A great disease in the human body of Christ had come to an oppressive and dangerous climax in the days when Thomas Campbell entered upon the ministry of the Word, and his was a soul peculiarly sensitized to feel this evil. This evil was the divided condition of the church of Christ. Over the vineyard of the Lord had grown a fearful jungle of parasitic growth of human planting--a rampant thicket of creeds, confessions and ecclesiastical systems full of venomed thorns and bearing poisonous berries in an interwoven network of ramified and infinitely subdivided dogmas and articles of faith. Under this jungle had developed a dank morass from which came forth malaria and evil exhalations. Through the depths roamed evil beasts of sectarian feeling and glided venomous serpents of partisan rancor. The great body of the priesthood had grown accustomed to this evil condition, to breathe this malaria and even to wallow with delight in this mire. But to the pure in heart the evil was becoming intensely distressing, and to such a spirit as that of Thomas Campbell it had become intolerable.

      Thomas Campbell sounded the trumpet of God. In the midst of Israel the Prince and Leader appeared. The Lord suddenly came into his temple.

      As one approaches the "Declaration and Address," one great fundamental principle rises everywhere into view, as some great mountain peak, like Fujiama in Japan, dominates the landscape from every point of view, and that is Thomas Campbell's doctrine of the word of God--its divinity, authority and sufficiency.

      In the great emergency which his movement was designed to meet, he needed a sanction mighty enough to strike down all human claims of knowledge or right--a blade mighty enough to cut through all the jungle-growth of creeds and confessions. A divine voice must sound which would silence all priestly, conciliar or Papal voices. There must be shown a signet ring of undisputed royalty which would be recognized by every loyal subject of the King of kings, and that sanction he

W. J. Loos.

found in the divine Word. Remove this foundation stone, and the whole edifice of the Restoration movement falls to pieces. Cut this tap-root and the tree withers. Every principle promulgated by Thomas or Alexander Campbell is connected vitally with this central principle and stands or falls with it.

      This great principle has always been formally recognized by all Christian reformers. It was the basic principle of Martin Luther's work, of John Calvin's and of John Wesley's, but never till Thomas Campbell's day was the complete wedding of the truth to the fact effected. He found in the divine Word [349] a sufficient system of government and discipline for the church and a sufficient armory of weapons for the aggressive work of a militant church, mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds.

      Thomas Campbell promulgated the all-sufficiency of the divine word as God's power for human redemption. The great shelter under which human usurpations had swarmed into the Holy Place and produced the strifes, divisions and anarchy that constituted the great emergency which incited Mr. Campbell's effort for union, was the claim that the Holy Scriptures were insufficient in themselves for the enlightenment of the soul of man, for the production of the saving faith demanded for salvation, for the preservation of the unity and purity of that faith through the ages, and for the government and direction of the life and action of the body of Christ on earth. Under the cover of this claim the divine Word was relegated more and more into the background.

      In the application of this truth, Mr. Campbell came upon a golden key to the problems which ecclesiasticism had so disastrously failed to solve. That key was the rule of simplicity. In the divine Word itself he found the light that the word of God is to be simply interpreted, not by mysticism or magic or scholastic subtleties, but according to the simple laws of human language--that the saving faith by which the lost child was brought back to God by the remission of his sins and the spirit of adoption was a simple faith in the divine gospel of God's gift to the world of his Son, of the death of that Son for our sins according to the Scriptures, of his burial and resurrection according to the Scriptures. This is the gospel "by which," says Paul, "ye are saved." This was the simple faith required of the believer of apostolic days, and its required confession was equally simple. Here the whole complex, disunion-breeding system of creeds and confessions falls to pieces. Equally simple is the order and system of the divine Word for the constitution and government of the church. Here ecclesiasticism, which is the root of sectarianism, receives its death-blow.

      It is often asserted that the great principle promulgated by Thomas Campbell was that of Christian union. The doctrine of the essential oneness of the body of Christ and the obligation of Christian union was ever perceived and accepted by all Christian bodies and often promulgated by all Christian leaders. It is the great principle and claim of the Roman Catholic Church, and, in fact, the excuse of the creed-makers of all ages. But Christian union is a fruit and not a principle. No doubt it was primarily aimed at and expected by Thomas Campbell and the pioneers of the Restoration movement, but they soon found that before the fruit must come the life and the plant, and were driven more and more to the establishment of the great principle of the divine Word. The necessity and desirability of Christian union was simply the emergency clause under which Mr. Campbell sought the application of the great fundamental law of Christianity essential to its existence, prosperity and victory which we have been considering under its three propositions--the divinity, supreme authority and all-sufficiency of the word of God.

      Upon these great principles Mr. Campbell stood facing the great emergency of disunion like Moses upon the mountain-top with the rod of God in his hand, when Israel fought with Amalek in Rephidim. As long as the rod was held heavenward, in the spirit of faith and loyalty, establishing the connection between the divine and the human, Israel prevailed; when the rod fell earthward, Amalek prevailed. Nor was Mr. Campbell unmindful of his responsibility. Stalwart and true, ready with the well-chosen word, he met the crisis when it came.

      For a hundred glorious years the spirit of this great movement, founded upon the "Declaration and Address," has stood before the world on the mountain-top, with the rod of God pointing heavenward, in faith and loyalty, and Israel has gloriously prevailed. Shall the rod of God our fathers placed in our hands fall earthward? To-day, as in the days of Thomas Campbell, the Son of God goes forth to war bearing aloft the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Who follows in his train? [350]

[CCR 349-350]