and a plan for Christian union. That the time was ripe for it, and that it was in the air, as it were, is to be seen by the efforts of the Haldanes in England and Scotland, Abner Jones in Vermont, James O'Kelly in Virginia and North Carolina, Barton W. Stone and his coadjutors in Kentucky. [124]

[TCSCUA 118-124]