THE UNIVERSITY jOF CHICAGO 
 Founded by Johx D, Rockefeller 
 
 THE EARLY RELATION AND 
 SEPARATION 
 
 BAPTISTS AND DISCIPLES 
 
 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE 
 GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY 
 FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR 
 OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 R RETT GAT }< S 
 
 L H ICAGO 
 
 R. R, DONNELLEY & SONS COMPAN\ 
 1904 
 
BX7315 
 .&Z54 
 
I 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/earlyrelationsepOOgate_0 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 Founded by John D. Rockefeller 
 
 THE EARLY RELATION AND 
 SEPARATION 
 
 OF 
 
 BAPTISTS AND DISCIPLES 
 
 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE 
 GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY 
 FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR 
 OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 (DEPARTMENT OF CHURCH HISTORY) 
 BY 
 
 ERRETT GATES 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 
 1904 
 
R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY, PRINTERS 
 CHICAGO 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Origin of the Disciples 9 
 
 II. The Union with the Baptists 19 
 
 III. The Sermon on the Law 27 
 
 IV. The Debates with John Walker and W. L. Maccalla - 32 
 V. The Christian Baptist • - - ■ - 39 
 
 VI. The Status of Alexander Campbell's Fellowship with 
 
 the Baptists 51 
 
 VII. The Spread of the "Ancient Order of Things" Among 
 
 THE Baptists 60 
 
 VIII. The Spread of the "Ancient Order of Things" Among 
 
 THE Baptists : Causes and Conditions - - - - 76 
 
 IX. The Separation of the "Reformers" from the Baptists- 88 
 X. The Separation of the "Reformers" from the Baptists; 
 
 Causes 105 
 
 3 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Armitage, Thomas. "History of the Baptists." 1887. 
 Baxter, Wm. "Life of Walter Scott." 1874. 
 Benedict, David. "History of the Baptists." 1850. 
 Campbell, Thomas. " Declaration and Address." 1809. 
 Campbell, Alexander. "Debate with John Walker." 1820. 
 
 " Debate with W. L. Maccalla." 1823. 
 " " " The Christian Baptist." Monthly periodical. 7 
 
 vols. 1823-1830. 
 " " " Debate with Robert Owen." 1829. 
 
 " " "The Millennial Harbinger." Monthly periodical. 
 
 40 vols. 1830- 1870. 
 " Debate with Bishop Purcell." 1837- 
 " Debate with Rev. N. L. Rice." 1843. 
 " " " Memoirs of Thomas Campbell." 1861, 
 
 Garrison, W. E. " The Theology of Alexander Campbell." 
 Garrison, J. H., Edited by. "The Reformation of the Nineteenth Century." 
 1901. 
 
 Grafton, T. W. "Alexander Campbell." 1897. 
 
 Haley, T. P. " The Dawn of the Reformation in Missouri." 1888. 
 
 Hayden, A. S. " History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve." 1875. 
 
 Jeter, J. B. " Campbellism Examined." 1855. 
 
 Longan, G. W. " Origin of the Disciples of Christ." 1889. 
 
 Newman, A. H. " History of the Baptists." American Church History 
 
 Series. Vol. H. 1894. 
 Richardson, Robert. " Memoirs of A. Campbell." 1868. 2 vols. 
 Riley, B. F. "History of the Baptists in the Southern States." 1898. 
 Rogers, John. " Biography of Elder J. T. Johnson." 1861. 
 Rogers, W. C. " Recollections of Men of Faith." 1889. 
 Semple, Robert. " History of the Baptists of Virginia." 1894. 
 Smith, Justin A. "History of the Baptists in the Western States." 1896. 
 Stone, B. W. "The Christian Messenger." 1826. Monthly periodical. 
 
 " Autobiography of B. W. Stone." 1846. 
 Tyler, B. B. " History of the Disciples." American Church History Series. 
 
 Vol. Xn. 1894. 
 
 Vedder, H. C. " History of the Baptists in the Middle States." 1898. 
 Whitsitt, W. H. " Origin of the Disciples of Christ." 1888. 
 Williams, John Augustus. "Life of Elder John Smith." 1870. 
 Young, C. A., Edited by. " Historical Documents." 1904. 
 
 7 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.' 
 
 Every religious movement owes its origin to some leading person 
 or persons; Protestantism to Luther and Zwingli, ^Methodism to 
 Wesley. So the Disciples of Christ owe their origin to the joint 
 thought and labors of two men, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, 
 father and son. \'arious phases and tendencies of a religious move- 
 ment may be traceable to conditions back of its accredited founder, 
 as many phases of Protestantism to the reformers before the reforma- 
 tion, and many tendencies in ^lethodism to the Moravians and 
 European Pietists. So there are discernible back of the Campbells, 
 tendencies in religious thought which became dominant forces in 
 their movement. Xo religious movement arises out of the earth or 
 comes dow^n from heaven regardless of past or present conditions. 
 Single lives combine in themselves scattered tendencies, either hidden 
 or apparent, and concentrate them into a historic movement. It takes 
 then a distinct and traceable course and receives a distinguishing 
 name. 
 
 Thomas Campbell was born in County Down, Ireland, February 
 I, 1763. His father had been in early life a Roman Catholic, but was 
 won over later to the established church of England. In the atmos- 
 phere of that religious system Thomas was brought up. He never 
 quite found satisfaction, however, in ser\'ing God according to 
 act of parliament," and soon sought the fellowship of a neighboring 
 Seceder Presbyterian Church. He is said to have passed through a 
 deep religious experience," in which he found that inward peace 
 and assurance of forgiveness, which he accepted as evidence of an 
 " effectual calling." The mom.ent of his conversion was the moment 
 of his dedication to the ministry. He had received an excellent Eng- 
 lish education in a military regimental schoel and became a school 
 teacher. 
 
 After his call to the ministry he was urged by some of his Seceder 
 friends to enter the University of Glasgow. After completing his 
 literary course at the University, he passed into the Anti-Burgher 
 Seceder Theological Seminary for his special ministerial training. 
 
 ' " Memoirs of Alexander Campbell." Robert Richardson. 
 
 9 
 
lO THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 
 
 He became pastor of a Seceder church at Ahorey, County Armagh, 
 Ireland. It was while living at Rich Hill in the quiet discharge of his 
 duties as a teacher in an academy, as well as pastor at Ahorey, that 
 his son Alexander grew to young manhood, and shared with his 
 father the management of the academy. Here, during the years 
 between 1798 and 1807, both father and son came into contact with 
 an Independent " church ministered to from time to time by such 
 men as Rowland Hill, the Haldanes, Alex. Carson and John Walker. 
 The Campbells, in their free mingling with other religious bodies, 
 must have been of more liberal spirit than their brethren in the Se- 
 ceder Church, who were permitted only an " occasional hearing " or 
 attendance upon the services of other denominations. This was ex- 
 pressly discouraged, and only half-way countenanced when there was 
 no meeting at a Seceder church at the same hour. The biographer of 
 the Campbells, Robert Richardson, concedes to these Independents at 
 Rich Hill a very important influence upon them. They seem to have 
 been characterized by the same breadth of spirit and freedom of com- 
 munion with other Christians that belonged to this body in contrast 
 to all other religious bodies of that time and country. Especially was 
 this difference striking as between the Seceder Church and the Inde- 
 pendents. The Seceders had divided and sub-divided over excessive 
 refinements of differences until they had grown narrow, illiberal and 
 clannish. There were no less than four branches of the Seceder 
 Church. " Schooled amidst such schisms in his own denomination, 
 and harassed by the triviality of the differences by which they were 
 maintained, Thomas Campbell conceived the greatest antipathy to 
 party spirit and all its workings and manifestations," while " his son 
 Alexander fully sympathized with him in these feelings." Thomas 
 Campbell was especially zealous in the promoting of a proposed union 
 between the Burgher and Anti-Burgher synods of Ireland in 1804-5. 
 While his own immediate effort for the union failed, the actual union 
 took place in 1820. after the Campbells had taken up their home 
 in the wilderness of the New World. 
 
 The excessive strain of his labors as preacher and teacher began 
 to tell upon his health. He was induced by his family and friends to 
 relinquish his work, and seek rest and recuperation in a journey to 
 America. Leaving his family behind and intrusting the charge and 
 oversight of his academy to his son Alexander, who had grown to be 
 a youth of nineteen years, he set out for America. He selected as 
 his destination the western part of Pennsylvania, whither had gone 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST n 
 
 some of his neighborhood acquaintances and some members of his 
 congregation. He was assigned by an Anti-Burgher synod, in session 
 in Philadelphia when he arrived from Ireland, to the Presbytery of 
 Chartiers, Washington County, Pennsylvania. There he found friends 
 who had preceded him from Ireland, and was subsequently joined by 
 other friends who emigrated to the New World. He took up a kind of 
 itinerary among the circle of small Seceder churches. He had 
 brought with him his old world catholicity of spirit. The Seceder 
 Church in western Pennsylvania had preserved unchanged the spirit 
 and tradition of their mother church in Ireland and Scotland. On 
 one of his excursions in an especially destitute part of the country, 
 his sympathy went out to the homeless members of the various 
 denominations who had settled there. He invited them to come in 
 and share the communion of his Presbyterian flock. This breach of 
 Seceder exclusiveness shocked and embittered his Seceder brethren, 
 who forthwith lodged complaint against him before the next synod. 
 He was tried for his transgression of the church standards and 
 usages. He was mildly censured and admonished to preserve regu- 
 larity of order in his ministrations thereafter. The situation, how- 
 ever, became so painful, the hostility and jealousy of his brethren 
 so intolerable, that he was obliged to withdraw from the synod. 
 
 This severance of his relation with the Seceder body and this 
 renunciation of the authority of the synod did not terminate his 
 work as a preacher. During his brief sojourn in the country he had 
 won the esteem of many persons and endeared himself to many of his 
 Seceder members. Before finally withdrawing from the synod he 
 had frequently urged the excellence and desirability of Christian 
 union ; but now the dominant note of his preaching was a plea for 
 Christian liberality and Christian union upon the basis of the Bible." 
 He held services at the homes of his friends, the hearers usually 
 crowding the largest places. This continued until it was seen that 
 many had practically severed their relations with the Seceder Church, 
 and many others of the community had become regular attendants 
 at his ser^aces. A few of the principal persons met and proposed 
 that a meeting be held with the object of efTecting some more perma- 
 nent organization for their gatherings. What should they do ? What 
 form should their organization take? On what basis should they 
 build ? were the questions which had come up for consideration at a 
 meeting appointed to be held at the home of Abraham Altars. 
 Thomas Campbell spoke. He dwelt upon the inexpediency and 
 
12 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 
 
 unscripturalness of division among Christians, and upon the suf- 
 ficiency of the Scriptures as a standard of faith and rule of Hfe. 
 This thought had already become familiar to his mind and the minds 
 of his hearers, for he had dwelt upon it in a letter of defense to the 
 synod which was about to meet to try him, in which he affirmed that 
 it was his purpose to teach nothing but what is already expressly 
 taught and enjoined by divine authority." And I hope," he con- 
 tinues, " it is no presumption to believe that saying and doing the 
 very same things that are said and done before our eyes in the sacred 
 page is infallibly right, as well as all-sufficient for the edification of 
 the church, whose duty and perfection it is to be in all things con- 
 formed to the original standard." But this dominant thought and 
 burning appeal took the form of a motto or rule in the address he 
 delivered at the meeting referred to above, namely, " Where the 
 Scriptures speak we speak ; and where the Scriptures are silent we are 
 silent." 
 
 Opportunity was given to others to speak at the close of this 
 address. Among- others, Andrew Monroe arose and said : Mr. 
 Campbell, if we adopt that as a basis, then there is an end of infant 
 baptism." " Of course," Mr. Campbell said, if infant baptism be 
 not found in Scripture, we can have nothing to do with it." One 
 of the persons present was Thomas Acheson, who seemed to be 
 deeply moved by this unexpected application of the motto, and 
 exclaimed, with some excitement : I hope I may never see the day 
 when my heart will renounce that blessed saying of Scripture, ' Suffer 
 little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is 
 the Kingdom of Heaven.' " James Foster, another person present, 
 ventured to respond : Mr. Acheson, I would remark that in the por- 
 tion of Scripture you have quoted there is no reference whatever to 
 infant baptism.." The company were by no means favorably disposed 
 to abandon at once the baptism of infants. Mr. Campbell himself, as 
 we shall see, still believed that there vvas Scripture precept and exam- 
 ple for infant baptism. It was agreed to treat the practice as a matter 
 of forbearance. When ]\Ir. Campbell a little later was asked by James 
 Foster, Father Campbell, how could you in the absence of any 
 authority in the Word of God, baptize a child in the name of the 
 Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? " he replied: Sir, 
 you are the most intractable person I ever met." 
 
 It was so far merely a question of Scripture precept and example. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 13 
 
 The question of a believing church membership and of the relation of 
 faith to the ordinance of baptism were not raised at this time. With 
 all the differences in this collection of people, for they represented 
 nearly every phase of denominational difference, there was, notwith- 
 standing, a bond of sympathy which drew them together. At a meet- 
 ing held at the headwaters of the Buffalo, August 17, 1809, it was 
 resolved to form themselves into a regular association under the name 
 of " The Christian Association of Washington." They appointed 
 twenty-one of their number to draw up articles of association, with 
 Mr. Campbell as adviser in chief. He drew up what he called a De- 
 claration and Address," setting forth the principles upon which they 
 should act, and the reason for the new association. This document was 
 read at a special meeting of the chief members, adopted and ordered 
 printed September 7, 1809. The following quotation from the pre- 
 amble of the Declaration will best indicate the motive which moved 
 them : " Our desire, therefore, for ourselves and brethren, would be 
 that rejecting human opinions and the inventions of men as of any 
 authority, or as having any place in the church of God, we might 
 forever cease from further contention about such things, returning 
 to and holding fast by the original standard, taking the divine Word 
 alone for our rule, the Holy Spirit for our teacher and guide to lead 
 us into all truth, and Christ alone, as exhibited in the Word, for our 
 salvation; and that by so doing we may be at peace among our- 
 selves, follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man 
 shall see the Lord." In five brief resolutions they defined the scope 
 and purpose of the Association to be " the promoting of simple, evan- 
 gelical Christianity, free from all mixture of human opinions and 
 inventions of men " ; " the raising of a fund to support a pure Gospel 
 ministry, that shall reduce to practice that whole form of doctrine, 
 worship, discipline and government expressly revealed and enjoined 
 in the Word of God ; and also for supplying the poor with the Holy 
 Scriptures " ; " to encourage the formation of similar associations " ; 
 
 to consider their associations as in nowise a church, but merely as 
 voluntary advocates for church reformation " : and to countenance 
 and support only those ministers who exhibit in their lives and teach- 
 ing conformity to the original standard, and who shall inculcate 
 nothing as a matter of Christian faith or duty but for which there 
 can be expressly produced a ' Thus saith the Lord,' either in express 
 terms or by approved precedent." A standing committee of twenty- 
 
H THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 
 
 one members was appointed to carry out the purposes of the Associa- 
 tion. There were to be semi-annual meetings the first Thursday in 
 May and November. 
 
 In the midst of these events and changes the son of Thomas 
 Campbell arrived with the family from Scotland. Alexander had 
 spent a year at the University of Glasgow, where he came into very 
 close touch with the work of the Haldanes and other religious move- 
 ments of the country. During the two years of separation from 
 his father the son's mind had undergone momentous change on 
 religious subjects. He had grown entirely away from the Seceder 
 Church, and had found it impossible to commune with it in Glas- 
 gow. When the son reached America he found himself in 
 entire accord with his father's views and action, and with the prin- 
 ciples of the " Declaration and Address," as they were rehearsed to 
 him very soon after his arrival. It was a surprise to both father and 
 son to find themselves sharing each other's views, when each had 
 expected to shock the other upon the disclosure of his sentiments. 
 The son joined heartily in the labors of his father and was soon 
 found to be leading the father in the radical application of the prin- 
 ciples. When he examined the proofsheets of the Declaration and 
 Address," he said to his father that upon such principles they would 
 have to abandon infant baptism. This conviction seems to have been 
 more deeply impressed upon him by a conversation with a Presbyte- 
 rian minister by the name of Riddle concerning the principles of the 
 " Declaration and Address," in which he said : " Sir, these words, 
 however plausible in appearance, are not sound. For if you follow 
 these out you must become a Baptist." Alexander was thus stimu- 
 lated to make a thorough examination of the Scriptures on the 
 subject of baptism, infant baptism in particular. He read exhaus- 
 tively the literature on both sides of the question, but finally cast 
 all authorities aside and shut himself up with his Greek New Tes- 
 tament. Both father and son came finally to admit that there was 
 neither express terms " nor " approved precedent " for the prac- 
 tice of infant baptism. 
 
 The Christian Association of Washington " began to take on 
 a more definite and fixed form before the community. They had 
 built a log meeting-house in which Thomas Campbell conducted 
 Sunday services regularly. The members for the most part held 
 formal church membership in the various churches of the region. 
 But a process of elimination and crystallization was going on, which 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 15 
 
 gave to the Association the appearance of a new denomination. 
 They were not received cordially by the various denominations 
 or introduced to their congregations. They found one by one the 
 avenues of approach cut off by which they had hoped to carry 
 on an interdenominational propaganda of the principles of the "Dec- 
 laration and Address." It was a fond dream which they could 
 scarcely hope to realize under the conditions of religious society 
 at that time. For the various denominations to have invited and 
 welcomed the ministers of the " Christian Association " into their 
 churches and given them a hearing would have been suicidal. With 
 the reverence in which the various confessions and testimonies 
 were held in those days by their respective churches, the assault 
 upon " human creeds," " partyism," " man-made bonds of union," 
 " the horrid evil of division," and the appeal to unite upon the 
 Scriptures alone would not be listened to patiently. Avow as sin- 
 cerely as they would their " perfectly amicable intentions with 
 respect to all churches of Christ," they were nevertheless shut out 
 from the churches and denied a hearing on every occasion. 
 
 It began to dawn upon the Campbells that they were in danger 
 of becoming another sect among the sects, and to stand in the ridicu- 
 lous light of a sect pleading for the destruction of sectarianism. 
 Whether the Campbells first made overtures for reception into a 
 Presbyterian synod or a Presbyterian synod first made overtures 
 to them for ecclesiastical union is not clear. There were, however, 
 sufficient advances on both sides to assure the members of the 
 " Christian Association " that they would be gladly welcomed into 
 the fellowship of the Presbyterian Church. They all professed adher- 
 ence, for the most part, to the ^^'estminster Confession, with the 
 exception of Thomas Campbell, who took exception to the chapter 
 conferring power upon the clergy. Fearing, therefore, that they 
 were fast becoming a distinct religious body, they were willing to 
 concede many differences and forbear in order to be received into 
 the Presbyterian Church. To this end Thomas Campbell made 
 overtures to the synod of Pittsburg. He seems to have gone in 
 the capacity of a representative of the " Christian Association " 
 and to have stipulated that its propaganda should go on just the same, 
 even under the shelter of the Presbyterian Church. The synod 
 declined to receive Mr. Campbell and the " Christian Association " 
 because they believed the principles of the " Declaration and Ad- 
 dress " would be destructive of the peace of the church : and for 
 
i6 THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 
 
 expressing his opinion that there were things taught in the West- 
 minster Confession not found in the Bible; that the baptism of 
 infants was not authorized by scriptural precept or example, yet 
 administering that ordinance while holding such an opinion ; for 
 encouraging or countenancing his son to preach the Gospel without 
 any regular authority; for opposing creeds and confessions as 
 injurious to the interests of religion, and because it was not con- 
 sistent with the regulations of the Presbyterian Church that synod 
 should form a connection with any ministers, churches or associa- 
 tions. This took place in October, 1810. The failure of this well- 
 meant effort for union was a foregone conclusion and was urged 
 on to the issue by the over-sanguine hopefulness and confidence 
 of the father in the principles he had adopted; for the son seems 
 not to have encouraged the overture, but rather to have anticipated 
 the failure. The action and reply of the synod to the application 
 for admission was looked upon as an afiPront and accepted as a 
 challenge by the Association. Alexander Campbell was put for- 
 ward to reply to it, which he did in a publicly announced discourse 
 a few days after the adjournment of the synod. This was the 
 beginning of that long career of public controversy which x\lex- 
 ander Campbell felt called upon to follow. The results of this first 
 public encounter with opposition and criticism was highly gratify- 
 ing to the Christian Association. 
 
 The circuit of their preaching tours was gradually enlarged 
 until it included more than half a dozen school and private houses. 
 On one of these tours Alexander was stopping at the home of one 
 of his newly made friends, when he met a Baptist minister with 
 whom he discussed the question of baptism. At that time Alexander 
 Campbell took the side of the Pedobaptists in the discussion. He 
 seems to have been confused and baffled by the Baptist minister. 
 Denied fellowship on all sides the Christian Association began to 
 take steps towards organizing as a regular church. This was accord- 
 ingly done at the May meeting of the Association in 181 1. Thomas 
 Campbell was appointed elder; Alexander Campbell was licensed 
 to preach and four deacons were chosen. A test question was pro- 
 posed to each one who applied for membership, and the answers 
 passed upon by Thomas Campbell. The question asked was, " What 
 is the meritorious cause of the sinner's acceptance with God? " This 
 form of initiation was not then strictly adhered to, for one man was 
 taken in without answering the question. Two were denied fellow- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 17 
 
 ship for insufficient answers. This was the first and last time such a 
 procedure was gone through with as a condition of entrance into the 
 church. Immediately after the organization of this first church 
 Alexander started out on his first preaching tour. A new meeting- 
 house was built in his absence. The Lord's supper was celebrated 
 every Lord's day. Some of the members were observed not to par- 
 take of the emblems, and when asked said they did not feel authorized 
 so to do because they had never been baptized. One of these was the 
 daughter of a Baptist. This seems to have brought up the ques- 
 tion of the mode of baptism, the matter in dispute before having 
 been the subject of baptism. Joseph Bryant, one of the non-com- 
 municants at the Lord's supper, insisted on being immersed as the 
 only proper way of being baptized. Thomas Campbell performed 
 the ceremony July 4, 181 1. Many persons who at first followed the 
 Christian Association withdrew when they saw the direction things 
 were taking. At its organization the first church at Brush Run 
 numbered but thirty members. 
 
 The year 181 1 was thus an important year. Alexander Camp- 
 bell made several extended preaching tours in the neighboring 
 parts of Ohio and West Virginia. Both father and son were care- 
 fully working out their teaching along the lines of the " Declaration 
 and Address " upon the basis of the plain Word of God. One ques- 
 tion after another came up in succession, covering the whole range 
 of Christian faith and life, church order and government. Among 
 others, ordination, the authority of the local congregation, the 
 apostolic form of church government, were all investigated and 
 settled according to the teaching and example of the Word of 
 God. 
 
 On the first day of the year 1812 Alexander was ordained to the 
 work of the ministry after what he believed to be a New Testament 
 form and example by the laying on of hands. He regarded the 
 ceremony of ordination as merely a " public testimony that the 
 persons ordained possessed the necessary authority " to preach the 
 gospel and administer the ordinances. The whole question of bap- 
 tism was forced anew upon Alexander by the birth of his first child. 
 His wife and her parents were members of the Presbyterian Church. 
 Hitherto infant baptism and the form of baptism had been treated 
 as matters of forbearance, or, as he said, " let slip " as unimportant. 
 But now he goes over the whole subject again and concludes that 
 only believers may be baptized, and only immersion is properly bap- 
 
t 
 
 i8 THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 
 
 tism. That being true, then he had never been baptized. " Flaving 
 formed some acquaintance with a ^Matthias Luce, a Baptist preacher 
 who Hved above \\'ashington, he concluded to make appHcation to 
 him to perform the rite, and on his way to visit him called to see 
 his father and family." He discovered that one of his sisters had 
 made up her mind to be immersed. He presented the matter to his 
 father, who seemed somewhat surprised, but made no objection. 
 June 12, 1812, was the day set apart by ^Ir. Luce to immerse Alex- 
 ander Campbell and his wife. Before the day arrived his father 
 with all his family concluded to submit to the rite. Seven persons 
 in all were baptized on that day. One after another the members 
 of the Brush Run church came forward asking to be immersed, 
 until in a short time the church consisted of none but immersed 
 believers. Those who did not ask immersion withdrew from the 
 church, so that in many respects during the year 1812 it became a 
 Baptist church without the name. 
 
 The result of the adoption of Baptist views on baptism was neces- 
 sarily to separate the church from the sympathies of the Pedobaptist 
 community. The Campbells had always entertained a kind of antip- 
 athy towards the Baptists as a comparatively uneducated people. 
 There were but few Baptists in that region, and at this time they 
 had little or no acquaintance with them, much less any leaning 
 toward them as a people. But now that the Campbells and the 
 Brush Run church found themselves upon Baptist ground, they 
 began to make the acquaintance of members of that particular fold. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE UNION WITH THE BAPTISTS. 
 
 When the report went out that the Brush Run church, led by the 
 Campbells, had been converted into a church of immersed believers, 
 the acquaintance of the Campbells with the Baptists of the region 
 extended very rapidly, especially among the members of the Red- 
 stone Association. His acquaintance thus far, as has been observed, 
 was very limited, and his opinion of them, especially the ministry, 
 very low. Speaking of this period in 1848 he says : " I had no idea 
 of uniting with the Baptists more than with the Moravians or the 
 mere Independents. I had unfortunately formed a very unfavorable 
 opinion of the Baptist preachers as then introduced to my acquaint- 
 ance, as narrow, contracted, illiberal and uneducated men 
 
 The people, however, called Baptists were much more highly appre- 
 ciated by me than their ministry. Indeed, the ministry of some 
 sects is generally in the aggregate the worse portion of them. It 
 was certainly so in the Redstone Association thirty years ago. They 
 were little men in a big office. The office did not fit them. They 
 had a wrong idea, too, of what was wanting. They seemed to think 
 that a change of apparel — a black coat instead of a drab — a broad 
 rim on their hat instead of a narrow one — a prolongation of their 
 face and a fictitious gravity — a long and more emphatic pronuncia- 
 tion of certain words rather than scriptural knowledge, humility, 
 spirituality, zeal and Christian affection, with great devotion and 
 great philanthropy, were the grand desiderata I, there- 
 fore, could not esteem them nor court their favor by offering any 
 incense at their shrine. I resolved to have nothing especially to do 
 with them more than with other preachers and teachers. The clergy 
 of my acquaintance in other parties of that day were, as they be- 
 lieved, educated men, and called the Baptists illiterate and uncouth 
 men, without either learning or academic accomplishments or pol- 
 ish I confess, however, that I was better pleased with 
 
 the Baptist people than with any other community. They read the 
 Bible and seemed to care for little else in religion than " conver- 
 sion " and " Bible doctrine." They often sent for us and pressed us 
 to preach for them." ^ 
 
 ^ Millennial Harbinger, 1848, 344 ; Memoirs, I. 438. 
 
 19 
 
20 
 
 THE UNION WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 Mr. Campbell began to visit the churches, and " on acquaintance 
 liked the people more and the preachers less." He determined to 
 visit the meeting- of the Redstone Association at Uniontown, Penn- 
 sylvania, in the fall of 1812. He went there as an auditor and spec- 
 tator, but was pressed by the people to speak at the meeting. He 
 yielded so far as to speak to a small company of thirty or forty people 
 in a private house. He discovered at this meeting that the Baptists 
 did not like the preaching or the preachers any more than he. He 
 was urged to visit their churches and preach for them. Mr. Camp- 
 bell had already developed power as a speaker, and was eagerly 
 sought after by the people of all the churches wherever he was 
 known. He often spoke for Baptist churches in a circuit of sixty 
 miles, and was urged by them to join the Redstone Association. The 
 matter was laid before the Brush Run church in the fall of 18 13. The 
 church drew up a statement of their views on religious subjects, 
 apparently in accord with the " Declaration and Address," and closed 
 by expressing a willingness to co-operate or unite with that Associa- 
 tion on the condition that they be allowed to teach and preach what- 
 ever they learned from the Holy Scriptures." The document was 
 laid before the Redstone Association, and after much debate, it was 
 voted to receive them. Thus the union was effected. The Brush 
 Run church, meeting at two places. Brush Run and Cross Roads, 
 was received into the fellowship of Baptist churches. From this 
 time Mr. Campbell regarded himself as a member of that denomina- 
 tion. 
 
 It ought to be observed that at the time of this union, a small 
 minority of ministers composed of Elder Pritchard, of Cross Creek, 
 Virginia, Elder Brownfield, of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and an 
 Elder Stone and his son, of Ohio, were opposed to it. They seem 
 not to have been reconciled to the action of the majority. Mr. 
 Campbell's spirit of independence and his hostility to creeds and 
 the rule of the clergy, and withal his refusal to subscribe to any 
 confession of faith in uniting with the Association, were not pleasing 
 to a few active ministers. The Redstone Association of churches had 
 adopted the Philadelphia Confession." To this Mr. Campbell 
 would not subscribe or allow his associates to subscribe. 
 
 The merely formal union of the Brush Run church with the Red- 
 stone Association of Baptist churches, did not signify or insure a 
 real union in usage and doctrine. There was sufficient resemblance 
 between them to draw them together and into mutual sympathy ; but 
 
THE UNION WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 this resemblance consisted chiefly in church pohty and the form and 
 subjects of baptism. This would necessarily identify them in the 
 estimation of the superficial observer. As a matter of fact the 
 Campbells had arrived before that time at views on many primary 
 religious subjects, which separated them from the Baptists. 
 
 1. At that time Alexander Campbell had arrived at a view of 
 the design and place of baptism which was not held by the Baptists, 
 and indeed conflicted with the doctrine commonly held by them.^ 
 In the year 1811-12 he declared baptism to be first formal and 
 comprehensive act of the obedience of faith.'l^ In his baptism at the 
 hands of Mr. Luce he did not strictly conform to Baptist custom. 
 He refused to submit to any examination, or to relate any experience 
 before an examining committee, or to subscribe to any other con- 
 fession of faith than that used by the apostles. To these conditions 
 Mr. Luce reluctantly yielded, declaring that he would run the risk 
 of being censured by his Baptist brethren. The entire company were 
 accordingly baptized upon a confession of their faith that Jesus was 
 the Christ, thus plainly conflicting with Baptist usage. It ofifended 
 the very spirit of Baptist doctrine and practice, which had always 
 and everywhere insisted upon an examination and relation of Chris- 
 tian experience from the candidate, to insure a regenerate church 
 membership. 
 
 2. There was also a difference between the Brush Run church 
 and the regular Baptist churches in the administration of the Lord's 
 supper.^ The Brush Run church celebrated the supper every Lord's 
 day, while the Baptist churches only monthly or quarterly. So high 
 an estimate did Thomas Campbell have of the place of the supper in 
 the worship of the church that he declared as early as 1811-12, that 
 
 instituted worship can be nowhere performed upon the Lord's day, 
 where the Lord's Supper is not administered. Wherever this is neg- 
 lected, there New Testament worship ceases."^ The biographer of 
 Alexander Campbell says that in " these sentiments .... the 
 son substantially agreed." The Brush Run church at this time ap- 
 parently shared Baptist views of close communion, for " none but 
 baptized believers were invited to partake." Yet the line was not 
 strictly drawn between the pious immersed and unimmersed, for 
 
 ^Memoirs, 1. 398, 410, 450. 
 'Millennial Harbinger, 1848, p. 282. 
 ' Memoirs, 1. 368, 372, 455. 
 * Memoirs, I. 450. 
 
22 
 
 THE UNION WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 Thomas Campbell declared in 1812, " We believe, as we have a right 
 to hope, that there are Christians in all the denominations of pro- 
 fessors where the great fundamental truths of the gospel are acknowl- 
 edged." " ^loreover, every irregularity, error or mistake does not 
 unpeople a professing people. Therefore I conclude that where we 
 hear an open faithful testimony against the existing evils of a pro- 
 fessing people who acknowledge the great fundamental truths of the 
 gospel, we are warranted to join in all public acts of religious wor- 
 ship with such of them as voluntarily attend upon our ministrations.'" 
 Richardson tells us that shortly after the writing of the above, when 
 the church became a company of immersed believers, they were in- 
 clined to go to the extreme " of recognizing as duly prepared to 
 partake in religious services, only those who had been immersed." 
 They seem never to have made this a part of their practice. 
 
 3. Before this union with the Baptists, Campbell had come to 
 his views on the relation of the old and new covenants, which were 
 afterwards made the occasion of the first charge of heresy against 
 him by some members of the Redstone Association. In 1812 he 
 wrote to his father as follows : " How many disciples of ]\Ioses are 
 to be found in the professed school of Jesus Christ! and how few 
 among the teachers of the New Testament seem to know that Christ's 
 ministers are not able ministers of the Old Testament, but of the 
 Xew ! Do they not, like scholars to their teacher, run to Moses to 
 prove forms of worship, ordinances, discipline, and government in 
 the Christian Church, when asked to account for their practice ? " 
 Here lie the germs of that famous " Sermon on the Law " delivered 
 in 18 16 before the Redstone Association, out of which also grew his 
 system of teaching concerning the various covenants and their rela- 
 tive authority. To a Baptist of that day every part of Scripture was 
 equally authoritative. To declare that the Christian was not under 
 the Old Testament but the Xew, not under ]\Ioses but under Christ, 
 not under law but under grace, was an intolerable heresy. Yet this 
 was the view entertained by Campbell when he joined the Baptist 
 association. 
 
 4. His view of ordination at this time was very loose to a Bap- 
 tist way of thinking, and his estimate of an ordained minister's 
 authority very low.' This was one of the grave oflPenses to the 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 453. 
 ^ Memoirs,, I. 448. 
 * ^Memoirs, I. 327, 328. 
 
THE UNION WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 23 
 
 Presbyterian synod at the time of the negotiations for union, and 
 would be offensive to a Baptist. He did not regard ordination as 
 essential to the exercise of the functions of the ministerial office. He 
 himself had exercised them more than a year before his ordination." 
 His reply to the strictures of the Presbyterian synod on their posi- 
 tion, that it " degraded the ministerial character " and " opened the 
 door for lay preaching," was, that " the Scriptures know no differ- 
 ence between laical and clerical preachers; that it was the indis- 
 pensable duty of every Christian to warn sinners to flee from the 
 wrath to come ; and that many eminent ministers, many eminent 
 preachers preached for a long time without any ordination at all. 
 See Acts 8, 4. 11 :ig, 20, 21." Yet he acknowledged that the Scrip- 
 tures contained examples of ordination, and that it was both scrip- 
 tural and expedient as a means to good order in the church." The 
 form of ordination itself did not confer any authority, but was merely 
 a public testimony that the persons ordained possessed the necessary 
 qualifications. It was not in the power or province of the clergy to 
 consecrate or set apart to the ministry, but was both the right and the 
 duty of the people. He says : " You see that ordination is not a 
 mere unmeaning thing, but consists in the choice of the people, which 
 must be hearty, and that it might be evidenced, the elders or rulers 
 impose their hands. Why do we contend for uninterrupted suc- 
 cession in ordination, seeing it is not the persons called bishops who 
 have the power, but the people? How comes it that we contend so 
 much about having persons of superior authority to constitute when 
 inferiors have ordained superiors? Acts 13:1-3. L Cor. 12:28. 
 How many persons preached and baptized without ordination ? Acts, 
 8, 1-4. " 
 
 5. Where he came into chief conflict with the Baptists of that 
 day, was in his view of faith in its relation to regeneration. The 
 Baptists of western Pennsylvania were thoroughly Calvinistic. The 
 Redstone ^Association had adopted the " Philadelphia Confession " 
 of 1742 as its doctrinal standard. This confession was but a form 
 of the " Westminster Confession," slightly amended to adapt it to 
 Baptist usage. The fundamental doctrine of it, the chapters on " The 
 Divine Decrees," " Adoption," Saving Faith," and the " Persever- 
 ance of the Saints " were carried over unchanged. These Calvinistic 
 doctrines were carried to an extreme by the Baptist preachers of the 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 342, 349. 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 382, 383. 
 
H 
 
 THE UNION WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 South and West. Wayland, writing in 1856, says that "within the last 
 fifty years a change has gradually taken place in the views of a 
 large party of our brethren. At the commencement of that period 
 Gill's Divinity was a sort of standard, and Baptists imbibing his 
 opinions were what may be called almost hyper-Calvinistic." ' The 
 same testimony is borne by Dr. Jeter in his Campbellism Exam- 
 ined.'' The doctrine of human inability, or the helplessness of the 
 will in conversion, was carried to an extreme. In harmony with the 
 Philadelphia Confession these Baptists taught the initial and irresisti- 
 ble power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration ; that faith was wrought 
 in the heart by an act of divine power or regenerating grace. 
 
 Alexander Campbell held substantially this same view in 181 1. 
 In a sermon of that year, April 7, he says, " This faith we are con- 
 stantly led to understand is of the operation of God and an effect of 
 Almighty power and regenerating grace."^ But in 1812 his mind 
 undergoes a change, and in a letter to his father, March 28, he denies 
 that a man must be regenerated previous to the first act of faith,* 
 " for if regeneration be the communication of spiritual and eternal 
 life, and if this be previous to faith, then a man may live and die 
 and enjoy eternal life without faith." He then elaborates a view 
 of the subject which he held unchanged to the close of his life, and 
 one which was universally adopted by his followers, namely, that 
 " the word of God is the means of regeneration — not a means which 
 man uses, but a means which God uses. James i :i8. I. Pet. 1 123.'' 
 Starting with the doctrine that God in Christ, or God, laying and 
 executing all his purposes of creation, sustentation, gubernation, re- 
 demption, and judgment, in and by Jesus Christ, is the adequate, 
 comprehensive, and adorable object of the Christian faith," Thomas 
 Campbell declared in a letter to his son in 1811-12: ''The full and 
 firm persuasion then, or hearty belief of the divine testimony con- 
 cerning Jesus .... is that faith in its proper and primary 
 acceptation, to which the promises and privileges of salvation are 
 annexed." In other words, faith is the hearty belief that Jesus is 
 the Christ the Son of God, and grows out of the hearing or receiving 
 
 ^Wayland, F., "Baptist Principle and Practice," 68. Vedder, Henry C, 
 " History of the Baptists in Middle States/' 192. 
 ^ Jeter, J. B., " Campbellism Examined," 79, 80. 
 ' Memoirs, 1. 376. 
 * Memoirs, I. 422. 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 416. 
 
THE UNION WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 25 
 
 of testimony to that fact. The son in reply to his father uses the 
 following sentence : " Surely it is only the man who believes the 
 divine records and trusts in the death of Jesus Christ, that can be 
 considered as having been reconciled through the infinite goodness 
 of God." ' It is clearly evident that his view of faith in its relation 
 to regeneration squarely conflicted with the prevailing Baptist views. 
 
 It is not clear that all these views were known to the Baptists 
 of the Redstone Association when the union took place. The most 
 of them probably did not go behind what appeared to all, and rested 
 content with that, namely, the fact that the Campbells and the Brush 
 Run church had adopted the immersion of a believer as the only 
 true scriptural baptism. That patent fact made them Baptists. Just 
 what the document contained, in which they set forth their " senti- 
 ments, wishes and determinations " as the conditions of union, is 
 not certain, for it was not preserved. Probably not a detailed state- 
 ment of doctrinal opinions, but only such matters as pertained to 
 a formal union of one church with an association of Baptist churches. 
 It must be observed that the Brush Run church was received as a 
 whole, not as individuals. The process would have been very differ- 
 ent if they had been received one by one into some Baptist church. 
 It was an exceptional case for which there was no fixed rule of pro- 
 cedure in Baptist usage. The lay members of the Association seem 
 to have been more cordial than the ministers in their welcome of the 
 new church. The dissent arose among the ministers, who would 
 be more likely to look beneath the surface and detect germinal differ- 
 ences. There was that independent and bold spirit manifested by the 
 Campbells and breathing in their principles, which was more inimical 
 than any variation in outward form or practice. The ministers could 
 augur no good to the cherished usages and beliefs of the Baptist 
 Church from the introduction of such men. For who could tell at 
 what moment they would make some new discovery in the New 
 Testament which would discredit the old practices and necessitate a 
 readjustment? They were like vessels without anchorage. They 
 had set sail under the direction of the rule " where the Scriptures 
 speak, we speak; where they are silent, we are silent," and had 
 insisted as a condition of entrance into the Baptist fold, " that they 
 should be allowed to teach and preach whatever they learned from 
 the Holy Scriptures, regardless of any creed or formula in Christen- 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 425. 
 
26 
 
 THE UNION WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 dom." The Baptists thought that they themselves occupied ground 
 new enough and pecuHar enough, which they had but recently won 
 through suffering. These differences, and the circumstances attend- 
 ing the union with the Association, were sufficient to awaken a more 
 or less open opposition on the part of a few, and to presage wider 
 differences in the future. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SERMON ON THE LAW. 
 
 Mr. Campbell's introduction to the Baptist body was an opportu- 
 nity for the dissemination of his views which he was quick to appre- 
 ciate and improve. He did not need to force himself upon their 
 recognition, for his exceptional powers as a speaker brought him 
 into immediate favor and requisition by Baptist churches in a wide 
 circle about his home, which gradually extended as they became 
 acquainted with him. He was claimed by the Baptists and as a mat- 
 ter of course wherever he went Baptist churches were open to him, 
 where he found an audience already called together and waiting for 
 him. On every such occasion the subject of his discourse were the 
 principles of the new reformation which he felt called to advocate. 
 This is characteristically illustrated on a trip he made to Philadelphia 
 and the East to collect money among Baptist churches to build a 
 Baptist meeting-house in Charlestown, Virginia. His wife's father 
 and mother, shortly after the union with the Redstone Association, 
 were immersed and received into the Brush Run church. This 
 church had decided by a vote to move as a body to Zanesville, Ohio ; 
 but to prevent the removal of Campbell and his wife, her father, Mr. 
 Brown, deeded to his son-in-law his farm. Finding himself thus 
 cumbered with his new possessions he concluded not to emigrate 
 with the church to Ohio. This action resulted in the abandonment 
 of the enterprise by the entire congregation. 
 
 Mr. Brown removed his family to Charlestown to engage in 
 business. His church membership was placed with the Baptist 
 Church at Cross Creek, three miles from Charlestown. Charlestown 
 was without a meeting-house of any kind. To provide one for the 
 use of the Baptists, Mr. Campbell volunteered his services for four 
 months to solicit funds. He went to Philadelphia and was invited by 
 a Baptist pastor to occupy his pulpit. He delivered two discourses 
 to the congregation, dwelling upon his favorite views of the gospel. 
 They awakened opposition at once in the Baptist pastor, who was 
 careful not to invite him again into his pulpit. His journey took him 
 to Trenton and other towns in New Jersey, and to New York, and 
 Washington City. In all of these places he came into immediate 
 
 27 
 
38 
 
 THE SERMON ON THE LAW 
 
 contact with Baptists. He returned home with about one thousand 
 dollars with which a meeting-house was soon erected in Charlestown. 
 The erection of this house gave offense to the Baptist pastor at 
 Cross Creek, by the name of Pritchard, one of the three or four 
 ministers who opposed the reception of the Brush Run church. He 
 regarded it as an attempt on the part of Mr. Campbell to weaken his 
 church at Cross Creek only three miles away. 
 
 The next meeting of the Redstone Association was at hand. It 
 met August 30, 1816, at Cross Creek. Mr. Campbell came as a 
 messenger from the Brush Run church. At these meetings the 
 various preachers present, whom the people desired to hear, were put 
 on the program for sermons. More than any other preacher in the 
 Association the people were eager to hear Mr. Campbell, and he 
 was put on the program. But Mr. Pritchard objected on the ground 
 that it was near Mr. Campbell's home, so that the people could hear 
 him any time. There was a kind of unwritten law, to which he 
 appealed, that those preachers who came from a distance should be 
 honored with a place on the program. The name of Elder Stone was 
 substituted for that of Mr. Campbell. This change, however, did 
 not suit the majority of the Association, and very conveniently Elder 
 Stone was taken sick ; so that the name of Mr. Campbell went back 
 on the program. He preached from the passage in Romans 8:3, 
 the famous Sermon on the Law, which created such excitement sub- 
 sequently in the Baptist community. The biographer of Mr. Campbell 
 represents that an attempt was made to disturb the meeting, on 
 account of the fainting of a woman in the audience. This sermon was 
 a complete exposition of the views he had adopted as early as 18 12 
 on the relations of the two covenants. He maintained the position that 
 the Christian is not under the law of Moses or the old covenant; 
 that the old covenant, which was one of circumcision and works, 
 had been abrogated, and was therefore not binding upon Christians ; 
 and that when Jesus sent out his apostles to preach he instructed 
 them to preach the gospel, not the law, as a means to conversion. 
 During the delivery of it, writes Mr. Campbell in the Millennial 
 Harbinger of 1848, page 348, " an over-zealous elder called a council 
 of the preachers and proposed to have me forthwith condemned 
 before the people by a formal declaration from the stand — repudi- 
 ating my discourse as not Baptist doctrine." One of the elders, still 
 living and still a Baptist, said, " Elder Pritchard, I am not yet pre- 
 pared to say whether it be or be not Bible doctrine, but one thing I 
 
THE SERMON ON THE LAW 
 
 29 
 
 can say, were we to make such an annunciation, we would sacrifice 
 ourselves and not Mr. Campbell." The criticism of the sermon 
 became so severe that he was obliged to have it printed to avoid 
 misunderstanding, and allow of a careful reading by the public. A 
 movement was at once set on foot to charge Mr. Campbell with 
 heresy and have his sermon condemned at the next regular meeting of 
 the Association at Peter's Creek in 18 17. The question was brought 
 up and a discussion upon it was begun, but through the intervention 
 of friends, it was dropped. At this meeting in 1816 Thomas Campbell 
 brought a letter from a church of immersed believers in Pittsburg, 
 whither he had moved the preceding year, requesting union as a 
 church with the Association. The minutes of the Association read: 
 " Voted, that as this letter is not presented according to the consti- 
 tution of this Association, the request cannot be granted." ^ The 
 Association had learned greater carefulness by their experience in 
 admitting the Brush Run church, and were wary of any more acces- 
 sions through the recommendation of the Campbells. The relations 
 between them and the Association began already to be somewhat 
 strained and formal. The cry that had been raised against Mr. Camp- 
 bell succeeded in closing the ears of many people, and the doors of 
 many churches against his teachings. He says : Till this time we had 
 labored much among the Baptists with good effect " ; but now, he 
 says, " I itinerated less than before in my labors in the gospel and 
 confined my attention to three or four little communities constituted 
 on the Bible, one in Ohio, one in Virginia, and two in Pennsylvania. 
 Once or twice a year I made excursions amongst the Regular Bap- 
 tists, but with little hope of being useful to the Redstone Associa- 
 tion." 
 
 His time and strength were measurably occupied in the man- 
 agement of a seminary, chiefly for young men, called " Buffalo Semi- 
 nary." This was undertaken for the purpose of bringing the minds 
 of young men under the influence of his teachings, and thus of pro- 
 viding co-laborers to share with him the work of reformation. This 
 was but another step in the prosecution of the plan outlined in the 
 Declaration and Address, " to support a pure gospel ministry, that 
 shall reduce to practice that whole form of doctrine worship, dis- 
 cipline and government expressly revealed and enjoined in the word 
 of God." The steadily ruling purpose from which he does not seem 
 to have been turned for a moment, was to reform the existing 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 480. 
 
30 
 
 THE SERMON ON THE LAW 
 
 churches and establish new ones after the model of the New Testa- 
 ment. For this purpose the Baptist Church seemed to offer a more 
 suitable platform, and the Baptist people a more fruitful field than 
 any other. 
 
 It should be remembered that when Mr. Campbell came among 
 the Baptists he stipulated as the condition of union with them, the 
 preservation of his independence, so that in becoming a Baptist he 
 did not become a party man," and never so regarded himself. This 
 is clear from a letter he wrote to an uncle in Ireland in 1815 : " For 
 my own part, I must say that, after long study and investigation of 
 books, and more especially the Sacred Scriptures, I have through 
 clear convictions of truth and duty, renounced much of the traditions 
 and errors of my early education. I am now an Independent in 
 church government ; of that faith and view of the gospel exhibited 
 in John Walker's Seven Letters to Alexander Knox, and a Baptist 
 so far as regards baptism. What I am in religion I am from exam- 
 ination, reflection, and conviction, not from ' ipse dixit ' tradition or 
 human authority." ^ 
 
 He was possessed at this time with the conviction that a reforma- 
 tion was needed in the religious world. He felt that many things 
 needed setting right among the Baptists. He never lost an opportu- 
 nity of pointing out the things that were wanting. It will be observed 
 that his marriage to Miss Brown had already taken place, which 
 placed his support beyond all uncertainty. His circumstances were 
 peculiarly fortunate for doing the work he set himself to do. His 
 own father was without any property, so he could not look in that 
 direction for means to support himself in his work of reformation. 
 His living would have been of the most precarious sort itinerating 
 as he did far and near in the surrounding country. He was now 
 perfectly independent in fortune so that he had nothing to fear from 
 offending the cherished beliefs of men. They could not cut off his 
 support, for he was not dependent upon them. Whether he had in 
 him the stuff out of which martyrs are made, there is no means of 
 knowing, for he was raised above the danger of suffering in either 
 body or estate, whatever course he might pursue. Interesting light 
 is thrown upon his inner purposes by a recital of the special in- 
 stances of Divine power which," he says, " I consider to bind me 
 under obligation to be specially devoted to him, with my whole mind, 
 soul and body." " In the particular persecution that befell my father, 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 466. 
 
THE SERMON OX THE LAW 
 
 31 
 
 which shut up any prospects of support in the exercise of that office, 
 yet in my giving it the preference." " In my favorable and easy 
 circumstances for that purpose." *' In giving me a choice companion 
 congenial to my inclination of serving him.'' " In my desire to suiter 
 hardships and reproaches in that good work." ^ " These memora- 
 bilia of the heart " were written December 25, 181 1. As to his suf- 
 ferings from reproaches, they do not seem to have been of a very 
 poignant nature. Constituted as he was, he drew them upon himself 
 and they finally became the conditions of his keenest intellectual 
 activity, while they in no wise robbed him of any peace of mind. 
 Notwithstanding the attempt of a few Baptists to cut off his influ- 
 ence with the denomination in that region, he seems to have grown 
 in favor and stood high in its confidence. 
 
 When the Baptist faith stood challenged to public vindication, 
 all eyes turned toward the brilliant and versatile disputant from the 
 Buffalo Seminary, and he was unanimously chosen by the Baptists as 
 their champion. 
 
 ^ Memoirs, I. 380. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DEBATES WITH JOHN WALKER AND W. L. MACCALLA. 
 
 In the spring of 1820, ^Ir. Campbell was urged to debate the 
 question of baptism with a Presbyterian minister by the name of 
 John Walker. A Baptist minister by the name of John Birch had 
 baptized an unusual number of persons, near Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, in 
 the fall of 18 19. This aroused the zeal of Mr. Walker, the Pres- 
 byterian minister of the same place, who thought the best way to 
 promote the gospel or check the progress of the Baptists, was to 
 show the error of Baptist ways. A personal dispute arose between 
 the two ministers over something Mr. Walker had quoted ; and led 
 to a challenge by Mr. Walker to Mr. Birch or any other Baptist 
 minister of good standing whom Mr. Birch might choose, to debate 
 the question of baptism. The challenge was accepted, and Mr. Birch 
 wrote at once to Alexander Campbell asking him to undertake the 
 discussion. Mr. Campbell did not reply at once. This brought forth 
 a second and a third request from Mr. Birch before he received an 
 answer from Mr. Campbell. The reason for the delay was Mr. 
 Campbell's reluctance to introduce such subjects into public debate. 
 He did not believe it would promote either the truth, or the union 
 of Christians. The following letter addressed to him by Mr. Birch, 
 IMarch 27, broke down his opposition : " Dear Brother : I once more 
 undertake to address you by letter; as we are commanded not to 
 weary in well-doing, I am disposed to persevere. I am coming this 
 third time unto you. I can not persuade myself that you will refuse 
 to attend to the dispute with Mr. Walker, therefore I do not feel dis- 
 posed to complain because you have sent me no answer. True, I 
 have expected an answer, signifying your aceptance of the same. 
 I am as yet disappointed, but am not ofifended nor discouraged. I 
 can truly say it is the unanimous wish of all the church to which I 
 belong, that you should be the disputant. It is Brother Nathaniel 
 Skinner's desire ; it is the wish of all the brethren with whom I have 
 conversed, that you should be the man." ^ 
 
 The debate took place June 19 and 20, 1820, at Mt. Pleasant, 
 Ohio, twenty-three miles from Mr. Campbell's home. The subject 
 
 ^Memoirs, 11. 15. 
 
 32 
 
DEBATES WITH WALKER AND MACCALLA 
 
 33 
 
 of the debate as stated in the fourth rule of the discussion, was to be 
 the proper subject of the ordinance of baptism, then the mode of 
 baptism." The debate was to continue from day to day until the 
 people were satisfied, or the moderators thought that enough had 
 been said on each topic of debate. Mr. Walker was to open and Mr. 
 Campbell was to close the debate. The propositions which he pro- 
 posed to maintain were : That baptism came in the room of cir- 
 cumcision; that the covenant on which the Jewish church was 
 built, and to which circumcision was the seal, is the same 
 with the covenant on which the Christian church is built, and 
 to which baptism is the seal; that the Jews and the Christians are 
 the same body politic under the same law-giver and husband, 
 . . . . consequently the infants of believers have a right to 
 baptism." 
 
 Nothing could have been stated more clearly than these proposi- 
 tions. No one could have held more diametrically opposite views 
 than Mr. Campbell. The question of the covenants was familiar 
 ground to him. He had been in training for the last eight years to 
 meet these propositions. He knew the ground from first to last. The 
 principles set forth in the " Sermon on the Law," which were con- 
 sidered as rank heresy by the Baptists of 1816, were now marshaled 
 in refutation of these propositions. The disputants traversed other 
 ground usually fought over between Baptists and Pedobaptists of 
 that time, such as the question of household baptisms " ; but the 
 stronghold of Mr. Walker's position was the identity of the two 
 covenants. This proven, it carried everything else with it, down to 
 infant membership in the church. At this citadel Mr. Campbell 
 aimed all the shafts of his dialectic. It would be interesting to fol- 
 low the two disputants through all the windings of their arguments ; 
 but I am only concerned to point out that Mr. Campbell's position 
 concerning the abrogation of the old covenant by the institution of 
 the new, though strange and heretical to the Baptists of that day, 
 was the only possible reply to be made to the propositions of Mr. 
 Walker. They could not have been met on any other ground with 
 any hope of success. Mr. Walker himself seems to have felt the 
 weakening of his position under the fire of Mr. Campbell, and to 
 have abandoned it for another position, the argument from antiquity. 
 
 From the proper subject for baptism, the debaters passed to the 
 mode of baptism. The usual ground was gone over as in all the 
 baptismal controversies of the day. Mr. Campbell took occasion dur- 
 
34 
 
 DEBATES WITH WALKER AND MACCALLA 
 
 ing the debate to interject very much of his reformatory teaching, 
 and went out of his way to nail false rumors about his teaching. 
 Addressing himself to the charge that he was " changeable," he says : 
 have to this day undeviatingly pursued the same course which I 
 commenced nearly as soon as I was of age, and have now prosecuted 
 it for almost ten years, viz., to teach, to believe, to practice nothing 
 in religion for which I can not present positive precept or approved 
 precedent from the word of God." The charge that he was an 
 antinomian " and " threw away the Old Testament Scriptures," 
 he brands as " malicious and unfounded insinuations," and vile 
 slanders." In the midst of the discussion he took occasion to an- 
 nounce an entirely novel position concerning the design of baptism, 
 for the first time clearly set forth by him. " Baptism," he said, is 
 connected with the promise of the remission of sins and the gift of 
 the Holy Spirit." He did not dwell upon it or show its implications 
 then ; probably he had not fully thought them out. But this was the 
 first utterance of a doctrine w^hich more than any other was to sep- 
 arate him in thought from the Baptists. At the close of the debate 
 he issued a challenge to " any Pedobaptist minister of any denomina- 
 tion " to debate with him the influence of infant sprinkling on the 
 well-being of society. The victory of the contest, so the narrator 
 of the events relates, lay with Mr. Campbell. Whether this was due 
 more to his superior ability and power as a disputant than to the 
 merit of the argument, must be left to each mind to decide. 
 
 This was the first great opportunity of his life to disseminate his 
 views. The Baptists were present in great numbers and felt a keen 
 pride in their champion, yet " remained extremely dubious in regard 
 to the orthodoxy of their champion." ^ The debate was printed and 
 sent forth into the religious communities of the region and aided 
 very much in correcting false reports of the teaching of Mr. Camp- 
 bell. A very important consequence grew out of the publication of 
 this debate and its reading by a Baptist minister by the name of 
 Adamson Bentley. This man lived at Warren, Ohio. He was of 
 great influence among the Baptists and stood deservedly high. He 
 is reported to have said when he heard some one trying to injure Mr. 
 Campbell, that he thought Mr. Campbell had done more for the 
 Baptists than any man in the West. The first opportunity that 
 offered itself, he went to visit him. This took place in the summer 
 of 1 82 1. He was accompanied by Sidney Rigdon, then a Baptist 
 ^Memoirs, II. 43. 
 
DEBATES WITH WALKER AND MACCALLA 
 
 35 
 
 preacher of great oratorical power, who later made his name conspic- 
 uous by his conversion to Mormonism. ]\Ir. Campbell was repeatedly 
 urged to visit the Baptist churches of the Western Reserve^ but 
 especially to attend the meetings of the Mahoning Association, which 
 was organized in August, 1820. The Baptist ministers were in the 
 habit of holding ministers' meetings once a year in different sections 
 of Ohio. To all these meetings Mr. Campbell was accustomed to go. 
 They were open to him for addresses, and were characterized by 
 the freest discussion and criticism. He joined with the Baptist min- 
 isters and bore a very large part in their deliberations. Speaking 
 of his appreciation of the opportunity of¥ered him in these meetings 
 for the dissemination of his views, he says : " These meetings were 
 not appreciated too highly, as the sequel developed, inasmuch as they 
 disabused the minds of the Baptist ministry in the Mahoning Asso- 
 ciation of much prejudice, and prepared the way for a great change 
 of views and practice all over those 3,000,000, acres of nine counties 
 which constitute the Western Reserve." In this connection^ to 
 anticipate the sequel of which he speaks, and to emphasize the impor- 
 tance of this movement, let it be said that the Baptist churches of 
 the entire Western Reserve with few exceptions went over to the 
 views of Mr. Campbell and joined the " reformation " when the sep- 
 aration took place. This introduction to the Mahoning Association 
 marks the period of his enlarged intercourse with the Baptist 
 churches.^ The demands for his services as a preacher were becom- 
 ing so constant and urgent that he was obliged to discontinue his 
 school. 
 
 The challenge which he issued at the close of the debate with 
 John Walker was heard from in May, 1823. It had been read by a 
 Presbyterian minister of Kentucky by the name of Maccalla, who 
 sent Mr. Campbell a letter intimating his willingness to accept it. 
 After a long correspondence on the propositions and conditions of 
 the debate, it was finally arranged to take place in October, 1823, at 
 Washington, Kentucky. Before the time arrived for the debate, he 
 transferred his membership from the Redstone Association to the 
 Mahoning. His enemies in the former had been busy from the days 
 of the Sermon on the Law," seven years before, working up a 
 majority against him in the Association, so that they could expel 
 him. The time was not ripe for this until the meeting of August, 
 1823. To defeat their purpose he asked letters for himself and sev- 
 
 ^ Memoirs, 11. 48. 
 
36 
 
 DEBATES WITH WALKER AND MACCALLA 
 
 eral other persons from the Brush Run church to form a new church 
 at Wellsburg, formerly called Charlestown, where he had built the 
 new church. The purpose was that this new church might after- 
 wards join the Mahoning Association, where the Baptists were more 
 favorable to him and his views. The letters were granted and the 
 church organized, thus severing his connection with the Redstone 
 Association. When the question of Mr. Campbell's exclusion came 
 up at the meeting, his critics suddenly found he had slipped out of 
 their hands. He was no longer under their jurisdiction. He desired 
 to preserve himself from censure by the Baptists, so that he v/ould 
 not have to go to Kentucky to debate under the ban of his own 
 denomination. 
 
 The debate took place as has been stated, at Washington, Ken- 
 tucky. The subject was the same as that in the debate with Walker, 
 the proper subject, and the form of baptism.. Mr. Maccalla took 
 the same position as Mr. Walker in proof of the validity of infant 
 baptism, namiely, That the Christian church is a branch of the 
 Abrahamic — that Jewish circumcision before Christ and Christian 
 baptism after Christ are one and the same seal." Mr. Campbell of 
 course rehearsed the positions he had taken against Mr. Walker. He 
 advanced, however, beyond the teaching of that debate, and pro- 
 duced a new argument against infant baptism from the design of 
 baptism. Here he developed somewhat fully the view he barely 
 expressed in the former debate, that baptism was for the remission 
 of sins. The water of baptism, then, formally washes away our 
 sins. The blood of Christ really washes away our sins. Paul's sins 
 were really pardoned when he believed. Yet he had no solemn 
 pledge of the fact, no formal acquittal, no formal purgation of his 
 sins until he washed them away in the water of baptism." . . . . 
 " The value and importance of baptism appear from this view of it. 
 It also accounts for baptism being called ' the washing of regenera- 
 tion.' It shows us a good and valid reason for the dispatch with 
 which this ordinance was administered in the primitive church. The 
 believers did not lose a momxcnt in obtaining the remission of their 
 sins. One argument from this topic is that baptism being ordained 
 to be to a believer a formal and personal remission of all his sins, 
 cannot be administered unto an infant without the greatest perver- 
 sion and abuse of the nature and import of this ordinance. Indeed 
 why should an infant that never sinned, that, as Calvinists say is 
 guilty only of * original sin ' which is an unit — be baptized for the 
 
DEBATES WITH WALKER AND MACCALLA 
 
 37 
 
 remission of sins." Mr. Campbell was conscious that he was inno- 
 vating on Baptist doctrine in this construction of the design of bap- 
 tism. He says : ]\Iy Baptist brethren, as well as the Pedobaptist 
 brotherhood, I humbly conceive, require to be admonished on this 
 point. You have been, some of you, no doubt, too diffident in assert- 
 ing this grand import of baptism." ' Growing immediately out of this 
 view of baptism is another proposition, to which he gave utterance for 
 the first time, viz., '* that baptism was never designed for, nor com- 
 manded to be administered to, a member of the church." ^ He ever 
 after regarded baptism as the way into the church." 
 
 The debate continued seven days. Mr. Campbell had chosen as 
 moderator on his side, Jeremiah Vardeman, a widely known Baptist 
 preacher of Kentucky, who was said to have immersed more persons 
 than any other man of the same age in the United States. The 
 debate was held in the Baptist meeting-house. Mr. Campbell was 
 regarded as the champion and defender of Baptist views and inter- 
 ests in Kentucky. He was at once taken into confidence by Bap- 
 tists. At a private inter\dew with a company of their ministers, he 
 said : " Brethren, I fear that if you knew me better you would esteem 
 and love me less. For let me tell you that I have almost as much 
 against you Baptists as I have against the Presb}i:erians." * He had 
 brought with him the first few numbers of the " Christian Baptist," 
 — a publication he had just started to advocate his views, — and 
 distributed them among the ministers. They eagerly accepted them 
 and proposed their wide circulation in the state. He was urged to 
 make a tour of the state among Baptist churches. He went so far 
 as to fill a few appointments, and departed from the state promising 
 to return the next fall to make a more extended tour. 
 
 Mr. Camxpbell was now fully persuaded that debates were a good 
 thing ; as he said : A week's debating is worth a year's preach- 
 ing." ' The debate was attended by crowds of people. Mr. Camp- 
 bell's reputation as one of the first pulpit orators of the day was 
 established ; and wherever he could be induced to speak, he was 
 met by throngs of hearers. His most important reception on this 
 trip was at Lexington, where he spoke in the Baptist church over 
 
 ^ Debate with Maccalla, 144. 
 ^ Debate with Maccalla, 195. 
 ' Debate with Maccalla, 234. 
 'Memoirs, 11. 88. 
 
 ^ Introduction to Debate with Maccalla, 5. 
 
DEBATES WITH WALKER AND MACCALLA 
 
 which Dr. James Fishback was pastor. He was not by any means a 
 stranger to the Baptists of the state, for very many had read his 
 debate with Walker, and one young man, P. S. Fall, a minister of 
 growing distinction, had read his Sermon on the Law " as early as 
 1822, and at once adopted its views and preached them to the Bap- 
 tists at Frankfort. Many Baptist ministers took offense at its doc- 
 trines. He persisted in his teaching and became the first Baptist 
 preacher in Kentucky to adopt openly and advocate the teachings 
 of Alexander Campbell.' Already there were incipient separations 
 in some Baptist communities between those who held with Mr. 
 Campbell and those who opposed his doctrine. In Pittsburg, Penn- 
 sylvania, as early as 1824, a union was formed between two congre- 
 gations, one presided over by Walter Scott, who was in thorough 
 accord with Mr. Campbell, and another presided over by Sidney 
 Rigdon, the Regular Baptist preacher." A few Baptists who refused 
 to join this union, organized a Baptist Church which was recognized 
 by the Association as the only legitimate Baptist church in Pitts- 
 burg. 
 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 94, 95. 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 99. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 "THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST." 
 
 It was through the pubHcation of the debate with John Walker 
 that Campbell first discovered the power and usefulness of the press 
 in the dissemination of his views. He thereupon determined to begin 
 the publication of a paper. The question of a name for the paper 
 gave him some concern. In conference with his friends, chief of 
 whom were Walter Scott and his father, he decided to call it The - 
 Christian Baptist — "a title adopted not without debate," says 
 Richardson, since the term Baptist was a party designation. As 
 the reformers were, however, at this time identified with the Bap- 
 tists, it was thought expedient, in order to avoid offending religious 
 prejudice and to give greater currency to the principles which were 
 to be presented, to make this concession so far as the name of the 
 paper was concerned, qualifying ' Baptist ' by the word ' Christian.' " 
 Here let it be observed that Mr. Campbell still regarded his rela- 
 tionship with the Baptists as an expediency. In the prospectus to 
 The Christian Baptist he makes it clear that his position is one of 
 independence of all religious parties. "Its sole object shall be the evic- 
 tion of truth, and the exposure of error in doctrine and practice. The 
 editor, acknowledging no standard of religious faith or works other 
 than the Old and New Testaments, and the latter as the only stand- 
 ard of the religion of Jesus Christ, will, intentionally at least, oppose 
 nothing which it contains, and recommend nothing which it does 
 not enjoin." The dedication of the work reads as follows: "To 
 all those without distinction, who acknowledge the Scriptures of the 
 Old and New Testaments to be a true revelation from God, and 
 the New Testament as containing the religion of Jesus Christ ; who, 
 willing to have all religious tenets and practices tried by the Divine 
 Word ; and who, feeling themselves in duty bound to search the 
 Scriptures for themselves in all matters of religion, are disposed 
 to reject all doctrine and commandments of men, and to obey the 
 truth, holding fast the faith once delivered to the saints — this work 
 is most respectfully and affectionately dedicated by the editor." 
 
 This was a forewarning to all denominations that their teachings 
 and practices were to be subjected impartially, as far as he was able, 
 
 39 
 
40 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 to the test of Holy Scripture.^ He did not regard any denomina- 
 tion of that day as occupying " New Testament ground," not even 
 the Baptists. The first number of The Christian Baptist, which was 
 to be a monthly, appeared August 3, 1823. The Baptists regarded 
 this new venture with grave misgiving, as they had held the editor 
 himself in doubt. That it would meet with open opposition and 
 hostility from them was to be expected. It was too much to expect 
 that a strong body of people like the Baptists would meekly lay 
 down their cherished beliefs and usages at the suggestion of any 
 man, and accept those that were entirely new. The editor began at 
 once in the very earliest numbers to " expose " what he regarded 
 as the pride, worldliness and paganism of the churches. He called 
 up for review and caricature in successive numbers, " missionary 
 societies," " ordination of the clerg}'," " ministerial calls," " pew- 
 rent system," " salaried clergy-," Bible societies," and church 
 associations." 
 
 It must be confessed that in all this early writing there is an 
 exaggeration and bitterness of spirit which Mr. Campbell himself 
 lived to regret and abandon for a milder tone." His own friends 
 warned him of the unwisdom of such immoderation.' His hand 
 was against everything; and every man's hand was soon against 
 him." His spirit of iconoclasm led him to demolish very many useful 
 and indispensable customs of organized Christianity. He opposed 
 the existing missionary societies because he believed that they were 
 bound up with many errors of doctrine and practice. He said in The 
 Christian Baptist, Vol. III., page 59: 'We have long considered the 
 various societies called Missionary, Bible, Sunday School, and Tract 
 Societies, as great religious engines fitted and designed for the pre- 
 dominance of the leading sectaries who set them a-going, and ulti- 
 mately tending to a national creed, and a religious establishment." 
 In his impatience he did not take time to separate the good from the 
 bad. One example of the extreme to which he went was his conten- 
 tion that there was no Xew Testament example or precept for the 
 ordination and sending out of a modern miissionary. In his examina- 
 tion of the apostolic missionary work he found that each missionary 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, II. 51. 
 
 - Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 419, 432. 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, IV. 32. 
 
 * Christian Baptist, VII. 140. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 41 
 
 possessed the power of working miracles." He says : " The Bible 
 then, gives us no idea of a missionary without the power of working 
 miracles. Miracles and missionaries are inseparably connected in the 
 New Testament." " From these plain and obvious facts and con- 
 siderations it is evident that it is a capital mistake to suppose that 
 missionaries in heathen lands, without the power of working mir- 
 acles, can succeed in establishing the Christian Religion." He 
 thought the poor success of modern missionaries bore out his con- 
 tention. He still believed in sending the gospel to the heathen. His 
 solution of the difficulty was to send entire churches, or plant little 
 Christian communities on heathen soil, not primarily to preach but to 
 live the gospel and exhibit a perfect model of the apostolic church. 
 He held that the church as an institution was left on earth to take 
 the place of inspired men endowed with miraculous gifts. Such was 
 the strange and impracticable alternative to which he was driven 
 by his opposition to the missionary methods of the day. 
 
 In other things he was equally extreme at this period. One of his 
 most interesting squibs was a caricature of the report of the setting 
 apart of a minister and his wife, by a Baptist General Convention, 
 as miissionaries to Burmah. He parallels this report with the report 
 of the sending out of Paul and Barnabas in the thirteenth chapter of 
 Acts, beginning: ''On Wednesday the nth of June, A. D. 44, the Rev. 
 Saulus Paulus and the Rev. Joses Barnabas, etc." The effect of the 
 comparison was, of course, ridiculous, but it was only superficially 
 so. The ridiculousness was merely in the bringing together of 
 ancient and modern forms of speech. 
 
 During the first year of the publication of The Christian Baptist^ 
 Mr. Camipbell's arraignment of Bible societies called forth a gentle 
 admonition from a very eminent and honored V'irginia Baptist, Rob- 
 ert Semple. He subscribes himself " Robert Cautious." This is the 
 beginning of that important but not ahvays cordial relation between 
 Campbell and the Virginia Baptists. In this letter, dated November 
 6, 1823, i\Ir. Semple cautions Mr. Campbell not to go to extremes 
 in his opposition to error, reminding him of the danger of " running 
 past Jerusalem, as one hastens out of Babylon." ^ The two men 
 practically held the same views concerning the need of reformation 
 in the prevailing church organizations. 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, I. 199, 203. 
 * Christian Baptist, I. 53. 
 ' Christian Baptist, I. 127. 
 
42 
 
 THE CHRISTIAxX BAPTIST 
 
 In the fall of 1824 ]^Ir. Campbell made his proposed visit to Ken- 
 tucky, just one year after his former visit on the occasion of the debate 
 with ]^Iaccalla. This was an opportunity he had long coveted for the 
 purpose of making the acquaintance of the Baptists of Kentucky 
 and inquiring into the state of religion there. He met many of the 
 leading Baptist ministers for the first time, who were subsequently 
 to occupy a conspicuous place in the preaching of " the ancient order 
 of things." During this tour he was the guest of the Baptists in 
 public and private.' He made the acquaintance of John Smith, Jacob 
 Creath, Sr., Jacob Creath, Jr., B. W. Stone, Dr. Silas ^l. Noel, James 
 Challen, and P. S. Fall. 
 
 On the trip to eastern Mrginia in October, 1825, he met Robert 
 Semple and Andrew Broaddus, both of them leading ministers of 
 the Baptist Church in Mrginia. Robert Semple heard Mr. Campbell 
 in a discourse on his favorite views, and afterward engaged with 
 him in a friendly discussion before a private company. ^Ir. Semple 
 seems to have been deeply impressed by the character and talents of 
 Mr. Campbell, but did not adopt his views. In a letter to him after 
 his return from \'irginia, Mr. Semple mildly criticises him for his 
 severity and bitterness of criticism in his writing, as compared with 
 the gentleness and graciousness of his manners in personal inter- 
 course. The letter begins as follows: " Dear Sir — According to 
 my promise to you (and I may say to God also) I commence a letter 
 of correspondence with you. Your preaching among us reminded 
 me of ApoUos who displayed, as we moderns say, great talents, or as 
 the Scriptures say, * was an eloquent man and mighty in the Scrip- 
 tures.' Apollos, however, with all his eloquence and might in the 
 Scriptures, submitted to be taught the way of God more perfectly, 
 and that, too, by a mechanic and his wife." He goes on then to 
 say that Mr. Campbell seems to be very much like the Sandemanians 
 and Haldanians in his views as well as in his spirit, because," he 
 says, " I have known some of their party who have appeared in 
 private conversation to be mild and gentle indeed, and every way 
 pleasant; but when brought out in writing or speaking seemed to 
 have another kind of temper. If you will bear with me I will sug- 
 gest that this seems to me to be the case with the editor of The 
 Christian Baptist/' ' He goes on to counsel him of the excellence 
 
 ^Memoirs, II. 107-122. 
 
 * Christian Baptist, III. 197. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 43 
 
 of the grace of forbearance toward those in error. Air. Campbell, 
 in his answer, defends his severity by the example of Jesus and the 
 apostles who displayed sharpness toward false teachers." Through- 
 out all the numbers of The Christian Baptist he continued his criticism 
 upon what he deemed the erroneous and unscriptural practices of all 
 the churches, including the Baptist. 
 
 I. There came up for his castigations especially the clergy — 
 " hireling priests," " textuary divines," " scrap doctors," as he was 
 fond of calling them — and the theological schools which he called 
 " priest factories." ' He offered to prove in public debate, that it 
 was no part of the revealed design of the Saviour to employ clergy- 
 men, or an order of men resembling the priesthood, in the diffusion, 
 spread, or progress of his religion in the world. In brief, that the 
 whole Pedobaptist priesthood is an order of men unauthorized of 
 heaven." ^ By clerg}- he meant the ministers of the Protestant 
 denominations as well as the Roman church. He allowed himself 
 to believe that they were the cause of the barren state of the 
 church, and the general ignorance of the people concern- 
 ing the Scriptures. As a body they appeared to him ignorant, self- 
 seeking, covetous and proud. They still kept the people in a kind 
 of bondage, as they did in mediaeval times — the Protestant clergy 
 now, as the Roman clergy then. The Protestant clergy bound the 
 people to their teachings and in a measure exercised an authority 
 over them.' There was a certain personal pique in all his fury against 
 them, in that they were the chief obstacles in the way of his success 
 with the people . His chief grievances against them were : their 
 affectation of piety, in dress, speech and manners; their Calvinistic 
 preaching; their zeal and devotion to party; their textual preach- 
 ing; and their pretentions to a divine call. While his charges and 
 insinuations were aimed at the clergy as a class, he did, however, 
 admit certain bright exceptions among them. He was inclined to 
 except the Baptist ministers generally. He reprobated especially the 
 use of titles and degrees, " reverend," " bishop," " doctor," etc., etc., as 
 savoring of the pharisaic rabbinism against which Jesus protested. In 
 order to blot out the distinction which the title " bishop " carried with 
 it, and to show the parity of the terms " bishop " and " elder " in the 
 
 'Christian Baptist, I. 15, 61; II. 217; III. 115; IV. 8. 
 ^Christian Baptist, III. 15. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, II. 143. 
 
44 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 Xew Testament, he addressed all ministers in charge of lcx:al con- 
 gregations as " bishops." ' The title occurs repeatedly throughout 
 the columns of The Christian Baptist in application to Baptist preach- 
 ers. It meant no more than that a man was in chars^e of a church and 
 a recognized minister of the gospel. He took peculiar delight in 
 leveling up clerical titles. He was sure to speak in commendation of 
 a preacher who refused to accept a D.D. degree when offered him. 
 *' We are sorr\- to observe a hankering after titles amongst some 
 Baptists, every way incompatible with their profession." " We have 
 not met with any Baptist bishop who is more worthy of a title of 
 honor, if such these double D's be esteemed, than Robert B. Semple, 
 of Virginia ; and when the degree was conferred on him, he, like a 
 Christian, declined it.'' ' He printed in Vol. 11., 280, of The Christian 
 Baptist what he called the Third Epistle of Peter " to the " preach- 
 ers and rulers of congregations." It purported to have been written 
 by the apostle Peter, but had been lost to the church until recently 
 discovered by a monk, and instructed preachers to live well, wxar 
 the best clothes, be called by high-sounding titles, fleece the people, 
 drink the most costly wines as was their due, etc., etc. It was 
 designed to burlesque the conduct of a few, and the ambitions of a 
 great many. It was of course exaggerated for effect. He was 
 opposed to a minister accepting a fixed salary. He thought it savored 
 of bargaining in holy things. 
 
 2. Xext to the clergy- he aimed his sarcasms and criticisms at 
 the assumed authority of church associations. Among the Baptists 
 they consisted of the churches of a definite territory, freely joined 
 together for mutual edification and acquaintance, which sent messen- 
 gers to a meeting once a year. In ^Ir. Campbell's time many of them 
 had come to be legislative and judiciary bodies exercising discipline 
 over individuals and churches, and adopting and imposing creeds 
 upon the churches. The extent of this authority varied greatly in 
 different associations. In some cases it amounted to that of the 
 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. The theor\' of Bap- 
 tist faith and tradition was that of the independence or essential 
 autonomy of the local congregation. In certain places departure 
 from this cherished tradition was looked upon with pain even by 
 Baptists. ^Ir. Campbell did not want for encouragement from Baptists 
 themselves in his vigorous crusade against the tyrannical authority 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, III. 154, 242. 
 - Christian Baptist, III. 165. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 45 
 
 of associations. He did not object to associations of churches for 
 purposes of mutual advice, edification and comfort, but because of 
 the general tendency of associations to become judiciary bodies, he 
 was very doubtful of their usefulness. This feeling was extended 
 among many churches, and was embodied in the questions sent from 
 the Baptist church at Louisville, Kentucky, to the Association : Is 
 there any authority in the Xew Testament for religious bodies to 
 make human creeds and confessions of faith the constitution or 
 directories of such bodies in matters of faith or practice ? " Is there 
 any authority in the Xew Testament for associations? If so, what 
 is it? If not, why are they held? " The church at Shelbyville, Ken- 
 tucky, sent the following question : " Are our associations, as usually 
 attended, of general utility? " ^ 
 
 There is not wanting abundant evidence of the tyranny of asso- 
 ciations. There was opportunity for the introduction of a good deal 
 of politics or wire-pulling in associations that assumed the role of 
 judicial tribunals. Whenever a party in the association desired to 
 carry a measure, agents w^ere sent around to the various churches 
 composing it, before the election of messengers or delegates, to 
 secure the election of those favorable to their measures. With a 
 packed jury the dominant party was thus able to put through any 
 action. They could limit or cut ofif debate, or exclude messengers 
 by fixing the conditions of membership in the association. The w'ill 
 of the minority was set aside w^ith exact adherence to parliamentary 
 rules. Under Mr. Campbell's influence several associations dis- 
 banded and reorganized as yearly meetings for counsel and fellows- 
 ship.'' 
 
 3. ]Mr. Campbell regarded himself as especially set for the de- 
 struction of human creeds.^ In theory the Baptist churches of that day 
 made their final appeal to the Holy Scriptures ; yet with few excep- 
 tions they each had their creed to which they required subscription 
 as a condition of membership in the church. The " Philadelphia 
 Confession " was w'idely adopted by Baptist churches and associations 
 in the eastern and central states as a summary of true Baptist doc- 
 trine." It w^as a mild revision of the Westminster Confession of 
 Faith, to adapt it to Baptist usage. It was adopted by associations 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, III. 154. 
 
 - Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 414 ; Haj'den, A. S., " Western Reserve," 297. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 13. 
 * Christian Baptist, III. 91. 
 
46 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 and made a condition of membership therein. This was notably the 
 case in the Redstone Association of western Pennsylvania, of which 
 ^Ir. Campbell was at one time a member. This association seems to 
 have been especially creed-ridden and tyrannical. On one occasion 
 they denied representation to no less than fourteen congregations 
 that were members of the Association, for their failure to mention, 
 or declare allegiance to the " Philadelphia Confession " in the letters 
 they sent up to the meeting of the Association by the hand of their 
 messengers." This was at the meeting of 1827, to which ]\Ir. Campbell 
 came as a corresponding messenger from the ^lahoning Association. 
 Mr. Campbell observed that this action and similar action on the part 
 of churches and associations were due to their creeds or rules of 
 order and discipline, not to the example or precept of the New Testa- 
 ment. There was not an ill or disorder in the church, not a reproach 
 upon religion, that he did not trace directly or indirectly to the use 
 of creeds.' It was the use of creeds by the Baptists that appeared to 
 him to be so inconsistent with their principles. His chief objection 
 to them was their abridgment of Christian liberty. He declared that 
 so-called " confessions of faith " were not confessions of faith, but 
 of opinion, and bound a man or a church where they should be free.' 
 His principle was that perfect freedom and liberty should be granted 
 to all opinions. He felt that creeds were the bulwarks of clerical 
 and ecclesiastical authority and tyranny. He saw a cunningly de- 
 vised system in the religious order of things, which he regarded as a 
 conspiracy of the evil one. A designing clergy made use of councils 
 and associations to get their authority and pretentions embodied in 
 articles of faith or creeds, which in turn strengthened the position 
 of both clergy and councils. Clergy, creeds and councils were the 
 links in the chain that bound the common people. What a splendid 
 and effective scheme ! The people were the innocent creators and 
 victims of their own system.' 
 
 The entire round of Christian faith and practice, not only among 
 Baptist churches, but all the churches, was brought into comparison 
 with apostolic faith and practice. He attempted in the pages of The 
 Christian Baptist a complete exposition of what he regarded as the 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, IV. 55 ; II. 63. 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 16. 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, III. 154. 
 
 * Christian Baptist I. 91 ; II. 1-5 
 
THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 47 
 
 apostolic faith and practice, under the title, " The Ancient Order of 
 Things." This became a favorite phrase, a kind of shibboleth or 
 watch-word, for those who shared his views. It was inevitable that 
 sooner or later his course would give rise to a party within the Bap- 
 tist churches, to which should be applied a distinguishing name. 
 This came to pass in 1826 when " some religious editors in Ken- 
 tucky " began to call those who were desirous of seeing the ancient 
 order of things restored," " The Restorationers," or " Campbellites," 
 " and the most reproachful epithets were showered upon them." ' 
 Evidences of the presence of this element in Baptist churches are 
 to be found in all the correspondence of this period. They were 
 easily marked by their incessant talk about the authority of the New 
 Testament and the restoration of the ancient order of things. Every- 
 body knew where that battle-cry originated. Where whole churches 
 had been changed, they were distinguished from other Baptist 
 churches by this talk of reformation ; a desire to measure everything 
 by the New Testament standard; by their opposition to creeds, the 
 authority of the clergy and associations ; and by the adoption of the 
 weekly and open communion of the Lord's supper."^ 
 
 All these changes did not take place without opposition from 
 Regular Baptists. One man wrote in 1825 : " I request you to send 
 me The Christian Baptist no more. My conscience is wounded that I 
 should have subscribed for such a work. It is a religious incendiary 
 and will do a world of mischief." Another wrote : " Your paper is, 
 I fear, a disorganizer and I doubt not it will prove deistical in the 
 end." The theological students of Hamilton Seminary, New York, 
 sent in a request for copies of The Christian Baptist to be placed in 
 the reading rooms of the " Philomathesian Society." ' Mr. Campbell 
 continued to send it regularly. After a short period he received a 
 request to discontinue in the following mildly worded but suggestive 
 sentence : " For reasons which we are willing frankly to avow, 
 our society has recently come to the resolution to ask you to dis- 
 continue your publication." A minority of the students did not 
 concur in this request, and sent a message of regret to Mr. Camp- 
 bell. Spencer Clack, writing from Kentucky, bears witness to the 
 discord and division in various churches on account of Mr. Camp- 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, IV. 96 ; V. 94, 262. 
 ^Christian Baptist, V. 210; III. 286. 
 ' Christian Baptist, IV. 84. 
 
48 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 bell's teaching. He says: " Some are for yon, others against you; 
 some approve, others censure and condemn; such is the state of 
 affairs; such the effect produced by your writing. But let me ask 
 what is the great good which such divisions will achieve ? " ^ 
 
 Alexander Campbell was made the subject of many a public 
 warning from, the pulpit, m.any a set of resolutions by Baptist asso- 
 ciations, and many an editorial in Baptist papers.' One church in 
 Kentucky sent the following query to the Association : What must 
 a church do with her preacher who has embraced Campbellism ? " * 
 An amusing incident occurred in Virginia. A company of persons 
 had been baptized by a Baptist minister in what was called the new 
 way ; that is, instead of saying " I baptize thee in the name," etc., the 
 preacher said, I immerse thee," etc. This was looked upon as dis- 
 orderly by the Regular Baptist churches, so that they refused to 
 admit such persons into their churches on such baptism, and insisted 
 on a rebaptism. A colored man had been one thus baptized. He 
 desired to unite with a congregation and was accordingly rebaptized. 
 As he was coming out of the water he exclaimed : " I ain't no Camp- 
 bellite now." * Baptist newspapers were enlisted against the innova- 
 tions, especially The Pittsburg Recorder, The Western Lumin- 
 ary, The Baptist Recorder of Kentucky, and The Columbian 
 Star of Philadelphia. In The Baptist Recorder of 1828 Robert 
 Semple declared: ''The Christian Baptist has doubtless exhibited 
 many valuable pieces and principles; but, taken as a whole, I am 
 persuaded it has been more mischievous than any publication I 
 have ever known. The ability of the editor, joined to the plaus- 
 ibility of his plans or doctrines, has succeeded in sowing the 
 seeds of discord among brethren to an extent in many places alarm- 
 ing." * The paper was circulated widely among Baptists, and it may 
 be truly said that it was read chiefly by them. Responding to a state- 
 ment by the editor of The Baptist Recorder in 1828, " We are of 
 opinion that Campbell has lost 100 per cent in Kentucky or more 
 v/ithin a year," Mr. Campbell says : The fact is that The Christian 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 12, 82. 
 " Christian Baptist, V. 206. 
 ' Christian Baptist, V. 262. 
 * Christian Baptist, VII. 79. 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, VIL 59, 152, 174, 214, 217; V. 11, 260; III. 257. 
 Christian Baptist, V. 199. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 49 
 
 Baptist is more generally read and has more subscribers this year 
 in Kentucky than it has ever had before. In Virginia, too, where it 
 is represented as declining fast, it has gained in the last two years 
 more than loo per cent per annum. And for the last three months 
 our regular increase has been about seventy new subscribers per 
 month." ' 
 
 The opposition to Mr. Campbell did not stop with the refutation 
 of his teaching. As in all such controversies, the personal element 
 Vv^as introduced. His character was called in question and ugly 
 rumors were set afloat concerning his honesty. Besides undermining 
 his character by calling him " a Unitarian," " a Socinian," " an Anti- 
 nomian," " a Pelagian," and a Deist," in the communities of that 
 period it was little worse to circulate the report that he " stole a 
 horse," was " excommunicated for drunkenness," " married his first 
 wife's sister," etc., etc." One man's indignation at his impiety for 
 daring to publish a new translation of the Scriptures was so great 
 that after reading Campbell's Bible," as it was called, he solemnly 
 com.mitted it to the flames.^ 
 
 Such was the status of affairs between Mr. Campbell and the Bap- 
 tists about the year 1829, when he announced the termination of The 
 Christian Baptist with that volume.* In its place he proposed to 
 publish a paper, just double its size, to be called The Millennial 
 Harbinger, devoted to the advocacy of the same principles. His 
 relations with the Baptists were growing more strained and less 
 cordial, and he was now fairly regarded as the leader of a people or 
 party unmistakably distinct from the Baptists, with its own churches, 
 associations, and publications. The possibility of any further influ- 
 ence among the Baptists was growing less and less, so that there 
 was no longer anything to be gained by the longer retention of a 
 denominational name for his paper.^ 
 
 Through The Christian Baptist Mr. Campbell reached thousands in 
 the remotest parts of the United States and the British Isles. There 
 was continually springing up through correspondence the report of 
 men here and there who had become his followers; they became 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, V. iii; III. 232. 
 ^Christian Baptist, III. 158, 159; VI. Appendix. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, IV. 208. 
 'Christian Baptist, VII. 62. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 199. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN BAPTIST 
 
 new centers for the further extension of his influence. Thus before 
 he realized it, wherever the EngUsh language was read or spoken, 
 there was an innumerable company standing on his platform of 
 religious reformation. The seed had been sown through the pages 
 of The Christian Baptist, and by the time of its discontinuance in 
 1830, within a period of seven years, he and his fellow-reformers 
 were a power to be reckoned with in the \\^estern \\' orld. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE STATUS OF CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE 
 
 BAPTISTS. 
 
 Alexander Campbell's standing among Baptists had been in doubt 
 from the moment of his union with them. He made no secret of his 
 disagreement with many Baptist opinions and practices. He hoped 
 to be able, however, to lead them as a people upon " higher ground," 
 as he termed it. He did not reckon sufficiently with the intensity of 
 their convictions or the firmness of their persuasion that they were 
 nearer right than any other people. 
 
 There were Baptists who never extended to him the hand of fel- 
 lowship. They regarded him as a religious innovator and adven- — 
 turer, without responsibility or conscience, who had no other purpose 
 than to build up a new sect upon the ruins of the Baptist denomina- 
 tion. Charges of inconsistency and dishonesty were freely lodged 
 against him, for occupying what was thought to be an equivocal 
 position, namely, maintaining outward fellowship with a body of 
 people with whom he was not in full agreement. He wrote in The 
 Christian Baptist, January 17, 1826, in reply to a correspondent: 
 " And, as you know, I have no faith in the Divine right of associa- 
 tions ; yet to shield me from such far-off and underhand attacks, as 
 well as other important purposes, that I may be under the inspection 
 and subject to merited reprehension, I and the church with which I 
 am connected are in ' full communion ' with the Mahoning Baptist 
 Association of Ohio; and through them with the whole Baptist 
 society in the United States ; and I do intend to continue in connec- 
 tion with this people so long as they will permit me to say what I 
 believe, to teach what I am assured of, and to censure what is amiss 
 in their views and practices. I have no idea of adding to the cata- 
 logue of new sects. This game has been played too long. I labor* 
 to see sectarianism abolished, and all Christians of every name united 
 upon the one foundation upon which the apostolic church was 
 founded. To bring Baptists and Pedobaptists to this is my supreme 
 aim. But to connect myself with any people who would require me 
 to sacrifice one item of revealed truth, to subscribe any creed of 
 human device, or restrain me from publishing my sentiments as dis- 
 
 51 
 
52 CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 cretion and conscience direct, is now, and I hope ever shall be, the 
 farthest from my desires, the most incompatible with my views. And 
 I hope I will not be accused of sectarian partiality when I avow my 
 conviction that the Baptist society have as much liberality in their 
 views, as much of the ancient simplicity of the Christian religion, 
 as much of the spirit of Christianity amongst them, as is to be found 
 amongst any other people. To say nothing of the things in which they 
 excel, this may be said of them without prejudice to any. And that 
 they have always been as eminent friends of civil and religious lib- 
 erty as any sect in Christendom, will not, I presume, be denied by 
 
 any And that there is in the views and practices of this 
 
 large and widely extended community, as great need of reformation, 
 and of a restoration of the ancient order of things, few will contra- 
 dict. In one thing, perhaps, they may appear in time to come, 
 proudly singular, and pre-eminently distinguished. Mark it well. 
 Their historian in the year 1900 may say, ' We are the only people 
 who would tolerate, or who ever did tolerate, any person to continue 
 as a refromer or restorer amongst us.' " ^ 
 
 This is an exceedingly frank and fair statement of his attitude 
 toward the Baptists, and his appreciation of them. What he acknowl- 
 edges was probably true, that there was no other denomination that 
 would have tolerated a reformer in the midst of it. This was doubt- 
 less due to several conditions. First of all, the want of a central 
 authority in the Baptist denomination prevented a concerted action 
 against him. Individuals, churches, and associations had disavowed 
 his fellowship and teachings. A General Assembly, as of the Pres- 
 byterian Church, could have dealt with him. The Roman Catholic 
 Church would have had no difficulty in disposing of him. In the 
 second place, the Baptists themselves were divided with reference to 
 him. He had many strong and influential supporters among both 
 the ministry and laity. In the third place, he was a Baptist in 
 the things that were essential to Baptist fellowship. The points of 
 disagreement between him and the Baptists were in dispute among 
 Baptists themselves. Spencer Clack, a Baptist editor, wrote to him 
 in 1827: "Observe, between you and your Baptist brethren there 
 is no diiference of opinion as to rule of faith and practice. On this 
 subject we all speak the same language; we all acknowledge the 
 same authority; all profess to be governed by it. What, then, is 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, III. 160. 
 
CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE BAPTISTS 53 
 
 the difference between us? Simply this: we can not agree as to 
 what the Bible teaches. The Baptists think the Bible teaches the 
 doctrine contained in their creeds ; you think it teaches what you have*^ 
 written and published, and what you will hereafter write and pub- 
 lish." ' The appeal of both parties to the controversy was to the 
 Scriptures. The difference was largely one of interpretation. So 
 it is still. The difference otherwise lay in the degree of thorough- 
 ness with which the Protestant principle of the authority of Scrip- 
 ture was applied. The underlying presupposition in the mind of 
 Mr. Campbell was that the New Testament contains a perfect and 
 complete m.odel of the Christian institution in its faith, life, ordi- 
 nances, government and discipline. He took the appeal to the precept 
 and precedent of Holy Scripture with an exact and faithful literal- 
 ness, requiring a " Thus saith the Lord " for every item of faith or 
 practice in the church. Nothing seemed to him to be left to the 
 sanctified common sense of the church in after ages by Christ and 
 his apostles. Nothing could be taken from or added to the things 
 once for all delivered to the saints, without declaring in so many 
 words that the Scriptures were insufficient as a rule of faith and 
 practice. It was his conviction that every future need and exigency 
 of the church on earth had been foreseen and provided for by Christ 
 and his apostles. 
 
 When Robert Semple, in a letter to Mr. Campbell in 1826, says, 
 " In short, your views (concerning creeds, confessions, ministerial 
 support, the Old Testament, missionary and Bible societies) are 
 generally so contrary to those of the Baptists in general, that if a 
 party was to go fully into the practice of your principles, I should 
 say a new sect had sprung up, radically different from the Baptists, 
 as they now are," ' Mr. Campbell replied : ''Would not a congregation 
 of saints, built exactly upon the foundation of the apostles and 
 prophets, and walking in all the commandments and ordinances of 
 the Lord blamelessly, appear like a new sect arising amongst the 
 Baptists, or any other sect in this country ? " " Are the Baptists 
 generally now following in the steps of the primitive church — are 
 they up to the model of the New Testamicnt? Upon the answer 
 given to this query, your last remark conveys praise or blame. If 
 they are in the millennial state, or in the primitive state of the church, 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 13. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, III. 200. 
 
54 CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 then everything that would change their order and practice is to be 
 reprobated and discountenanced by every Christian. But if not, 
 every well meant effort to bring them up to that state, as far as 
 Scripture and reason approbate, ought to be countenanced, aided 
 and abetted by every one that loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sin- 
 cerity." 
 
 A correspondent signing himself, " An Independent Baptist," 
 replying to the statement that he was " in full communion with the 
 Baptist Church," says : Now, sir, I have no doubt but you feel 
 honestly about this ' full communion with the whole Baptist society,' 
 but in fact and in effect, it is a white lie ; an equivoque, a time-serv- 
 ing expedient, and tends to shake the confidence of those who love 
 you, as to the downright sincerity of the Christian Baptist." ^ Refut- 
 ing the insinuation that he was not consistent, Mr. Campbell says : 
 " But what constitutes consistency ? In acting conformably to our 
 own professed sentiments and principles; or in acting conformably 
 to the professed sentiments and principles of others ? " " To come 
 to the point at once, what are the principles of union and communion 
 advocated in this work? Has not the one foundation which the 
 apostles affirmed was already laid, and besides which no other can 
 be laid which will stand the test of time and critics, which is the 
 only one on which all Christians can unite and have ' full com- 
 munion,' and against which the gates of Hades shall not prevail ; I 
 say, has not this been the only bond of union which the Christian 
 Baptist ever advocated? And what is that but a sincere and hearty 
 conviction, expressed or confessed by the lips, that Jesus is the 
 Christ ; and this belief, exhibited by an overt act of obedience which 
 implies that the subject has put on the Christ, prepares him, or 
 qualifies him, if you please, to be saluted a brother, so long as he 
 confesses with his lips that he believes in his heart this truth and 
 lives conformably to it and supports an unblemished moral charac- 
 ter, so long he is a worthy brother." 
 
 He was in this, of course, defining communion from his own 
 point of view, not that of the Baptists. On his part he could main- 
 tain communion with the Baptists and yet differ in many things from 
 them. His principle was, that unity of opinion is not essential to 
 Christian union." ^ From his point of view, then, he was in full com- 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, III. 221, 224; I. 221. 
 ' Christian Baptist, III. 226. 
 
CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE BAPTISTS 55 
 
 munion with the Baptists, for they believed that Jesus is the Christ " 
 and Hved conformably to that profession. He seems to appreciate 
 the fact that fellowship between two parties depends upon the con- 
 sent of both. He says : Here, once for all, it must be noted that 
 my having communion with any society, Baptist or Pedobaptist, 
 depends just as much upon them as upon myself. Some Baptist 
 congregations would not receive me into their communion, and if any 
 Pedobaptist society would, it is time enough to show that I am 
 inconsistent with my own principles when any evangelical sect or 
 congregation shall have welcomed me to their communion and I have 
 refused it." He refused to construe communion with a religious 
 body to imply, as one of his correspondents insisted, an entire 
 approbation of all their views, doctrine and practice, as a society or 
 individuals." 
 
 In this discussion of the terms of communion Mr. Campbell 
 raised a very important but perplexing question — one that is still 
 exercising the thought and sometimes disturbing the peace of 
 churches — How much ought the church to require in the faith of a 
 person as a condition of membership? Or rather. How little can the 
 church accept as sufficient for Christian fellowship? ^Ir. Campbell's 
 answer was : The least that a church can require is what the New Tes- 
 tament reports Christ and the apostles to have required. To require 
 more is to make the terms harder and to debar some. The terms of 
 fellowship insisted upon by some denominations presuppose a very 
 high degree of intellectual attainment in the person of the convert. 
 Other denominations, that make provision for infant membership, 
 presuppose absolutely none. Alexander Campbell held consistently 
 to the position of his father as set forth in the Declaration and 
 Address : " That although dectrinal exhibitions of the great systems 
 of Divine truths, and defensive testimonies in opposition to prevailing 
 errors be highly expedient, and the more full and explicit they be for 
 these purposes the better : yet as these must be in a great measure 
 the effect of human reasoning, and of course must contain many 
 inferential truths, they ought not to be made terms of Christian com- 
 munion." That as it is not necessary that persons should have a 
 particular knowledge or distinct apprehension of all divinely revealed 
 truths in order to entitle them to a place in the church: neither 
 should they for this purpose be required to make a profession more 
 extensive than their knowledge ; but that on the contrary, their 
 
56 CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 having a due measure of Scripture self-knowledge respecting their 
 lost and perishing condition by nature and practice, and of the way 
 of salvation through Christ, accompanied with a profession of their 
 faith in and obedience to him in all things according to his word is 
 all that is absolutely necessary to qualify them for admission into 
 his church." 
 
 The practice of the Baptists was uniform in requiring of the 
 candidate for admission to the church a confession of faith in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, repentance toward God, and immersion in the 
 name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Besides these, they 
 required an examination before a committee, the relation of an expe- 
 rience acceptable to the church, and in most instances subscription 
 to the Philadelphia Confession or some other formula of faith. The 
 thing to which Mr. Campbell objected was the requirement of things 
 not required by the New Testament. 
 
 In connection with this subject he was called upon to express 
 his view as to the Christian status of those who had not been 
 immersed ; in other words, of the Pedobaptist communities of Chris- 
 tians. He does not seem to have shared the views of the Baptists on 
 this subject at this time. He did not go with the Baptists in the 
 exclusion of the Pedobaptists from the Lord's supper.^ Whether he 
 would have received them into full church fellowship is not clear. 
 He says : " I frankly own that my full conviction is that there are 
 many Pedobaptist congregations, of whose Christianity I think as 
 highly as of most Baptist congregations, and with whom I could 
 wish to be on the very same terms of Christian communion on which 
 I stand with the whole Baptist society." " I have thought and 
 thought and vacillated very much on the question w^hether Baptists 
 and Pedobaptists ought, could, v/ould, or should, irrespective of their 
 peculiarities, sit down at the same Lord's table. And one thing I 
 do know that either they should cease to have communion in prayer, 
 praise, and other religious observances or they should go the whole 
 length. Of this point I am certain. And I do know that as much 
 can be said and with as much reason and scripture on its side to 
 prove that immersion is as necessary prior to social prayer, praise, 
 etc., as it is to eating the Lord's supper." Dear sir, this plan of 
 making our own nest and fluttering over our own brood ; of build- 
 ing our own tent, and of confining all goodness and grace to our 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, V. 211. 
 
CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 57 
 
 noble selves, and the ' elect few ' who are like us, is the quintessence 
 of sublimated pharisaism." He declared '* that all sectarianism is 
 the offspring- of Hell," " and that where there is a new creature, or 
 a society of them, with all their imperfections, and frailties and errors 
 in sentiments, in views and opinions, they ought to receive one 
 another, and the strong to support the infirmities of the weak and 
 not to please themselves/' ^ His critic replied : " Your very char- 
 itable recognition of Pedobaptists, etc., as brethren serves to neutral- 
 ize the distinction between truth and error — between allegiance and 
 rebellion. As for the societies of sprinkled ' new creatures,' with 
 whom you could wish (if they would let you) to have full com- 
 munion, equal to what you have with the whole Baptist society, they 
 resemble what a synagogue of the Jews would be who rejected cir- 
 cumcision." Mr. Campbell replied : And here permit me to remark 
 that you have taken for granted what has not been asserted yet ; that 
 Baptists and Pedobaptists should, irrespective of their differences on 
 the subject of baptism, break bread together. Whether they ought, 
 or ought not, has not been asserted by me. This question is yet with 
 me sub judice." " But there is no rejection of the ordinance of bap- 
 tism by sprinkled creatures; but a mistake of what it is." He 
 regarded the practice of sprinkling as an unintentional mistake, 
 which deserved pardon, because it was in the way of obedience. 
 
 A little later, in 1827, the question of the unimmersed came up 
 again, through the report in a letter from a reforming church in 
 Edinburgh, to the effect that they received unimmersed persons 
 into their fellowship, yet at the same time practiced only immer- 
 sion.' Commenting upon this practice, he says : " On the Scripture 
 propriety of receiving unnaturalized or unimmersed persons into 
 the kingdom into which the Saviour said none can enter but by being 
 born of water and of the Spirit, little can be said either from precept 
 or examiple. For it is exceedingly plain that from the day on which 
 Peter opened the reign of the ^vlessiah, on the ever-memorable Pen- 
 tecost, no m.an entered the realm but by being bom of water." As 
 yet there was no breach in the walls, no scaling ladders, no battering 
 rams, to find an easier way." " But the question of the greatest 
 difficulty to decide is whether there should be any laws or rules, 
 adopted by the churches, relating to the practice of receiving per- 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, IIL 228. 
 - Christian Baptist, Y. 102. 
 
5S CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE BAPTISTS 
 
 sons unimmersed in the assemblies of the saints. Whether on the 
 ground of forbearance, as it is called, such persons as have been 
 once sprinkled, or not at all, but who are satisfied with their sprink- 
 ling, or without any, are, on their solicitation to be received into 
 any particular congregation, and to be treated in all respects as 
 they who have, by their own voluntary act and deed, been natural- 
 ized and constitutionally admitted into the kingdom." " To make a 
 law that such should be received, appears to me after long and close 
 deliberation, a usurpation of the legislative authority vested in the 
 Holy Apostles and of dangerous tendency in the administration of the 
 reign of heaven." " Now, although I could feel myself at perfect 
 liberty, in full accordance with the requirements of the great King, 
 to receive into the most cordial fellowship every one whom I have 
 reason to recognize as a disciple of Jesus Christ, with all his weak- 
 nesses, as I would call them ; yet I could not and dare not say to 
 all members of a Christian congregation that they must do so too." * 
 The question as to whether the Baptists and Pedobaptists, irre- 
 spective of their differences, should break bread together, which he 
 declared to be under consideration with him in 1826, has been grad- 
 ually settled by 1829, and he is ready to affirm : "I object to making 
 it a rule, in any case, to receive unimmersed persons to church 
 ordinances: ist. Because it is nowhere commanded. 2d. Because 
 it is nowhere precedented in the New Testament. 3d. Because it 
 necessarily corrupts the simplicity and uniformity of the whole 
 genius of the New Institution. 4th. Because it not only deranges 
 the order of the kingdom, but makes void one of the most important 
 institutions ever given to man. It necessarily makes immersion of 
 non-effect. For with what consistency or propriety can a congrega- 
 tion hold up to the world either the authority or utility of an institu- 
 tion which they are in the habit of making as little of as any human 
 opinion? 5th. Because, in making a canon to dispense with a 
 divine institution of momentous import, they who do so assume the 
 very same dispensing powder which issued in that tremendous apos- 
 tasy which we and all Christians are praying and laboring to destroy. 
 If a Christian community put into its magna charta, covenant, or 
 constitution an assumption to dispense with an institution of the 
 great King, who can tell where this power of granting license to 
 itself may terminate ? " ^ 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 276. 
 ' Christian Baptist, VI. 183. 
 
CAMPBELL'S FELLOWSHIP WITH THE BAPTISTS 59 
 
 In these words he defends essentially the Baptist position of 
 close communion. Up to this time he has vacillated, as he says, 
 on the question whether to go the whole length of admitting the 
 unimmersed to all the acts of social worship and the privileges of 
 Christian fellowship as consistency and Christian charity would dic- 
 tate, or to enforce a strict conformity to the precepts and precedents 
 of the Xew Testament/ 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, III. 286; Cf. Williams's "Life of John Smith," 445, 
 
 467. 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 THE SPREAD OF THE "ANXIEXT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 AMONG THE BAPTISTS. 
 
 Froin the very beginning of his advocacy of reformation ]\Ir. 
 Campbell's efforts were attended with success. In the early days 
 through his speaking and later through the columns of the Christian 
 Baptist and the publication of his debates, there Vv-ere individuals 
 here and there, especially among the Baptists, who came over to 
 his views. Among his converts were numbered many representative 
 men. One of the first to join the reformation " was Walter Scott, 
 who shares with the Campbells the credit for very important reli- 
 gious discoveries.' He was a Scotchman ; had been educated at 
 Edinburgh University and was brought up as a Presbyterian ; came 
 to America in 1818, and settled at Pittsburg. Here he came into 
 contact with a fellow-countryman by the name of Forrester, whose 
 " peculiarity consisted in making the Bible his only authority and 
 guide in matters of religion.'* ^ Under the guidance of this man, 
 Scott made rapid progress in his study of the Bible and soon came 
 to hold the same views with ^Ir. Forrester. One of his first dis- 
 coveries was that there was no authority in Scripture for infant 
 baptism, and that immersion vras the apostolic form. He was 
 accordingly immersed by ^Ir. Forrester, who, aside from his labors 
 as principal of an academy, had gathered together a small body of 
 baptized believers in Pittsburg and became their minister. All these 
 changes in his religious views had talcen place before he m.et Alex- 
 ander Campbell in the winter of 1822. Scott proved one of the most 
 powerful and eloquent advocates of the new reformation. He vras 
 by pre-eminence the evangelist of the new movement. 
 
 In Ohio the very earliest converts to the new idea from the Bap- 
 tist ministr}- were Adamson Bentley and Sidney Rigdon.' Bentley 
 was instrumental in the organization of the Mahoning Association 
 in 1 82 1. He first became acquainted vv'ith the views of 'Mr. Camp- 
 bell through reading the debate with John Walker ; and later made 
 his personal acquaintance on a visit to his home in 182 1. He became 
 
 ' Baxter, " Life of Walter Scott," 30. 
 -Baxter, "Life of Walter Scott," 57. 
 ^Hayden, " Western Reserve," 102; Memoirs, II. 43. 
 
 60 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 6i 
 
 pastor of the Baptist Church at Warren, Ohio, in 1811. Bentley 
 continued to the end of his Hfe a co-laborer with Mr. Campbell, and 
 gave his entire influence to the extension of the " ancient order of 
 things." Sidney Rigdon was received into the Baptist Church at 
 Warren by Bentley in 1820, and was licensed to preach the same year. 
 He was a man of extraordinary native eloquence, and soon made his 
 name well known. Along with Bentley he gave himself to the new 
 ideas until 1830, when he fell away to Mormonism. By these men, 
 in co-operation with Walter Scott, the majority of the Baptist 
 churches of the Western Reserve were permeated with the new 
 teaching. These churches received the frequent personal ministra- 
 tions of both Thomas and Alexander Campbell. Hayden, in his 
 History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, page 92, says 
 that an entire family of brothers, three in number, by the name of 
 Rigdon, adopted the views of Mr. Campbell and faithfully defended 
 them on the Reserve. Jacob Osborne became a Baptist preacher 
 and entered the seminary of Mr. Campbell." Marcus Bosworth, a 
 Baptist preacher, was greatly influenced and helped on his way to 
 the position of Mr. Campbell by Osborne.'' Other preachers of influ- 
 ence among the Baptists who were carried over were William Hay- 
 den, John Applegate, O. Newcomb, and William Moody.' One thou- 
 sand persons were reported as converted by these preachers on the 
 Reserve in the year 1829-30. 
 
 In Kentucky one of the first Baptist ministers to be won to 
 the position of Mr. Campbell was P. S. Fall.* The Sermon on the 
 Law fell into his hands in 1822, w^hile he was pastor of a Baptist 
 church in Louisville. He went from there to Frankfort, and spent 
 the last years of his active service in Nashville, Tenn. John Smith 
 (''Raccoon," as he was called), was another Baptist preacher of 
 Kentucky who adopted the views of Mr. Campbell in the early 
 period.^ He had been brought up according to the strict Baptist 
 Calvinism of the South. He was not entirely satisfied with it, and 
 had gradually been working his way into opposition to it, when in 
 1823-4 The Christian Baptist fell into his hands. On Mr. Campbell's 
 visit to Kentucky in 1824 Smith went to hear him at Flemingsburg. 
 
 ^ Hayden, 140. 
 
 ^ Hayden, 136. 
 
 ^ Hayden, 177, 276, 366, 430. 
 
 * Memoirs, II. 94, 95, 122. 
 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 107. 
 
62 
 
 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 He was in a state of uncertainty as to what to think of Mr. Camp- 
 bell. Some of his Baptist friends favored him, others opposed him. 
 In this state of suspense he went to hear him. He relates the inci- 
 dent later in life. On coming into town he met William ^"aughan,who 
 knew and was favorably disposed toward the views of Campbell. 
 " Well," said I to Elder Vaughan, what are his views on doctrinal 
 points ? Is he a Calvinist or Armenian, an Arian or Trinitarian ? ' 
 His answer was : ' I do not know ; he has nothing to do with any 
 of these things.' I asked again, ' But do you think he knows any- 
 thing about heartfelt religion ? ' ' God bless you, Brother John,' 
 said he, ' he is one of the most pious godly men I was ever in com- 
 pany with in my life.' ' But do you think he knows anything about a 
 Christian experience ? ' ' W^hy, Lord bless you ! he knows every- 
 thing. Come, I want to introduce you to him.' " After the sermon 
 he said to Campbell, " Religiously speaking, I am suspicious of you, 
 and having an unfavorable opinion of you, I am willing to give the 
 reasons why." Smith accompanied Campbell to his next appoint- 
 ment and asked him to relate his experience. After hearing his 
 experience," said Smith, I would cheerfully have given him the 
 hand of fellowship." It was not until a year of careful study of the 
 Scriptures after this incident that he began the advocacy of the 
 " Bible as a sufficient rule of faith and practice." He became very 
 active in the work of a general evangelist, going from place to place 
 baptizing scores of people " into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 for the remission of sins." Jeremiah V^ardeman, the most popular 
 Baptist preacher in Kentucky, who had been one of the moderators 
 of the INIaccalla debate, and had been an outspoken friend of Camp- 
 bell from the beginning, gave his influence to the new ideas for sev- 
 eral years. He drew back, however, when he saw the beginning of 
 divisions in churches and associations.^ Other Baptist preachers of 
 Kentucky who were profoundly and permanently influenced by 
 Campbell were Jacob Creath, Sr., Jacob Creath, Jr., and James 
 Challen, all of whom gave themselves to the promotion of " the 
 ancient order of things." Both of the Creaths and John Smith 
 were excluded from the Elkhorn Association, together with several 
 congregations in 1830, for " apostasy to Campbellism." ' 
 
 John T. Johnson was a lawyer living at Georgetown, Kentucky. 
 He became a member of the Baptist Church in 182 1. He says : " Dur- 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, VI. 47 ; Memoirs, II, 72. 
 ^Memoirs, II. 324; II. 119. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 63 
 
 ing the years 1829-30 the public mind was much excited in regard 
 to what was vulgarly called ' Campbellism/ and I resolved to exam- 
 ine it in the light of the Bible. I was won over; my eyes were 
 opened, and the debt of gratitude I owe to that man of God, Alex- 
 ander Campbell, no language can tell." He gave up his law practice 
 in order to devote himself to the ministry of the gospel. He became 
 a man of great influence.' 
 
 In Virginia no preachers of note were won to the " reformation," 
 but many people, sometimes including entire churches, changed their 
 customs to harmonize with what they were led to believe a more 
 scriptural practice. Preachers of lesser influence in Virginia and 
 in many other states adopted the principles of Campbell.^ A corre- 
 spondent writing to Campbell in 1827-28, says: " One of your most 
 bigoted opposers said not long since in a public assembly that in 
 traveling 2,500 miles circuitously, he found only four Regular Bap- 
 tist preachers whom you had not corrupted." Such a statement may 
 mean much or little, depending upon the number of Baptist preachers 
 he saw during those journeys. It is a highly striking way of saying 
 that " Campbellism " was making serious inroads upon the Baptist 
 ministry, sufficient indeed to be the cause of alarm. Robert Semple, 
 writing to Dr. Noel in September, 1827, says : I know but one 
 preacher in Virginia who has pinned his faith to Campbell's sleeve, 
 and he has become verv^ troublesome to us." ' This can scarcely be 
 taken as a correct or fair statement of the case, for it is not sufficient 
 to account for the feeling of alarm and hostility displayed in the 
 very letter itself. If but one preacher had been " tainted " no notice 
 would have been taken of it. The truth lies somewhere between 
 these two extreme statements. 
 
 In the meantime, of course, many individuals among the laity 
 were coming under the influence of Mr. Campbell's teaching. From 
 individuals it was not long in extending to entire congregations of 
 Baptists. The first entire church to adopt the teaching and embody 
 the " ancient order of things " in its faith and practice was the 
 Brush Run church, which was made up of members of the various 
 denominations, and was brought over into fellowship with Baptist 
 churches at the time of the union. The second church constituted on 
 the new order under Mr. Campbell's influence was at Wellsburg and 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 179; Rogers, "Biography of J. T. Johnson." 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 94. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 244. 
 
64 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 the third at Pittsburg.' None of these churches were previously 
 Baptist, though Baptists were found in them. The church at Wells- 
 burg had been formed by the removal thither of Mr. Campbell's 
 father-in-law. Most of the members forming that church came out 
 of the Brush Run church.' The church at Pittsburg arose out of a 
 union, in 1824, of Mr. Forrester's congregation in charge of Walter 
 Scott, and the Baptist church presided over by Sidney Rigdon. It 
 was different, however, with the church at Louisville ministered to 
 by P. S. Fall. This church was more purely Baptist. The tran- 
 sition in these churches was usually marked by the formal adoption of 
 the Bible as a sufficient rule of faith and practice; the discarding 
 of the local creed and constitution of the church; the weekly com- 
 munion of the Lord's supper; the baptism of a person upon the 
 confession of his faith in Christ, without an examination by the elders 
 or a vote of either the officers or the congregation. This is clear from 
 the circular letter sent up to the Long Run Association of Kentucky 
 by the Louisville church written by its pastor, P. S. Fall, September, 
 1825. This letter was rejected by the Association, the moderator 
 casting the decisive vote. The letter reads in part as follows : " It 
 is not unfrequently said by word of mouth, as well as in creeds, that 
 the word of God is the only and the sufficient and perfect rule of faith 
 and practice. While this is admitted in word by all religious denomi- 
 nations, it is to be feared that but few feel the force or understand 
 the import of their own declaration. Let them but critically examine 
 every part of this sentence, and, while it appears in direct accordance 
 with the word itself, it is in complete violation of the practice of 
 almost all ; for if the declaration be true that the word of God is the 
 only, sufficient and perfect rule in all things pertaining to belief or 
 conduct, why are creeds, confessions and human formulas of doc- 
 trine, practice, government and experience established as the exclu- 
 sive tests of all, to the manifest deterioration of the Bible, while 
 churches rest contented with the bare declaration of its suf- 
 ficiency." ' 
 
 The church at Elk Creek sent up a query as to the New Testament 
 authority for creeds and associations, showing that the leaven of the 
 new teaching was v/orking there. The same Association entertained 
 a similar query from the church at Shelbyville. As showing the 
 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 125. 
 
 'Memoirs, I. 459. 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, III. 151, 232. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 65 
 
 widespread workings of the new ideas among the Baptists of Ken- 
 tucky as early as 1824, at a meeting of the " Baptist ^Hssionary 
 Association of Kentucky," it was proposed to have a meeting of all 
 the Baptist preachers who can attend for the purpose of a general 
 conference on the state of religion and on the subject of reform. All 
 the ministers of the gospel in the Baptist denomination favorable 
 to these objects are invited to attend, and, in the spirit of Christian 
 love, by mutual counsel, influence and exertion according to the 
 gospel, to aid in advancing the cause of piety in our state." Em- 
 bodied as a part of the call was the declaration : " It is obvious to 
 the most superficial observer, who is at all acquainted with the state 
 of Christianity and of the church of the New Testament, that much, 
 very much, is wanting, to bring the Christianity of the church of the 
 present day up to that standard." ^ 
 
 Throughout Kentucky such men as Vardeman, William Morton, 
 John Smith, John Secrest and W. Warder went about baptizing per- 
 sons after the new order of things. The following extracts are from 
 the correspondence published in The Christian Baptist.' *' Bishop 
 Jeremiah Vardeman, of Kentucky, since the first of November last, 
 till the first of May (1827-28), immersed about 550 persons." 
 
 Bishop John Smith, of Montgomery, Kentucky, from the first 
 Lord's Day in February to the 20th of April immersed 339." "Bishops 
 Scott, Rigdon and Bentley, in Ohio, within the last six months 
 have immersed about 800 persons." " Within a few months about 
 3CMD have been immersed into the name of the Father, Son and Holy 
 Spirit, on a profession of their faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the 
 Son of God. Great additions have been also made to other congre- 
 gations in the same vicinity," " From the 2d of ^larch to the 22d 
 of June, a period of three months, Bishop John Secrest immersed 
 222 persons, about an equal number of males and females." " A 
 correspondent in Lincoln County, Kentucky, informs me in a letter 
 dated the 8th ult. (Oct., 1828) that between 300 and 400 persons 
 had been immersed in that and the adjoining counties within a few 
 months before that time under the labors of Brethren Poison, Ander- 
 son, Sterman and others. Another informs me that Bishop G. G. 
 Boon since last fall immersed about 350, and Bishop William Morton 
 300 at least. Bishop Jacob Creath has immersed a great many." 
 " Bishop John Smith, of ^lontgomery County, Kentucky, has im- 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, XL 152; III. 154. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 47 ; V. 263. 
 
66 
 
 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 mersed since the 20th of April till the third Lord's Day in July, 294 
 persons. Thus in a little more than five months Brother Smith has 
 immersed 603 persons ' into the Lord Jesus for the remission of 
 sins.' " ' 
 
 It was the baptism of a person for the remission of sins " that 
 distinguished the baptisms of these reforming preachers from ordi- 
 nary Baptist baptisms. All of these men were still members of the 
 Baptist church, and the persons immersed by them took membership 
 in Baptist churches. They were a little company within the Baptist 
 society, growing ever more numerous and distinct until the period 
 of separation.' At the close of The Christian Baptist of 1825, Camp- 
 bell observes : " Several Baptist congregations in the western part 
 of Pennsylvania and in the state of Ohio have voted the ' Philadelphia 
 Confession ' of faith out of doors " " — unmistakable evidence of the 
 influence of the new ideas. The Baptist church of Nelson, Ohio, 
 at a meeting held August 24, 1824, voted " to remove the Philadelphia 
 Confession of faith and the church articles and to take the word of 
 God for our rule of faith and practice." "* This action led to a 
 division of the church. The reforming portion of the church did not 
 form a new organization until January 27, 1827, consisting of nine 
 members. 
 
 Walter Scott was appointed a general evangelist by the Mahoning 
 Association at its meeting at New Lisbon in 1827, to go among the 
 Baptist churches holding meetings, and to establish new churches. 
 Scott went everywhere among the churches on the Western Reserve 
 teaching them his new ideas. He began his evangelistic ministry at 
 New Lisbon in the Baptist meeting-house. Seventeen persons were 
 baptized. Subsequently he visited the churches at Warren and Aus- 
 tintown, and completely transformed them into " reforming 
 churches." Through his influence and that of other preachers the 
 Baptist churches at Salem, Canfield, Newton Falls, Braceville, Wind- 
 ham, Hubbard, Bazetta, Randolph, Birmingham and Southington 
 were won over to " the ancient order of things " between the years 
 1827-1830. Besides these there were other churches of less impor- 
 tance influenced and many new churches established. The proceed- 
 ings of the church at Salem is characteristic of many more. Scott 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, VI. 47; Life of Smith, 250; Christian Baptist, V. 208. 
 
 ' Life of J. Smith, 216. 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, II. 288. 
 
 *Hayden, 22, 237. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 67 
 
 began work there in April, 1828. " In ten days he baptized forty 
 souls." The leading Baptists were delighted." " The converts 
 were received to baptism on the confession of their faith in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, without the usual routine of telling an experience and 
 a vote of the church." So successful did his work seem to him that 
 he exclaimed : Who will now say there is a Baptist church in 
 Salem ? " This gave the alarm. Some of the old leaders thought 
 he was building up the Baptist church," until this announcement was 
 made. A reaction set in; a meeting was called and all those who 
 had been received into the church without relating an experience 
 were summoned to appear to be received in the regular Baptist way. 
 They refused to come and scattered among the various churches of 
 the region. Out of this grew a church of Reformers three miles 
 south of Salem.^ 
 
 The Baptist church at Windham was constituted a church of 
 Christ " by Thomas Campbell and Marcus Bosworth May 27, 1828, 
 with the usual rejection of creeds and confessions and an appeal to 
 the " New Testament as a perfect rule, directory and formula for the 
 faith, discipline and government of the church." This church did 
 not begin the weekly breaking of bread until March 22, 1829, nearly 
 a year later. The " old order " was but slowly supplanted by the 
 new. A wise forbearance ruled the church, and they eventually 
 all came to the unity of the faith and practice of the apostolic order." 
 Concerning the progress of the new views, William Hayden wrote to 
 Mr. Campbell, May, 1830: "The word of God has great success 
 with us. The churches are growing in knowledge, spirituality and 
 numbers. New churches are rising up in very many towns on the 
 Reserve, where we are laboring." 
 
 The period of greatest defection from Baptist churches to the 
 ranks of the Reformers was from 1825-1830. During this period the 
 preachers of the ancient order were easily introduced into Baptist 
 churches without any suspicion of their hostility to Baptist usages. 
 After 1830 they were better known and were marked for avoidance 
 by Baptists generally. In many out-of-the-way places even later 
 these preachers obtained entrance into Baptist churches. 
 
 The regions chiefly touched by the teaching of Mr. Campbell 
 were Kentucky, western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee and Vir- 
 ginia.^ There is record of churches adopting his views as early as 
 
 ' Hayden, 73, 100, 127, etc. ; Christian Baptist, V. 275 ; VII. 272. 
 'Memoirs, II. 168. 
 
68 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 this in Indiana, Hlinois and Missouri ; indeed in all the states adjacent 
 to the regions of the first successes of the movement.^ Benedict, the 
 Baptist historian, says (page 8oi), concerning the First Baptist 
 church of Nashville : " It increased to between three and four hun- 
 dred members, when the Campbellites or Reformers succeeded in 
 making proselytes to their views of nearly the whole of this great 
 and growing interest. The pastor and people, with their chapel, of 
 course, all were brought under the influence of the Reformers." 
 
 It ought to be observed that accessions to the ranks of the Re- 
 formers did not take place alone from the Baptists during this 
 period. All the denominations contributed to the swelling of their 
 ranks. A Methodist, Universalist, and Presbyterian, not to omit an 
 instance of one Episcopal rector and one Lutheran preacher, joined 
 their ranks." ' The entire Methodist church at Deerfield, Ohio, 
 adopted the " ancient order of things." * It would be natural to look 
 for some coalescence between the " Reformers " and the " Chris- 
 tians," or " Stoneites," or " New Lights," as they were called, on 
 account of the similarity of their teaching. This was true in Ohio 
 and Kentucky. Some of the most useful men in the proclamation of 
 the new order of things came from these followers of B. W. Stone. 
 In Ohio Joseph Gaston, John Whitacre and other able men, together 
 with several churches, came into the fellowship of the Reformers. 
 In Kentucky a general union was consummated between the Reform- 
 ers and the Stoneites in 1832. The most active leaders in this union 
 were John Smith, on the part of the Reformers, and Samuel Rogers, 
 on the part of the Stoneites. These men went everywhere through 
 Kentucky for more than two years bringing the two parties to- 
 gether.' 
 
 The influence and ideas of the Reformers permeated entire asso- 
 ciations. The first Baptist association to be controlled by the Reform- 
 ers was the Mahoning of Ohio. Mr. Campbell became a member of 
 it in 1823, but for two years before he was a regular visitor at its 
 meetings. This Association met with the Reformers' church at 
 Sharon, August, 1829, just after a division in the Baptist church. 
 A list of the sixteen churches composing the Association indicates 
 
 'Christian Baptist, HI. 44; V. 44; VII. 245. 
 ^Memoirs, II. 142; Christian Baptist, IV. 217; V. 210. 
 'Christian Baptist, V. 284; Hayden, 149, 150, 324, 355. 
 *Hayden, 311. 
 
 ^Hayden, 51, 59, 79. 112, 125, 300. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 69 
 
 that the Baptist element had been completely lost by 1827. This 
 Association was dissolved in 1830 without a dissenting vote, as far as 
 its Baptist form was concerned/ Along with the ^lahoning and al- 
 most as early to abandon its creed and constitution, was the Stillwater 
 Association of Ohio. Its messenger to the Redstone Association 
 was refused a seat on account of the suspicion of " Campbellite 
 heresy." " 
 
 The year 1828 was a notable one among Kentucky Baptist asso- 
 ciations. At the meetings of three of the largest associations the 
 Reformers were in control, due in a very large degree to the preach- 
 ing and influence of John Smith. During the year 1827-28 he had 
 baptized many people after the " ancient practice." The churches 
 for which he preached regularly, Spencer's Creek, Grassy Lick, and 
 Mt. Sterling, reported in their annual letters of 1828 to the North 
 District Association of which they were members, the baptism of 392 
 persons during the year. The t^venty-four churches of the Associa- 
 tion reported the baptism of nearly 900 persons, " the greater part 
 of whom had been immersed by Smith." Five new churches had 
 been constituted by Smith on the Bible alone and became members 
 of the Association.^ 
 
 The " North District Association " met in July, 1828. At its 
 meeting the previous year the Lulbegrud church had sent up the fol- 
 lowing charges aimed at John Smith, but veiling the object of their 
 charge under the designation, one of their preachers." The accu- 
 sations were: 
 
 "i. That, while it is the custom of Baptists to use as the word of 
 God King James translation, he had on two or three occasions in pub- 
 lic, and often privately in his family, read from Alexander Camp- 
 bell's translation." 
 
 "2. That, while it is the custom in the ceremony of baptism to 
 pronounce, ' I baptize you,' he on the contrary is in the habit of say- 
 ing, ' I immerse you.' " ' 
 
 ''3. That, in administering the Lord's Supper, while it is the cus- 
 tom to break the loaf into bits, small enough to be readily taken into 
 the mouth, yet he leaves the bread in large pieces, teaching that each 
 communicant should break it for himself." 
 
 ^ Hayden, 56, 270, 295. 
 ^ Memoirs, 11. 140. 
 ^Life of J. Smith, 250. 
 *Life of Smith, 183. 
 
70 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 Without waiting for himself to be singled out, he arose and said : 
 " I plead guilty to them all." After bitter debating and wrangling 
 over the charges it was finally voted that they be laid over for another 
 year. The meeting of 1828 was the time when these charges should 
 be brought up. Smith had been unwearied in his preaching, and 
 marvelously successful in winning men to the gospel during the 
 year. Still, when the Association met, he was in doubt at first as to 
 which side had the majority of messengers. In the registration of 
 delegates, it was soon found that the majority were favorable to him. 
 The messengers from the five new churches he had established turned 
 the scale in his favor. The charges were not mentioned on the floor 
 of the Association.^ This Association divided in 1830, ten churches 
 voluntarily withdrawing and forming a new association on Baptist 
 principles. The North District Association met for the last time as 
 an advisory council in 1831, and was dissolved one year later as the 
 Mahoning had been.^ There was a disposition to dissolve in 1830, but 
 the people thought it a little hasty, and that it might give the appear- 
 ance of revolution. Fourteen churches and four parts of churches 
 were enrolled on the occasion of the dissolution. On the same day the 
 churches that had withdrawn from the Association two years before 
 met and formed a new association under the same name. 
 
 The " Bracken Association " was the next to meet in 1828. Lick- 
 ing Association, rigidly Calvinistic and devoted to the Philadelphia 
 Confession, desired to enter into mutual correspondence with 
 Bracken, but had determined as a condition of it to require from 
 Bracken " a pledge to support the Philadelphia Confession." " 
 Smith's activities in the early part of the year had extended to the 
 churches of this Association. The letter came from Licking requiring 
 the pledge and was read before the Association. After a prolonged 
 discussion by various members, during which Smith had sat 
 in silence, he finally saw his opportunity to speak. He spoke the 
 next day, Sunday, to the entire Association. When the matter came 
 up on Monday for final disposition, the Association resolved to 
 recommend no creed but the New Testament. A witness of these 
 events said : " It was John Smith that gave impulse and tone to the 
 Reformation of Bracken as he had already done in North District, 
 Boones' Creek, and other associations." Bracken did not remain 
 
 ^Life of Smith, 340-343. 
 ^ Life of Smith, 362, 415-417. 
 ^Life of Smith, 259. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 7^ 
 
 long under the influence of the Reformers, but went back into Regu- 
 lar Baptist fellowship in 1830; yet not without loss by defection to 
 the side of the reformation/ Benedict assures us in his History of 
 the Baptists (819) that the number of members was reduced from 
 2,200 to 900 on account of the sweeping inroad " of the Reformers. 
 " During the storm, a few went over to the Licking Association, 
 others stood aloof for years and then returned ; yet it is evident that a 
 large majority embraced the Reformation. This should not have 
 been so ; neither would it ever have occurred (in my opinion) had 
 we not in all our movements acted very impolitic. Many of our 
 churches, instead of remaining firm on the Bible, and the Bible alone, 
 the great platform on which we have ever stood^ became frightened 
 and brought forth from secrecy and silence old musty creeds, con- 
 fessions of faith, etc., which really drove many from our ranks." 
 
 The next association to take action, the same year, 1828, was 
 the Boones' Creek. The letter sent out by the Association in 1827 
 observed to the churches composing it : We hear from some of the 
 churches that they are endeavoring to return to the ancient order of 
 things, and they recognize the Scriptures alone as an entire and 
 sufficient rule of faith and practice." ^ " During the spring and sum- 
 mer of 1828, there had been an increase of about 870 members by 
 immersion, many of whom had been brought in through the preach- 
 ing of John Smith." The Association, composed of thirteen churches, 
 met on the third Saturday in September. The question before it, raised 
 in the letters of two churches, was concerning an amendment to the 
 constitution to bring it into harmony with the word of God. The 
 following action was taken by the Association and reported back to all 
 the churches : " We therefore recommend to the churches the aboli- 
 tion of the present constitution, and in lieu thereof, the adoption of 
 the following resolution : Resolved, that we, the churches of Jesus 
 Christ, believing the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be 
 the word of God, and the only rule of faith and obedience given 
 by the great Head of the Church for its government, do agree to 
 meet annually — for the worship of God — and on such occasions 
 voluntarily communicate the state of religion amongst us by letter 
 and messenger." ' Such men as John Smith, William Morton, Jere- 
 miah Vardeman and Jacob Creath, all under the influence of the 
 
 ^Life of Smith, 386; Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 477. 
 ^Life of Smith, 265. 
 
 ^Life of Smith, 266; Christian Baptist, VI. 119. 
 
72 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 reformatory ideas, were the leading spirits in this meeting. The 
 report of the action of churches with reference to the resolution was 
 made a year later. The result showed that seven churches voted to 
 retain the constitution, six voted to abolish it. At the meeting in 
 1830 these six churches were dropped from the Association, and 
 both North District and Tate's Creek messengers were rejected."^ 
 
 In 1829 Tate's Creek Association was under the controling influ- 
 ence of the Reformers. A minority of orthodox Baptist churches 
 withdrew and called a meeting for the month of June, 1830, at 
 which they drew up a bill of errors against certain preachers and 
 churches of the Association. This Association was composed of 
 delegates from ten of the twenty-six churches. They organized 
 and proceeded to meet at the " Tate's Creek Association," and re- 
 solved to cut oflf correspondence with the churches that tolerated 
 the heresy of Campbellism. The majority of this Association was 
 thus committed to the teaching of Alexander Campbell.'' 
 
 The Franklin and Elkhorn Associations were^ however, not 
 friendly to the Reformers, though there was a strong and influential 
 minority disposed to sanction reformation on the new principles. 
 In 1829 Franklin Association adopted the decrees of the Beaver 
 Association of Pennsylvania, which had rejected as heretical the 
 Mahoning Association of Ohio, and refused to have any fellowship 
 with it. The churches of the Association were warned not to har- 
 bor any such errors. The Elkhorn Association at its meeting in 
 1830, dropped from further correspondence two churches, and re- 
 fused to recognize the messenger from the North District. This 
 meant the exclusion from Baptist fellowship of eighteen churches 
 and 1,470 members.' 
 
 The Russell Creek and South Concord Associations took action 
 against " Campbellite " heresy, the latter passing a resolution advis- 
 ing all the churches to lock their doors against the followers of 
 Alexander Campbell, who deny the agency of the Spirit." * 
 
 Very few of the Kentucky Associations escaped the influence 
 of the Reformers. One of the things which finally closed the doors 
 of Baptist churches against Reformers was the union between them 
 
 ' Life of Smith, 307, 388. 
 ' Life of Smith, 298, 376. 
 ^Life of Smith, 330, 370, 382. 
 * Life of Smith, 394, 407. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 73 
 
 and the New Lights, or Christians, who were looked upon and 
 called Arians or Unitarians/ 
 
 In many of the associations of Virginia the reforming ideas 
 found a hearing. This was especially so in and around Richmond. 
 A visitor to the Dover Association in 1830 wrote to 'Mr. Campbell, 
 saying : " Your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Light is evidently 
 dawning. We counted ten public teachers who are more or less 
 advocates for the ancient gospel, and not one of them whose talents 
 are not far before mine, and some equal, if not superior, to any in 
 the Association." " It is impossible for me to communicate at this 
 time the great number of friends in this Association to the ancient 
 gospel." I have been credibly informed that three of the churches 
 in King William County are almost unanimous." At a conference 
 of eight churches of the Dover Association, December, 1830, the 
 report submitted to the meeting said : " The system of religion 
 known by the name of Campbellism has spread of late among our 
 churches to a distressing extent, and seems to call loudly for rem- 
 edial measures." The Goshen Association of Virginia seems to 
 have been early permeated with the teaching of Mr. Campbell, for 
 at its meeting in 1828 the question of the propriety of associations 
 came under discussion, resulting in the withdrawal of that Associa- 
 tion from the General Association.^ 
 
 The Nezv York Baptist Register of the year 1830 has the 
 following paragraph : *' Mr. Campbell's paper and their vigorous 
 missionary efforts are making great achievements. It is said that 
 one-half of the Baptist churches in Ohio have embraced this senti- 
 ment and become what they call Christian Baptists. It is spreading 
 like a mighty contagion through the Western States, wasting Zion 
 in its progress. In Kentucky its desolations are said to be even 
 greater than in Ohio.^ 
 
 Newspapers devoted to the advocacy of the new views of reform 
 began to spring up throughout the states principally affected, and 
 contributed in no small degree to their spread. Besides the publi- 
 cations of ]Mr. Campbell, The Christian Baptist and The Mil- 
 lennial Harbinger, were such papers as The Millennial Herald, 
 established by Walter Scott, at Steubenville, Ohio. 1827 (monthly) ; 
 
 ^Life of Smith, 506. 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 534; 1831, 76; Christian Baptist, VI. HQ- 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 117. 
 * Christian Baptist, IV. 262. 
 
74 
 
 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 The Tennessee Christian Register, established by George R. 
 Fall, at Nashville, in 1829 (weekly) The Christian Examiner 
 and Millennial Herald, established by J. Norwood, at Lexington, 
 Kentucky, in 1829 (monthly;' The Christian RevieiL', established 
 in 1830, and published at Jeffersonville, Indiana, by Nathaniel Fall 
 and Beverly James (monthly) f The Inquirer for Truth, edited 
 by Mr. Saxton, of Canton, Ohio, 1827 (monthly) ;* The Evangeli- 
 cal Enquirer, established in 183 1 at Cincinnati, Ohio, and edited by 
 D. S. Burnet (weekly) f The Evangelist, established at Cincin- 
 nati, Ohio, 1832, and edited by Walter Scott (monthly) f The 
 Christian Messenger, established by B. W. Stone in 1825, published 
 at Georgetown, Kentucky (monthly).' 
 
 The establishment of the ancient order of things " was attended 
 by various extravagances and abuses. The literalist, the extremist, 
 accompanies and menaces every such movement. In fact, accom- 
 panying the entire history of the movement, the extremist has been 
 found. The earliest manifestations of abuse were in the form of a 
 crass literalism in the application of the principle, " The restoration 
 of the ancient order of things." The church at Pittsburg, Pennsyl- 
 vania, attempted to restore the mutual exhortations of the apostolic 
 churches, and soon found itself rent by debates and dissensions in 
 public meeting. The same was true of the church at Cross Roads, 
 Virginia, and many others. Every member thought it his privilege 
 to " prophesy " in the meetings. Both Mr. Campbell and Mr. Scott 
 thought such conduct disorderly. On one occasion in such a meet- 
 ing Scott arose and asked, " What, my brethren, is the church to be 
 a mouth ? " Questions concerning the disorders incident to the 
 introduction of the ancient order of things were frequently coming in 
 to Mr. Campbell and received answer in the pages of the Millennial 
 Harbinger.^ 
 
 Another serious difficulty was that concerning the practice and 
 New Testament obligation of feet-washing and the holy kiss, which 
 were introduced into many of the churches, but repudiated by the 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, VII. 71. 
 - Christian Baptist, VII. 72, 190. 
 ^ Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 228. 
 * Christian Baptist, IV. 262. 
 'Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 191. 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1832, 46. 
 ' Christian Baptist, IV. 262. 
 ® Memoirs, II. 125. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 75 
 
 great majority and entirely discountenanced by Mr. Campbell as 
 not essential parts of the ancient order." Some of the churches 
 in Kentucky were disturbed by serious debate over " the attitude of 
 prayer, the hour of the day for eating the Lord's Supper, the 
 chemical nature of the wine to be used, the propriety of a sermon 
 or even a benediction, after the supper, the necessity of the loud 
 amen to all the public prayers, the number of deacons in a con- 
 gregation, the holy kiss, etc." ' 
 
 The opposition to associations was pushed to extremes, so 
 that there was no way to further evangelistic effort. Hayden has 
 occasion in his History to complain bitterly of the senseless disor- 
 ganization of the " Disciples." Mr. Campbell himself saw the folly 
 of it and tried to arrest the tendency.^ He was forced to acknowl- 
 edge the need of some sort of association or co-operation among 
 Christians for the purposes of self-preservation and growth. Sid- 
 ney Rigdon, before his defection to the Mormons, began to advocate 
 the restoration of the ancient communism as practiced in the 
 church at Jerusalem. These extremes were not wide-spread. They 
 were the inevitable phenomena connected with an earnest effort to 
 restore the primitive faith and practice. 
 
 ^Memoirs, II. 129, 411. 
 - Life of Smith, 391, 392. 
 ^Hayden, 297, 298. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SPREAD OF THE ''ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" AMONG 
 THE BAPTISTS: CAUSES AND CONDITIONS. 
 
 A movement that spreads so rapidly and widely and succeeds 
 so evidently as that led by the Campbells cannot be entirely 
 inexplicable or groundless. Such a phenomenon is not without 
 explanation either in its own elements or in the condition of things. 
 The general response it met with among the Baptists indicates 
 that they shared more things in common with the ideas of the 
 Campbells than any other religious body except the " Christians," 
 or "New Lights." 
 
 I. We shall seek first of all among the Baptists for the condi- 
 tions that made it successful. 
 
 I. The division of the Baptists into Regulars " and " Sepa- 
 rates." ' 
 
 « The early Baptists of Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky 
 were divided into Regulars and Separates. The Separates arose 
 in New England out of the Great Awakening under the preaching 
 of Whitfield and Edwards. The party that favored the methods, and 
 rejoiced in the fruits of the revival were called " New Lights." 
 One of these New Lights, Shubal Stearnes, adopted Baptist views 
 concerning baptism, and shortly after, with a company of sixteen 
 of like sentiments, came to \'irginia. Their work extended rapidly 
 over Carolina and Virginia until they became the most numerous 
 of the Baptist parties in that region. The Separates were the most 
 active and the chief sufferers in the struggle for religious liberty in 
 Virginia. In their preaching they were characterized by the fervid 
 enthusiasm and the methods of the preachers of the Great Awaken- 
 ing. In their religious customs they sought a severe simplicity, 
 and strove for a faithful conformity to the customs of the apos- 
 tolic churches. They sought to reproduce the apostolic customs of 
 feet-washing, the holy kiss, the anointing of the sick, love-feasts, 
 laying on of hands, and weekly communion. They went so far 
 as to appoint " Apostles," after deciding at the Association of 
 
 ^ Newman, History of the Baptists, 334, 292-303. 
 
 76 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 77 
 
 1774 that the nth, 12th, and 13th verses of the 4th chapter of 
 Ephesians described " offices that are now in use in Christ's 
 Church." " It was further resolved that said offices be immediately 
 established by the appointment of certain persons to fill them, pro- 
 vided any possessed of such gifts could be found among them." 
 The first apostle to be chosen was Samuel Harriss. Two others 
 were afterward appointed, but the system was not liked by the 
 people, and after fruitless attempts to put it in force, it was 
 abandoned."^ 
 
 In their doctrinal views they were about equally divided between 
 Calvinists and Armenians, with a growing inclination toward Cal- 
 vinism. The question was frequently debated in their associations, 
 and on one occasion, the antagonism became so bitter on the part 
 of the Calvinists against the Armenians, that the Armenians with- 
 drew and set up a separate meeting alongside of the other. Nego- 
 tiations were carried on by written messages, which finally resulted 
 in a reconciliation. 
 
 At first the Separates were opposed to creeds and confessions, 
 fearing that they might bind them too much.* They did not, 
 however, oppose creeds as such, but on account of the errors in 
 them. At one session of an association the question respecting the 
 utility of a confession of faith was debated, and a decision 
 reached " that each church might exercise her own discretion in 
 adopting the confession of faith or not." The Separates finally 
 adopted the " Philadelphia Confession " with the following expla- 
 nations : " To prevent its usurping a tyrannical power over the 
 consciences of any — we do not mean that every person is bound 
 to the strict observance of everything therein contained, nor do we 
 mean to make it, in any respect, superior or equal to the Scriptures, 
 in matters of faith and practice; although we think it the best 
 human composition of the kind now extant ; yet it shall be liable to 
 alterations, whenever the general committee, in behalf of the Asso- 
 ciation, shall think fit." 
 
 They also regarded with suspicion the growing power of asso- 
 ciations, although they had them, the first having been organized 
 in 1760. At a meeting of the Association in 1771. it was "unani- 
 mously agreed that the Association has no power or authority to 
 
 ^ Semple, Virginia Baptists, 81, 83. 
 
 ' Semple, Virginia Baptists, 67, 80, loi ; Newman, 301. 
 
78 
 
 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS' 
 
 impose anything upon the churches ; but that we act as an advisory 
 council." ' 
 
 All these peculiar customs and views of the Separates were, 
 of course, offensive to the Regular Baptists, and their persistence 
 in them postponed the union of the two bodies until 1787. The 
 adoption of the Philadelphia Confession by the Separates prepared 
 the way for such a union." The union was finally effected on the 
 basis of a moderate Calvinism agreed to by the Separates in the 
 words : " that the doctrine of salvation by Christ, and free, unmerited 
 grace alone ought to be believed by every Christian and maintained 
 by every minister of the Gospel." " Upon these terms we are 
 united; and desire that hereafter the names Regular and Separate 
 be buried in oblivion, and that from henceforth we shall be known 
 by the name of the " United Baptist Churches of Christ in Virginia." ' 
 
 The condition of affairs in the Baptist churches of Virginia 
 was carried over into Tennessee and Kentucky by the emigration 
 of Baptists. The Separates populated southern and central Ken- 
 tucky, and organized what was called " The South Kentucky Asso- 
 ciation." The Regular Baptist association was called The Elk- 
 horn." A union was consummated between these two bodies in 
 1880-1801 upon a moderately Calvinistic platform. There was, 
 however, a coloring of Armenianism preserved by the Separates, 
 together with an opposition to confessions of faith and the author- 
 ity of associations. The Separate Association of South Kentucky 
 was divided into North and South Districts. Tate's Creek Asso- 
 ciation had been formed out of Separate churches before the union.' 
 
 It is important to observe that the very first association in Ken- 
 tucky to adopt the views of Alexander Campbell was the North 
 District, a distinctly Separate body of churches. These very Sepa- 
 rates were the people who had most in common with the princi- 
 ples of the Reformers. The first associations of Kentucky to take 
 action against " Campbellism " were those associations which had 
 been strongly Regular in their composition, namely, Elkhorn and 
 Franklin. The principles of the Reformation never gained a strong 
 foothold in these Associations before they were finally condemned 
 and shut out from Baptist fellowship. A careful study of the 
 original religious complexion of Baptist communities in Kentucky 
 
 ^ Semple, 64, 71, 88, 90. 
 ^ Semple, loi. 
 
 ^Benedict, History of the Baptists, 811. 820; life of Smith, 124. 135, 252. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS' 
 
 79 
 
 will reveal the fact that the line of cleavage between Baptists and 
 Reformers followed the line of cleavage that originally existed 
 between Separates and Regulars. This phenomenon is manifest in 
 the case of the Tate's Creek Association, which was Separate, and 
 declared for the Reformation among the first. The same is true of 
 the Bracken and Boone's Creek Associations.^ 
 
 This phenomenon is observable in Virginia. So far as the 
 teachings of Campbell gained any foothold in this early period, and 
 in those circles where it was pronounced in Virginia, it was among 
 those Baptists who had been originally Separates. A single case 
 in point is that of the Dover Association, in which " Campbellism " 
 gained the widest and firmest hold, and which was one of the four 
 original Separate Baptist associations. It was the very stronghold 
 of the Separates in Virginia. It was the infusion of the Separates 
 among the Baptist churches of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee 
 that furthered the propagation of the principles of the Reformers 
 among them in those states." 
 
 2. The hyper-Calvinism of the Baptists in many sections.^ 
 This theological manifestation among the Baptists of that period 
 goes a long way in explaining the success of the Reformers. It is 
 a phenomenon to which all Baptist historians refer, and which they 
 all alike deplore. This type of doctrine was not, however, peculiar 
 to the Baptists. It prevailed among all the denominations of the 
 time, except the Methodists, who led a revolt against it. Cahnnism 
 was the orthodoxy of that time. It was not merely held as a specu- 
 lation, but consistently reduced to practice and preached. It was 
 the vital gospel, the stock in trade of ever\' preacher. Calvinism 
 was thought to give point and persuasiveness to every appeal to the 
 unconverted, and to furnish stimulus and assurance to the elect. 
 Let one of these preachers (B. W. Stone) who was himself brought 
 up in the system and supported it for a time, describe it. " I at that 
 time believed and taught, that mankind were so totally depraved, 
 that they could do nothing acceptable to God, till his Spirit, by some 
 physical, almighty and mysterious power had quickened, enlightened 
 and regenerated the heart, and thus prepared the sinner to believe 
 in Jesus for salvation. I began plainly to see, that if God did not 
 perform this regenerating work in all, it must be because he chose 
 
 ^ Life of Smith, 376. 
 
 - Benedict, 660 : Semple, 120. 
 
 'Vedder, 92. 
 
8o SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 to do it for some and not for others, and that this depended on 
 His own sovereign will and pleasure. It then required no depth 
 of intellect to see that this doctrine is inseparably linked with uncon- 
 ditional election and reprobation as taught in the Westminster Con- 
 fession of Faith. They are virtually one ; and this is the reason why 
 I admitted the decrees of election and reprobation, having admitted 
 the doctrine of total depravity." ^ 
 
 These doctrines were not merely taught in the class-room, or 
 reasoned upon in the study, but were the substance of discourses 
 from the pulpit. There was a pronounced tendency, however, 
 among Baptist preachers to carry the doctrines to extremes. Speak- 
 ing of the preachers of that time, J. B. Jeter says: ''They seemed 
 to think that they were called to the ministry for no other purpose 
 than to proclaim and vindicate a few abstruse and barren points of 
 the Calvinistic creed ; but their ministry, excepting to a few indoc- 
 trinated zealots, was not pleasing. The people generally, becoming 
 disgusted with such dry and unsatisfying speculations, were ready 
 to attend on any ministry which promised them a palatable if not 
 a more nutritious diet. In churches of this sort Mr. Campbell 
 found his way prepared before him." * The same testimony is 
 borne by the Baptist historian, Newman (History of the Baptists, 
 
 488). 
 
 Campbell and his fellow-preachers set their faces squarely 
 against this sort of preaching, not so much because they did not 
 believe the doctrines of Calvinism, as because the pulpit was not 
 the place for such speculations. Campbell had been brought up a 
 Calvinist, and remained a moderate one to his death. The question 
 with the Reformers was not that between Calvinists and Arme- 
 nians — of that they cared little — but, What was the apostolic 
 gospel and the primitive method of preaching it. They were as a 
 whole inclined to the Armenian side, as being more consonant with 
 the freedom of the gospel and its universal appeal. They just as 
 consistently deprecated the preaching of Armenianism to sinners. 
 They refused to make it a test question. The question was not 
 " Do you believe that salvation is free and unmerited," or " Do you 
 believe that Christ tasted death for every man," or '' Do you believe 
 that you are totally depraved and utterly helpless to turn to God 
 without His previous quickening power," but " Do you believe on 
 
 ^ Stone, B. W., Autobiography, 30. 
 
 'Jeter, J. B., Campbellism Examined, 79, 80. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 the Lord Jesus Christ," if so, " Arise and be baptized and wash away 
 your sins." That was the conventional plan of every one of their 
 sermons. It varied with different preachers, but their ideas centered 
 around one question, " What must I do to be saved ?" and this they 
 answered after what they thought was the manner of the apostolic 
 preachers. 
 
 Such preaching, characterized by such simplicity, directness, and 
 scripturalness, fell upon their listeners with refreshing newness. 
 The strength and fascination of the appeal to the unconverted lay 
 in the assured certainty of one's instant salvation through an 
 instant obedience to the requirements of the gospel. A favorite 
 phrase in assuring the people that they need not wait for some token 
 of the divine call to a better life was : " And he took them the same 
 hour of the night and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he 
 and all his immediately." This was all strange, and in many cases 
 thrilling. Persons were baptized by the hundreds under this preach- 
 ing. The most successful preachers among the Baptists, before the 
 separation of the Reformers, were those very men who had grasped 
 the apostolic method and went about using it. The new ideas at 
 once demonstrated their effectiveness in bringing the unconverted 
 to decision at least, and won the approval of many Baptists. The 
 churches where the Reformers labored were always sure to send in 
 to the meetings of the associations reports of the largest numbers 
 of accessions. In many cases the number so far surpassed those of 
 the Regular Baptist churches, that the comparisons became pain- 
 ful.^ The reforming churches grew by leaps and bounds, while the 
 strictly Baptist churches scarcely held their own, or reported losses. 
 As illustrating the startling effect of this preaching the following 
 story is told of John Whitacre. " On one occasion he was at a meet- 
 ing where several persons were gathered at the altar in prayer for 
 divine power to come down. Among them was a lady of intelHgent 
 appearance who evidently was in deep distress. She prayed that 
 God would give her faith, saving faith; that he would help her 
 to believe in Jesus. When she ceased Whitacre spoke to her; 
 ' Madame,' said he, 'what would you give for faith in Mohamet?' 
 ' Nothing,' was her somewhat indignant reply. ' Why not,' he con- 
 tinued. ' Because,' she rejoined, ' I believe him to be an impostor.' 
 * But why are you so anxious for faith in Jesus Christ ?' ' Because,' 
 said she, * I believe He is my only Savior.' * Well,' said Whitacre, 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, VII. i86. 
 
82 
 
 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 ' why are you praying for that which you say you have ? Why not 
 go forward and obey the Gospel and be made free from sin/ " ^ 
 
 B. W. Stone bears witness to the startHng effect of the new 
 preaching in his own experience (page 45). " When we began first 
 to preach these things, the people appeared as just awakened from 
 the sleep of ages — they seemed to see for the first time that they 
 were responsible beings, and that a refusal to use the means was 
 a damning sin." 
 
 3. Attachment to creeds among the Baptists." 
 
 One of 'Mr. Campbell's greatest protests, as we have seen, was that 
 against creeds as bonds of fellowship and tests of orthodoxy. Bap- 
 tist churches everywhere had their creeds, to which they were more 
 or less devoted. There was no general uniformity of credal state- 
 ment; each church was free to choose its own creed or make one 
 for itself. The Philadelphia Confession came nearer becoming an 
 authoritative Baptist creed, and in fact obtained more general accep- 
 tance among the Baptists, than any other single confession. Entire 
 associations adopted it and pressed it upon the churches. There were 
 other Baptist churches that rejected all human creeds. This was 
 true of the Separate churches especially. Such churches were, of 
 course, very cordial toward the teaching of Campbell. The tradi- 
 tions of the Baptist church and consistency with her professions of 
 loyalty to the Scriptures, placed her among the creedless churches 
 then, as she has become in fact to-day. Yet not a few eminent 
 Baptists in the early years of the nineteenth century went into the 
 field in defense of creeds and confessions of faith.' 
 
 4. The anti-missionary sentiment among the Baptists.* 
 
 Mr. Campbell's opposition to missionary societies in the earl} num- 
 bers of the Christian Baptist doubtless obtained for him the sympa- 
 thy of the anti-missionary element among the Baptists, in so far 
 as his opposition extended to societies and methods. Campbell did 
 not oppose missions, or the conversion of the heathen. He did not 
 share the hyper-Calvinism of that party. It is acknowledged by all 
 Baptist historians that this party carried Calvinism to the extreme 
 of antinomianism. They could never have found sympathy in 
 
 ' Hayden, 89. 
 
 ^Baxter, Life of Scott, 90-100; Hayden, 28-30; Vedder, 192, 193. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, IV. 200. 
 * Christian Baptist, IV. T17. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 83 
 
 Campbell for this. Just how important or numerous were the acces- 
 sions to the ranks of the Reformers from this source is not clear. 
 They applauded Campbell's attack upon the " mercenary methods " 
 of missionary, Bible, and tract societies for raising money, but 
 they could not, however, have favored his cause against creeds and 
 metaphysical speculations. This crusade against societies and a 
 hired ministry was of brief duration. He soon saw the baleful 
 influence of it in unspiritual and selfish persons. It is scarcely possi- 
 ble to reconcile the conflicting accounts of two writers upon this 
 subject, who draw just opposite conclusions from the influence of 
 this anti-missionary party. Newman (History of the Baptists, 441) 
 quotes approvingly the statement of a writer, who says : " Some of 
 the prime friends of missions among the Baptists became converts 
 to Mr. Alexander Campbell's system, and joined him. Thus mis- 
 sions became beyond measure odious." Jeter (Campbellism Ex- 
 amined, 80) says : His opposition to Christian missions and 
 other benevolent enterprises, gained him many friends." " The 
 antinomian Baptists were, almost without exception, hostile to all 
 combined and self-denying efforts among Christians for spreading 
 the knowledge of the Gospel." " They were delighted to find that 
 they had in Mr. Campbell a champion in their cause so zealous 
 and distinguished." It is difficult to see how Campbell would 
 attract the sympathy of both the prime friends of missions and the 
 prime foes of missions. The points of agreement were not numerous 
 enough between Campbell and the antinomians to result in very 
 large accessions to his ranks from them. Moreover, Daniel Parker, 
 the leader of the anti-missionary element in the church, was as bit- 
 terly hostile to Campbell as any opponent he had.^ There is no 
 doubt that Campbell did appeal to the opposers of missions and 
 that he attracted such a following which continues to the present 
 day. It is the more significant in its bearings upon the question 
 to observe that in just those regions of the South and West where 
 the anti-missionary Baptists prevailed, is the region where the anti- 
 missionary element among the Disciples prevails at the present 
 time, namely, in Tennessee, South Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas. 
 
 II. General religious conditions favorable to its success. 
 
 The movement of the Campbells was an outgrowth of the condi- 
 tions of the time. Confessionalism and theological preaching had 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, 185, 191. 
 
84 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 gone to seed in all the churches. The need for a more vital, simple, 
 and biblical gospel was felt everywhere. Revolts against dogma 
 and confessionalism were not confined to any one denomination. 
 
 Several religious movements, all characterized by a desire to 
 return to the Bible, sprang up in the early years of the nineteenth 
 century. These were led, one out of the Baptist Church, by Abner 
 Jones of Vermont, one out of the Methodist Church by James 
 O'Kelly of Virginia, another out of the Presbyterian Church by 
 B. W, Stone of Kentucky. Each of these bodies assumed organic 
 form, shared alike in their opposition to creeds and sectarian names, 
 and took the name Christian. Parts of these three bodies discovered 
 each other and formed the so-called Christian Church," which 
 surv^ives under the modifying designation Connection." The 
 major part of the Stone movement joined the followers of Alexan- 
 der Campbell. The " Church of God " came into being on essen- 
 tially the same principles in 1830. 
 
 Besides these organized and affiliated bodies there were single 
 churches that sought the New Testament basis, which were entirely 
 out of fellowship with other churches : one in Baltimore under the 
 leadership of a Mr. Duncan; one in Philadelphia under the leader- 
 ship of Mr. Chambers; and one in Gettysburg, Pa., under the leader- 
 ship of ^Ir. iMcLean.^ All three were Presbyterian churches. They 
 renounced the authority of the Westminster Confession of Faith and 
 the Presbytery in 1825, and established themselves upon New Testa- 
 ment ground. About 18 18- 1820 a church in New York was organized 
 independently, with the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice, 
 and sought to restore the exact order of the apostolic churches. 
 This church heard of other similar organizations from time to time, 
 and entered into correspondence with them to ascertain the faith 
 and practice of each. The following churches were heard from — 
 one in Edinburg, one in Manchester, and one in Dublin. These 
 are a few out of a multitude of instances of churches, which, 
 unknown to each other, felt that the Protestant churches were 
 departing from the principles of the great Reformation in their 
 faith and practice. These are indications that the spirit of reform 
 was in the air. It belonged to the spirit of the age. None of them 
 have come to such wide-spread influence or strength as the move- 
 ment led by the Campbells." 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, III. 144, 215. 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, V. 88, 97, 155, 169, 234, 276. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" S5 
 
 III. Conditions of success present in the movement. 
 I. The leaders. 
 
 Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander were two of the 
 strongest characters of the age in which they lived. Thomas 
 was unsurpassed in Christlikeness of spirit, keenness of insight, 
 and persuasiveness of speech. All who ever saw him testify 
 to the saintliness of his character, the splendid fatherHness of his 
 bearing. His days of strength and leadership were well nigh over 
 before the real struggle began, in which his son revealed such rare 
 ability. He, however, was the creator, the molding mind and genius 
 of the movement. He gave it birth, laid out the lines of its advance, 
 and provided its axiomatic watch-words in the Declaration and 
 Address. Little new was added, save by way of amplification, by his 
 son. 
 
 Alexander Campbell was, by pre-eminence, the advocate and 
 defender of the principles of the movement. Friend and foe alike 
 acknowledge the supremacy of his endowments for the task allotted 
 him. Says Xewman (History of the Baptists, 489) : *' Alexander 
 Campbell was a man of fair education and of unbounded confidence 
 in his resources and tenets. He was possessed of a powerful per- 
 sonality and was one of the ablest debaters of his age. In the use 
 of caricature and sarcasm he has rarely been surpassed. Through- 
 out the regions that he chose for the propagation of his views, 
 the number of Baptist ministers who could in any way approach 
 him in argumentative power or in ability to sway the masses of the 
 people, was very small." No one thing obtained for him such 
 prestige among the Baptists in this early period as his debates with 
 Walker and ]\Iaccalla. Jeter says (76) : "By his fearless and forci- 
 ble defense of the distinctive sentiments of the Baptists, in his 
 debates with ^Messrs. Walker and Maccalla, he secured extensively 
 the confidence and esteem of the denomination." His debate 
 with Robert Owen, the most famous skeptic of his age, in 1829, at 
 Cincinnatti, and his acknowledged vanquishment of his opponent, 
 won for him an international reputation and the gratitude of the 
 entire Christian world. Owen had challenged the clergy of the 
 United States to debate with him. No one volunteered. He grew 
 bold and boastful. Finally Alexander Campbell wrote an accep- 
 tance of the challenge. 
 
 These leaders were fortunate in the men who gathered around 
 them — Walter Scott, Adamson Bentley, Wm. Hayden in Ohio, 
 
86 
 
 SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 
 
 John Smith, Jacob Creath, Sr., Jacob Creath, Jr., J. T. Johnson, and 
 B. W. Stone in Kentucky. They were all strong men; not many 
 highly educated, but splendidly endowed by nature. They were 
 singularly adapted to the times and the people. The native genius 
 of such a man as John Smith was of the first grade. Jacob Creath, 
 Sr., was pronounced by Henry Clay to be " the finest orator that 
 Kentucky has ever produced." 
 
 2. Their methods. 
 
 The methods they employed were designed to win men. In the 
 forefront of refonnation, they urged the restoration of the apos- 
 tolic preaching. The recovery of the apostolic matter and manner, 
 method and purpose in preaching, was the unique contribution 
 and power of these men. Great emphasis was laid upon the making 
 of converts in every meeting. Their purpose in preaching was to 
 win men to Christ or to their reformatory ideas. The result was an 
 evangelism and a proselytism. This two-fold appeal contributed 
 to their rapid increase as well. To bring men to an immediate deci- 
 sion was the result aimed at. It was this practical, evangelistic turn 
 that gave the movement power and progress. 
 
 The " plan of salvation " as laid down in the New Testament 
 was dwelt upon in all of their preaching and carefully explained 
 from the Scriptures. They studied plainness and simplicity in their 
 public speech. They marked and numbered the steps in the process 
 of salvation. It included: i. Faith; 2, Repentance; 3, Baptism; 4, 
 Forgiveness of Sins ; 5, Gift of the Holy Spirit ; 6, Eternal Life. 
 Such was the answer to the question propounded by the inquiring 
 sinner, " What must I do to be saved ?" The result, as has been 
 noted, were frequent and increasing accessions to the churches. 
 Necessarily these accessions included many proselytes from other 
 churches who had been convinced of the correctness of the princi- 
 ples. IMany regarded this as a second conversion. This simple, 
 direct, and vital evangelism, which has characterized the preaching 
 of the ministers of the Disciples from that day to this, accounts for 
 their rapid growth more than anything else. 
 
 3. Their message. 
 
 Their method explains much of their success, but as great an 
 element of appeal lay in their message. Stated in brief it was, the 
 union of all Christians on the basis of apostolic faith and practice. 
 This proclamation contained t^vo members: i, The union of all 
 Christians. This was the guiding principle, the governing motive. 
 
SPREAD OF THE "ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS" 87 
 
 It was not difficult to convince the Christian communities of that 
 time of the evils of sectarianism and division. Their task so far 
 was an easy one. It was a beautiful vision, a glorious ideal that 
 looked down upon them. The realization of it was a task worthy of 
 the most earnest effort. A united church, of one mind and spirit, 
 marching together to the conversion of the world and the over- 
 throw of infidelity — this had been the prayer of the Master and the 
 dream of the church in all ages, and was to be the immediate 
 achievement of the present generation of Christians, if the churches 
 would only abandon their divisive creeds and confessions, their 
 human systems of doctrine and discipline, and their sectarian names, 
 and return to the Christianity of Christ and his apostles. All 
 agreed to the desirability of the union of all Christians ; but not all 
 agreed as to the way of it, namely : 2, By restoring apostolic Chris- 
 tianity. The controversy began and has ever since waged on this 
 last member. Yet this plan was convincing and captivating to mul- 
 titudes who saw the millennium in the not distant future through its 
 acceptance. There was power of appeal in it, because there was 
 something in it worth while. Then too it was easily understood. 
 Many preachers of mediocre talent found their greatness in its 
 advocacy. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SEPARATION. 
 
 As early as 1828- 1830 the novel propaganda of Alexander Camp- 
 bell began to attract wide-spread attention of a diverse sort. Some 
 said, It is a religious craze buoyed up by sophistry and plausible 
 error, that will soon pass away. Others said, It is born of the devil 
 for the present torment of God's people and ought to be destroyed. 
 Still others said, It is the work of God, who hath raised up a 
 prophet in these last days in the person of the Bethany Sage." 
 
 The same strange stories are told of these days as of the early 
 days of other rising reformers. Many who began by abhorring his 
 errors, or pitying his madness, ended by espousing his cause. Some 
 who came to hear him with stones to stone him (this was literally 
 true of some of the early preachers of the new reformation), stole 
 away in shame to throw away their stones and returned to defend 
 him. The lukewarm, the indifferent, the amused, the bitterly hos- 
 tile, were all won over and composed the stream of recruits grad- 
 ually filling his ranks. Not until such a movement begins to 
 succeed does it draw down upon it the bitterest opposition. If 
 merciless hostility ever bears witness to the success of a thing, we 
 need only consult the number, the eminence, and the bitterness of his 
 opposers to conclude that he had achieved the highest degree of 
 success before 1830. Yet both friend and foe alike testified to his 
 success. In this instance, as in many others, a man's worst foes 
 shall be they of his own house. The Baptists fought the progress 
 of the new ideas more than any other people. They wrote replies, 
 issued decrees, excommunicated his followers, defamed his charac- 
 ter, locked church doors against him and his missionaries, ostra- 
 cized and proscribed them in various quarters, and burned his books 
 and theirs. Such treatment only fanned his ardor and made him 
 friends. 
 
 The Reformers were not wanting in bitterness of reply. While 
 generally they quietly submitted to measures against them, there 
 are instances where they returned reproach for reproach, injury for 
 injury, and blow for blow. There was reason for their conducting 
 themselves becomingly or even meekly before their enemies, for 
 
 S8 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 89 
 
 they had everything to gain and nothing to lose, and many friends 
 could be made by it. They understood that the zeal and frenzy of 
 their opposers were but indications of conscious weakness. The 
 Reformers, on the other hand, were conscious of the strength of 
 their cause and sensible of its steady progress. The process in Bap- 
 tist churches against the Reformers began with opposition to them 
 in local churches and associations, followed by separation from them. 
 
 The earliest opposition arose, as we have seen, in the Redstone 
 Association, the first association with which Campbell had relation. 
 It began as soon as the relation was formed. It was manifest and 
 outspoken in 1816, and by 1823 had become so formidable that 
 Campbell was obliged to withdraw and take fellowship with the 
 Mahoning Association. The enemies of Campbell and his church 
 at Brush Run had been stealthily trying to work up a majority of the 
 churches in the Association against him, but had failed hitherto.' 
 In 1823 they thought they had finally succeeded and could venture 
 a formal motion to drop the church from membership. The with- 
 drawal of Campbell defeated their purpose. The matter was fol- 
 lowed up at the meetings of the Association in 1824 and 1825. At 
 the latter the churches which had not mentioned the Philadelphia 
 Confession in their letters were denied a seat. In 1826 the leaders 
 against Campbell succeeded in organizing the Association out of 
 the messengers from ten churches that favored their project, and 
 cut off formally and one by one the other thirteen churches of 
 the Association as not properly constituted according to Baptist 
 usage. The minority thus withdrew from the majority. These 
 churches thus cut off from fellowship in the Redstone Association 
 met in November, 1826, at Washington and formed a new asso- 
 ciation under the name " The Washington Association." This was 
 the first action against the Reformers by an association.' 
 
 I. Divisions in local churches. 
 
 In Ohio the Baptist church at Nelson, divided in 1824 between 
 those who favored the Articles of Faith," and those who took the 
 Bible alone as the rule of faith and practice. In 1828 the Baptist 
 church at Bazetta divided, and in 1829 the church at Sharon, Pa., 
 just across the Ohio line. Innumerable other smaller schisms took 
 place of which no record has been preserved.^ 
 
 ^Memoirs, 11, 68. 
 
 - Christian Baptist, III. 91 ; IV. 55. 
 ^ Hayden, 22, 282, 269. 
 
90 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
 In Kentucky the first church to take action against " Camp- 
 bellism " was at Lulbegrud, under the ministrations of John Sniith.^ 
 Their grievance was on account of the reading of the " new trans- 
 lation," changes in the formula of baptism, and in the administra- 
 tion of the Lord's supper, as they embodied it in a letter to the 
 North District Association. Grassy Lick church divided in 1829,'' 
 Clear Creek in 1829 — both over the question of human 
 creeds/ The church at South Benson was rent asunder over an 
 attempt to force the Beaver resolutions upon it* The church at 
 iMay slick divided in 1830 over the question of the breaking of 
 bread," The church at Louisville suffered from division in 1830. 
 
 In Virginia the same process was repeated among the Baptist 
 churches. The " First Church " of Richmond divided in 1832.^ In 
 Indiana and Illinois there were divisions in many churches. Local 
 separations between Baptists and Reforming Baptists took place 
 continuously and widely from 1825. The societies of separated 
 Reformers regarded themselves as in a larger Baptist fellowship. 
 Each faction usually laid claim to being the true Baptist church of 
 the place and appointed messengers to the next meeting of the asso- 
 ciation. The matter was thereby transferred to the associa- 
 tion. The struggle of the two sets of messengers for recognition 
 by the association invariably precipitated a division there, the 
 majority being either for or against the Reformers. 
 
 In almost every instance of local division the Baptist element^ 
 was the active aggressor.'^ The Reformers were content to abide 
 with the Regular Baptists provided they were given perfect freedom 
 of testimony against what they regarded as errors of doctrine and 
 practice. In no instance do the Reformers seem to have started an 
 action for the exclusion of the Regular Baptists whether in the 
 majority or minority. They were at liberty to remain in full fellow- 
 ship in churches where the Reformers were in the majority. But 
 the strictly Baptist element, whether in the majority or minority, 
 
 ' Life of Smith, 179. 
 ' Life of Smith, 289. 
 ^Life of Smith, 314. 
 ^Life of Smith, 333. 
 
 "Life of Smith, 384; Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 571; 1831, 185. 
 "Christian Baptist, VI. 146; VII. 79, 249; Benedict, 660; Memoirs, 11. 
 
 363. 
 
 'Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 179; Memoirs, 11. 39S; Jeter, 92; Christian 
 Baptist, VII. 187. 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 would not tolerate the presence of the Reformers. In many 
 instances the excluded party was the larger. The moderator of the 
 North District Association of Kentucky at a meeting in 1829, at 
 which letters of complaint against the Reformers were read from 
 several churches, arose and declared : " Brethren, we can do nothing, 
 for those who are complained against are more numerous than those 
 who complain. There is only one course left to us; that is to 
 withdraw ourselves from them." ^ The Baptists were very anxious 
 to get rid of the Reformers. " Why is it that you Reformers do 
 not leave us ? Go off quietly now and let us alone," said a Baptist 
 to John Smith. " We love you too well for that," replied Smith. 
 " My brother Jonathan once tried to swap horses with an Irishman, 
 but put, perhaps, too great a price on his horse. The Irishman de- 
 clined to trade, and by way of apology, said, Tt would be a great pity, 
 Mr. Smith, to part you and your horse, for you do seem to think so 
 very much of him.' So w^e feel toward you Baptist brethren." ' The 
 refusal of the Reformers to separate themselves from the Baptists 
 grew out of their conscientious objections to division, and the hope 
 that by remaining with them they might be the means of correct- 
 ing some practices of the Baptists. One element of their testimony 
 was a protest against sectarianism and division. They were 
 ready, to a man, to fight for peace." ' The right of the churches to 
 exclude was warmly debated in churches, associations, and papers. 
 In many cases a division involved the title to property which could 
 only be settled by an appeal to the secular courts. The result was 
 that each party blamed the other for the divisions. The Baptists 
 justified their exclusions of the Reformers on the ground of self- 
 preserv'ation, and in the interest of pure doctrine and Baptist usage. 
 The Reformers justified their peculiar teaching on the ground that 
 they were the teachings of the Scriptures to which the Baptists 
 could not object if consistent with their traditions and principles.* 
 2. Divisions in associations. 
 
 The first association to take formal and definite action against — 
 the Reformers was the Redstone of Pennsylvania in 1825-1826. 
 This had a decisive influence upon both churches and associations 
 in their attitude toward this growing party. The thing that preci- 
 
 ^Life of Smith, 297. 
 -Life of Smith, 393. 
 ' Jeter, 88. 
 
 * Christian Baptist, VII. 187. 
 
92 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
 pitated general and determined action against them as a party not 
 entitled to fellowship in Baptist churches, and that introduced the 
 period of complete separation, was the action of the Beaver Asso- 
 ciation of Pennsylvania in 1829/ This action was brought about by 
 a Mr. Winters who had opposed Campbell when both were members 
 of the Redstone Association. The action took the form of a series 
 of resolutions against the errors and corruptions of Campbell and 
 the Mahoning Association, for " disbelieving and denying many of 
 the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures." The following is a list of 
 these resolutions : 
 
 " I. They, the Reformers, maintain that there is no promise of 
 salvation without baptism. 
 
 " 2. That baptism should be administered to all who say they 
 believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, without examination 
 on any other point. 
 
 3. That there is no direct operation of the Holy Spirit on 
 the mind prior to baptism. 
 
 " 4. That baptism procures the remission of sins and the gift 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 " 5. That the Scriptures are the only evidence of interest in 
 Christ. 
 
 " 6. That obedience places it in God's power to elect to salva- 
 tion. 
 
 " 7. That no creed is necessary for the church but the Scrip- 
 tures as they stand. And 
 
 " 8. That all baptized persons have the right to administer the 
 ordinance of baptism." 
 
 These resolutions against the Reformers were copied widely in 
 Baptist papers with commendation. A copy of them was forwarded 
 to Silas M. Noel, pastor of the Baptist church at Frankfort, Ky., 
 " who at once sent up a request to the Franklin Association, which 
 was about to convene at the Forks-of-Elkhorn meeting-house in 
 Woodford County, that the charges of Beaver against the Reform- 
 ers should be indorsed and published by the Association. Franklin, 
 after due consideration, not only complied with that request, but 
 advised all the churches in her connection to discountenance the 
 several errors and corruptions for which Mahoning had already 
 suffered excision." ^ An attempt to have these resolutions spread 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, VII. 269; Memoirs, II. 322. 
 ^Life of Smith, 330. 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 93 
 
 upon the records of the South Benson church failed at first, but 
 succeeded later and led to a division, the anti-creed party of Reform- 
 ers going off and forming a Church of Christ on the Scriptures 
 alone. On account of this action a meeting of the Franklin Associa- 
 tion was called for July, 1830, and a circular letter was written and 
 ordered sent to all the churches of the Association and to other 
 associations with whom they were in correspondence, detailing 
 charges of errors against Campbell and the Reformers/ 
 
 In April, 1830, a minority of the churches of North District 
 Association withdrew fellowship from the majority, taking with 
 them the books and papers, the constitution, and the name. The 
 reforming churches resolved to meet as a " yearly meeting for in- 
 struction and worship.' 
 
 In September, 1830, the Boone's Creek Association of Kentucky 
 rejected the messengers from North District and Tate's Creek, the 
 latter being accused of having departed from her constitution. The 
 Association dropped the six out of thirteen churches from corre- 
 spondence because they rejected their creeds.' 
 
 In June, 1830, a faction of Tate's Creek Association met and 
 excluded their reforming brethren. They drew up a protest against 
 the Reformers, embodying the " Beaver Resolutions " and adding 
 four more errors, namely : 
 
 8. That there is no special caU to the ministry. 
 
 " 9. That the law given by God to ]\Ioses is abolished. 
 
 10. That experimental religion is enthusiasm. And 
 
 11. That there is no mystery in the Scriptures.''. 
 
 They closed their protest by saying: " We intend to have no 
 controversy, but to remain as we are, the Tate's Creek Association 
 of United Baptists." This action was taken by ten of the twenty-six 
 churches composing the Association. They met in August as the 
 regular Tate's Creek Association and resolved to drop corre- 
 spondence with every association that tolerated the heresy of Camp- 
 bellism." * 
 
 In August, 1830, the Elkhorn Association of Kentucky excluded 
 the churches of Versailles and Providence from fellowship, and 
 cut off with them three preachers — Jacob Creath, Sr., Jacob Creath, 
 
 ^ Life of Smith, 347. 
 
 "Life of Smith, 308-310. 
 
 'Life of Smith, 388. 
 
 *Life of Smith, 376. 
 
94 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
 Jr., and Joseph Hewitt. It also cut off the reforming party of North 
 District, represented by John Smith, who was present in person as 
 corresponding messenger." 
 
 In 1830, the Bracken Association of Kentucky took action 
 against the Reformers in refusing to recognize messengers from 
 their churches. In the case of the MaysHck church they recognized 
 the majority, in the case of the Bethel church they recognized 
 the minority, and in the case of the North District Association, 
 they recognized the minority — on the ground in each case that 
 those rejected had embraced a system of so-called reformation and 
 had departed from the original principles of the United Baptists. 
 Their circular letter begins : Dear Brethren. — In addressing you at 
 this time, we lament to have to say, that a dark and gloomy cloud 
 overspreads our horizon unequaled since the establishment of the 
 Baptist society in Kentucky. Associations and churches are divid- 
 ing and of course peace and harmony have departed.'' 
 
 The Union Association and Campbell County Association were 
 both disturbed by separations the same year, the latter, says Bene- 
 dict, " experienced a similar reduction of their strength." ' 
 
 The resolutions of the Beaver Association were heard from in 
 Virginia. They became the model for action by the Appomatox 
 Association. After a preamble from those resolutions, the follow- 
 ing recommendations were passed: 
 
 " I. Resolved, That it be recommended to all the churches 
 composing this Association, to discountenance the writings of Alex- 
 ander Campbell. 
 
 " 2. Resolved, That it be recommended to all the churches in 
 this Association, not to countenance the new translation of 
 the New Testament. * 
 
 " 3. Resolved, That it be recommended to all the churches in 
 this Association, not to invite into their pulpits any minister who 
 holds the sentiments expressed in the Beaver xA.nathema." This 
 action was taken in 1830.' 
 
 More significant, however, than the action of Appomatox, was 
 that of the Dover Association of Virginia, at a meeting December 
 30-31, 1830.'' This was not a regular meeting of the Association, 
 
 ' Life of Smith, 365 ; Christian Baptist, VI. 83. 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 478. 
 
 ' Benedict, 818, 819. 
 
 * Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 261, 328. 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 76. 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 95 
 
 but was called together by the enemies of the Reformers to deal 
 specifically with them. On account of the standing and influence 
 of this Association, and the eminence of the men composing it, the 
 action is of the greatest significance. It marks the beginning of the 
 end of the process of separation. It was decisive for all other asso- 
 ciations. In this Association were Robert Semple and Andrew 
 Broaddus, two of the most representative and honored men of the 
 denomination. The action was started by Robert Semple in his 
 own church at Bruington, by the reading of the following resolu- 
 tion : " Whereas, it has been named to this church that certain 
 persons have been baptized within the bounds of this church, con- 
 trary to our usual regulations, and being also informed that similar 
 occurrences have taken place in neighboring churches, and appre- 
 hensive some unpleasant confusion may arise from it tending to 
 disturb the peace of the churches ; Resolved, That brethren Josiah 
 Ryland, Hugh Campbell, Robert Courtney, and Temple Walker, be 
 appointed a committee to confer with each other and such com- 
 mittees of other churches as may be necessary, who at some future 
 day may report to this church the result of their conference and 
 recommend what measures may be taken for the peace and happi- 
 ness of Zion." 
 
 The church to which Andrew Broaddus ministered was the next 
 to take similar action. A conference was agreed upon, to which 
 eight churches sent committees or delegates. They met at Upper 
 King and Queen meeting-house, December 30, 1830. A committee 
 of nine was appointed " to sit at night at the house of Col. R. M. 
 Garnett, and form a report to be brought forward and considered 
 to-morrow." The conference met the next day to hear the report. 
 After a few general statements as to the mission of the church 
 and the value of associations in preserving it from error and 
 disorder, the grievance of the conference of churches is set forth 
 in the report as follows : " The system of religion known by the 
 name of Campbellism has spread of late among our churches to a dis- 
 tressing extent, and seems to call loudly for remedial measures. Ac- 
 cordingly eight churches deeply aggrieved by the principles and 
 practices of this new party, have sent their respective delegates to this 
 conference, to consult in fear of God, as to the most proper measures 
 to be adopted in the present state of things. The errors of this 
 system are various ; some of them comparatively unimportant, while 
 others appear to be of the most serious and dangerous tendency. 
 
96 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
 Passing by those of inferior magnitude, we will notice such only as 
 strike at the vitals of Godliness and will endeavor to recommend 
 suitable corrections. In principles the errors alluded to may be 
 classed under four heads, viz., the denial of the influence of the Holy 
 Spirit in the salvation of man — the substitution of reformation for 
 repentance — the substitution of baptism for conversion, regenera- 
 tion, or the new birth — and the Pelagian doctrine of the sufficiency 
 of man's natural powers to effect his own salvation. In practice, 
 this party go on to administer baptism in a way radically different 
 from that which has been usual among Baptists, and from what we 
 conceive to be the New Testament usage — making no inquiry 
 into the experience or the moral standing of the subjects, and going 
 from church to church with or without pastors — urging persons 
 to be immersed, and immersing them — in a manner contrary to 
 good order and propriety. The conference, therefore, deeply 
 impressed with a sense of the evils herein noticed, and taking into 
 serious consideration the unhappy state of things thence resulting, 
 have come to the following resolutions: 
 
 " I. Resolved, That we consider the gracious operations of the 
 Holy Spirit in the regeneration and salvation of the soul, as a funda- 
 mental doctrine of the Scriptures and universally maintained by 
 Baptists (such as we hold in fellowship) in all countries. 
 
 " 2. Resolved, That to maintain baptism to be conversion — 
 regeneration — the new birth, and that in baptism sins are actually 
 (not figuratively) washed away, is a radical error, founded in 
 popery and ought not to be countenanced. 
 
 " 3. Resolved, That we consider the doctrine of repentance (or 
 repentance for sin) as held among us, and as set forth in the Scrip- 
 tures, to be of vital importance ; and that in its room to substitute 
 reformation (as is generally understood) tends to subvert one of 
 the main pillars of the Christian religion. 
 
 " 4. Resolved, That to maintain the sufficiency of human nature 
 to the purposes of salvation, with the mere written word, and with- 
 out the gracious influence and aid of the Holy Spirit, is, in our view, 
 a plain contradiction of the Word of God, a denial of the fundamental 
 doctrine held among Baptists, and a vain attempt to introduce the 
 Pelagian scheme, long since exploded. 
 
 " 5. Resolved, That we recommend to our churches, that when 
 any of their members shall maintain any or all of these radical 
 errors, that in love and tenderness, they end^^avor to convince them 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 97 
 
 of their errors ; but in the event of faihng in the object, that in the 
 fear of God, and in the spirit of faithfulness, and after reasonable 
 forbearance, they declare non-fellowship with such, and separate 
 them from their communion as offenders against God and truth, 
 
 " 6. Resolved, That in regard to practice, we advise that our 
 churches take a decided stand against the disorderly and disor- 
 ganizing measures pursued by some of this party, in going among 
 churches and administering baptism upon their new plan — flying 
 in the face of all church order, trampling down all former usages 
 among Baptist churches, and disregarding the peace of the churches, 
 and especially of the pastors. Such a course being subversive of all 
 order and regular church government, ought to receive the most 
 prompt and decided reprehension from the churches. 
 
 " 7. Resolved, That persons thus baptized ought not to be 
 received into any Baptist church of regular standing, but upon 
 strict examination as to experience, moral standing, and the motives 
 which induced them to such step. Conscious, however, that many 
 pious and well-meaning persons may be misled by these preachers, 
 we would advise that every degree of gentleness and affection be 
 exercised towards them. Finally, brethren, we are well aware that 
 m all such cases there will arise many difficulties. We would there- 
 fore recommend the exercise of much prudence, and all reasonable 
 forbearance in any step that may be taken; and especially that 
 you keep a steady eye upon the great head of the Church, who has 
 promised his effectual aid in every season of need. And with this 
 view. Resolved, That this conference recommend to the churches 
 the observation of a day of solemn humiliation, with fasting and 
 prayer, with reference to the state of religion and the distress which 
 has given rise to this meeting. Accordingly, Tuesday, the 8th of 
 March, was appointed for the purpose." 
 
 Robert Semple delivered an " interesting and instructive dis- 
 course, to a crowded and attentive congregation," at the opening of 
 the conference, and closed with "an affectionate and impressive 
 exhortation." Of course the report fell into the hands of Mr. 
 Campbell, and was printed in full in The Millennial Harbinger^ 
 He pleads " not guilty to every item of the bill of indictments." 
 After a rather sharp review of the action of the Dover Association, 
 he corrects what he declares to be misrepresentations of his teach- 
 ing. "We have opposed the whole mystic system of interpreting the 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 81. 
 
98 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
 book, and the idea that God has given us an unintelHgible and 
 incredible testimony. We have taught that our power to believe is 
 not in ourselves, but in the testimony or in him who gives testimony. 
 That God has rendered the testimony credible, or has made us able 
 to believe it, because confirmed by signs, by miracles, by all the 
 gifts of the Holy Spirit. We contend that as the testimony is con- 
 firmed, there is no promise in the book, as there is no need, of 
 supernatural and physical aid to help men to believe. That so soon 
 as men believe sincerely, or in the heart, that Jesus is the Son of 
 God, and the only way and name given to men by which they can be 
 saved, and are immersed into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, they are pardoned, regenerated, saved, adopted, reconciled to 
 God, and receive the Holy Spirit. This is the head and front of our 
 offending. We neither make faith by itself, nor water by itself, nor 
 the blood of Christ by itself, nor the name of the Lord by itself, 
 nor grace by itself, regeneration, conversion, or salvation. We 
 never separate repentance and reformation. We can not conceive 
 of a reformation unto life without a change of mind and sorrow for 
 the past. But we choose to use Bible terms in preference to the 
 scholastic. Without a pure heart and a holy life, we teach that no 
 man can enter into the everlasting kingdom. Baptism, without 
 faith in the blood of Christ, we contend, avails nothing. But that 
 to him that believes and is immersed, we assert that Jesus promised 
 salvation. That immersion to a believer is the sign and medium of 
 remission of sins, we must teach; or, in the words of the book, 
 we must proclaim immersion for the remission of sins to every 
 one that believes God's testimony." He closed his review of the 
 report by proposing to discuss the questions at issue with Semple 
 and Broaddus in the pages of The Millennial Harbinger. 
 
 The report came before Semple's own church at Bruington for 
 adoption, March 5, 1831.^ Broaddus was present to take part in the 
 discussion, so also were six of the ministers who signed the report. A 
 Dr. Duval led the opposition to the report. It was finally voted 
 down. Thus in the very church where the movement started, its 
 issues were rejected. A division in the church was averted for the 
 time being. It need scarcely be added that Mr. Campbell regarded 
 the foregoing statement of his teaching by the Dover Association 
 as a gross misrepresentation, due partly to willful ignorance and 
 partly to blind partisanship. There was some ground for the misun- 
 
 ^ Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 178. 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 99 
 
 derstanding of his position on account of many extreme statements 
 made under the heat of controversy for rhetorical effect. On the 
 other hand it is exceedingly difficult for one man to understand 
 another sympathetically when they are opposed to each other. They 
 tend to to fly apart, not to draw together. Argumentation is always 
 centrifugal not centripetal. No two persons can arrive at a correct 
 understanding of each other when they are determined to prove 
 each other wrong. Two such eminent thinkers and honored lead- 
 ers as Semple and Broaddus could not be charged with want of 
 ability to understand. But there were first of all real differences 
 of thought, and these tended to magnify and multiply the differences. 
 What Campbell really believed and taught he sets forth with brevity 
 and clearness in his reply. 
 
 It was this very element of misrepresentation in all reports of 
 Campbell's views that finally helped him. It was this exaggera- 
 tion in the report of the Dover Association that gave it such an 
 easy defeat in Semple's own church and in his very presence. If 
 two of the ablest leaders and fairest thinkers among the Baptists 
 could thus misunderstand Campbell, what could be expected of the 
 rank and file of the ministry ; what of the average church member ? 
 We must make a very large allowance for misunderstanding if 
 not unfairness in all unfriendly accounts of his teachings, not only 
 by Baptist but all other opponents. 
 
 There being no amendment of affairs or harmonizing of differ- 
 ences between Baptists and Reformers during the next two years, 
 in the fall of 1832 the Dover Association at its regular meeting took 
 the following action: We, therefore, the assembled ministers and 
 delegates of the Dover Association, after much prayerful deliberation, 
 do hereby affectionately recommend to the churches in our connection 
 to separate from their communion all such persons as are promoting 
 controversy and discord under the specious name of ' Reformers.' 
 That the line of distinction may be clearly drawn, so that all who are 
 concerned may understand it, we feel it our duty to declare that 
 whereas, Peter Ainsley, John DuVol, Matthew W. Webber, Thomas 
 M. Henley, John Richards, and Dudley Atkinson, ministers within 
 the bounds of this Association, have voluntarily assumed the name 
 of ' Reformers,' in its party application, by attending a meeting 
 publicly advertised for that party, and by communing with and 
 otherwise promoting the views of the members of that party, who 
 have been separated from the fellowship and communion of Regular 
 
lOO 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
 Baptist churches, Resolved, That this Association can not consistently 
 and conscientiously receive them, nor any other ministers main- 
 taining their views, as members of their body ; nor can they in the 
 future act in concert with delegates from any church or churches 
 that may encourage or countenance their ministrations." The Bap- 
 tist church in Richmond had divided in March, 1832, sixty-eight 
 members going off and forming a church which met for the first time 
 March 4th/ This action of the Dover Association may be said to 
 mark the culmination of separation in Virginia, for just before, the 
 Reformers began to hold separate associations, and this was one of 
 the grounds for the action. 
 
 During the year 1830, which was pre-eminently the year of sepa- 
 ration of Baptists from Reformers, reports are numerous and dark 
 of the state of affairs in Baptist churches. Surely it was a dark 
 period when many times the half of a congregation or the majority 
 of it, went over to the Reformers ; when parts of associations, and 
 the strongest parts, declared for " the ancient order of things." It 
 meant, in many instances, not merely the weakening of Baptist 
 churches, but the closing of church doors, the cessation of public 
 services, the breaking up of old associations, and the estrangement 
 of friends. Not the least was the reproach such divisions brought 
 upon the Christian religion before an unsympathetic world. Bap- 
 tist papers were full of warnings, reproaches, and lamentations 
 over the inroads of the new teachings. The following lamentation 
 is taken from a report of the state of things in Tennessee by Mr. 
 McConnico : 
 
 " My beloved brethren : — Campbellism has carried away many 
 whom I thought firm. These wandering stars and clouds without 
 water ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the 
 truth, make proselytes much more the children of the devil than 
 they were before. O Lord ! hear the cries and see the tears of the 
 Baptists; for Alexander hath done them much harm. The Lord 
 reward him according to his works. Look at the Creaths of Ken- 
 tucky. Look at Anderson, Craig, and Hopwood, of Tennessee. 
 See them dividing churches and spreading discord, and constituting 
 churches out of excommunicated members. Such shuffling — such 
 lying — such slandering — such evil-speaking — such dissembling — 
 such downright hypocrisy — and all under the false name of refor- 
 mation." "They have made a division in Cool Spring church." "The 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1832, 572; Memoirs, H. 364. 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 loi 
 
 Association pronounced the old party the church, and excluded 
 Anderson, Craig, and all who had gone off with them." ''These were 
 a large minority — they say the majority." " At Lepres Fork church 
 a small party have gone over to Campbellism." " At Big Harpeth 
 church, where I have lived and served thirty-two years, ten or twelve 
 members have left us." "At Nashville, P. S. Fall, native of England, 
 and Campbell's best friend, has led off most of that church which 
 was a member of Cumberland Association." " On Saturday before 
 the first Lord's day in September, Willis Hopwood, as is expected, 
 will be excluded and perhaps most of Liberty church will follow 
 him." " Robertson's Fork church, Giles County, will divide, and 
 probably a number will follow Hopwood." " Zion church, Bedford 
 County, I fear, will suffer much from the same new ancient Gospel." 
 "Other churches may have some partial sifting." "The calf too is set 
 up in Alabama.''^ This piece, not all of which has been quoted, 
 appeared in The Columbian Star, under date of July 22, 1830. It 
 was copied in full by Mr. Campbell into The Millennial Harbinger. 
 A. W. Clopton pursued through several numbers of the Star what he 
 called a " Review of Campbellism," gathering from all quarters 
 reports of what was taking place in Baptist churches. The text of 
 his " Reviews " was : " By their fruits ye shall know them." The 
 matter that went in was in illustration of this text. Making due 
 allowance for the somber coloring purposely sought after in such 
 pieces as the above, it is clear that a feeling of alarm and gloom per- 
 vaded the Baptist churches over the divisions and separations that 
 were taking place. 
 
 It is manifest that the year 1830 terminated all hope or prospect 
 of a satisfactory adjustment of differences between Baptists and 
 Reformers, and all possibility of their living and working together 
 harmoniously. During that year the Franklin, the North District, 
 the Boone's Creek, the Tate's Creek, the Elkhorn, the Bracken, the 
 Union, and the Campbell County Associations of Kentucky, the 
 Appomatox and the Dover Associations of Virginia, excluded or 
 anathematized the Reformers and made their fellowship longer with 
 Baptist churches impossible. Their separate existence thus made 
 necessary, the Reformers accepted the inevitable, no matter how 
 serious a disappointment it was to them, or however averse they 
 were to the formation of a new sect. It was difficult, however, to 
 break up all association between Baptists and Reformers at once. In 
 
 ^ Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 542. 
 
I02 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
 many localities the ties that bound the members of a church together 
 had been made strong by long association, mutual interest, or perhaps 
 blood relationship. The Reformers were loathe to give up the privi- 
 leges of a larger fellowship and accept those of a smaller. Separated 
 in one locality, they entered into fellowship in another. Before the 
 yearly meetings of the Reformers had become general, there was very 
 much intermingling in the general gatherings. As late as 183 1 
 Thomas Campbell was received into many Baptist pulpits and heard 
 by Semple and Broaddus during a trip to Virginia. In 1832 Alex- 
 ander Campbell made a trip to the East. " In New York he was 
 refused all the Baptist meeting-houses." The same was true in 
 Philadelphia and other cities where he stopped.^ 
 
 The year 1830 may be said to mark the beginning of the sepa- 
 rate existence and co-operation of the " Disciples of Christ," or "The 
 Christian Church." Both names had been in use without any uni- 
 formity. The term " Disciples " was more largely and preferably 
 used by Campbell and his followers, while the term " Christian," 
 was used by B. W. Stone and his adherents. Campbell conceived 
 a prejudice against the use of the name " Christian " because he 
 felt that it had been sectarianized by the followers of Stone. He 
 feared that a false impression would be made by its application to 
 those who wanted to be free from all entangling alliances of a 
 sectarian or theological sort. The name as popularly applied to the 
 " Stoneites " stood for a denial of the full and proper divinity of 
 Christ. They were called " Arians," " Socinians," or any other 
 name that denoted this heresy. Campbell wanted a name that every 
 child of God could wear without carrying any sectarian distinction. 
 The name Disciples of Christ " had not been appropriated 
 by any sect. This name better than any other at that time seemed 
 to him fitted to designate all true followers of Christ. Since the 
 union of the followers of Stone with the followers of Campbell in 
 1832, both terms, " Christians " and " Disciples," have been in use. 
 Wherever the Stone influence has been dominant, in Kentucky, 
 Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, the term " Christian " 
 prevails as a designation.^ 
 
 No sooner had the Reformers been cast out of Baptist fellow- 
 ship than they began to appoint separate meetings and organize 
 
 ^ Memoirs, II. 362 ; 11. 392. 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, 11. 105; Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 118, 371; 1831, 
 19, 389, 557; Life of Smith, 444, 445. 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 separate associations or conventions. The Mahoning and Still- 
 water Associations of Ohio were the earliest distinct meetings of 
 Reformers or Disciples. These were formed on the basis of the 
 old Baptist Associations bearing the same name. They did not 
 preserve their Baptist features, but in their place they held a 
 yearly meeting " for worship and instruction. The churches on 
 the Western Reserve set the example for all such meetings in all 
 parts of the country. The earliest separate meeting of Reformers 
 in Kentucky was held in October, 1829, at Mount Zion, Clark 
 County, within the boundaries of the North District Association.' 
 It was a three days' meeting," and was called for social worship 
 and exhortation. In 1830 a notice was sent out in the papers that 
 a " three days' meeting similar to the one held at Mount Zion, 
 would be held at Clear Creek," by those friendly to the Reforma- 
 tion under the name of " Baptist Reformers." In May, 1830, a 
 meeting of the " friends and advocates of the ancient Gospel and 
 ancient order of things " " from several counties of Kentucky," was 
 held at Mayslick, Ky., and attended by Alexander Campbell.' The 
 North District Association had dissolved in its Baptist form in 
 
 1 83 1, and resolved to meet for social worship at Sharpsburg in 
 
 1832. ' The chief feature of these yearly meetings was the preach- 
 ing by representative advocates of the new order of things. If 
 the meeting continued over Sunday, the obsers^ance of the Lord's 
 supper was invariably attended to. These meetings were held 
 wherever the Reformers were numerous enough to justify such 
 a meeting. A meeting of all their churches in the region of Nash- 
 ville was held at that place in October, 1832.* Every element of 
 authority over the local churches, every legislative or judicial ele- 
 ment, was sedulously eliminated from these gatherings. So care- 
 ful were they to avoid the abuses of associations, so fearful were 
 they of their tyranny, that they were at first indifferent to any 
 association of churches for purposes other than social worship. 
 This extreme was perfectly natural. The danger was that valuable 
 time and strength should be dissipated in these purely religious 
 meetings without anything being accomplished to further the gos- 
 pel in destitute places. Campbell saw this danger, and in the early 
 
 ^Life of Smith, 310, 325. 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 238. 
 ' Life of Smith, 484-486. 
 * Millennial Harbinger, 1832, 572. 
 
THE SEPARATION 
 
 numbers of the Millennial Harbinger pleaded for some more effec- 
 tive sort of co-operation among the churches.^ 
 
 Such is the process by which the Disciples of Christ became a 
 separate people. All the problems that confront a people thus 
 embarked upon a separate, distinct, denominational existence, came 
 up for discussion in the pages of The Millennial Harbinger, The 
 subjects treated and the spirit of their treatment change. It is 
 evident that a new situation and new responsibilities have arisen. 
 
 ^ Hayden, 296, 461 ; Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 235. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES. 
 
 The causes of the separation lay, as a matter of course, in the 
 differences, either real or imaginary, between the Baptists and 
 Reformers. The Baptists saw danger to their cherished beliefs and 
 their ecclesiastical order in the teachings of Alexander Campbell. 
 He struck at many of the fundamental doctrines that underlay their 
 denominational edifice. It had been rapidly and successfully built 
 up on these doctrines, and they believed their strength was due to 
 them. To take away the doctrines and usages of Baptist faith, 
 would be to remove the cornerstones of the foundation and let the 
 entire building fall. They could not conceive of the replacement 
 of other stones just as sound and adequate. No religious body has 
 ever been known to permit a deliberate replacement of old with new 
 doctrines in the foundation of their faith and life. It would have 
 been hard to convince a Baptist of the first quarter of the nine- 
 teenth century that any other system of doctrine than Calvinism 
 would do, though the early Baptists of New England and the Sepa- 
 rates of Virginia were at first Armenian. Their complete change 
 of front from Armenianism to Calvinism is attributed to their con- 
 flict with the Methodists, who were essentially Armenian. Their 
 antagonists in New England, the Congregationalists, were Calvin- 
 ists. That drove them into the Armenian camp. Their new 
 antagonists in the South and East, the Methodists, were Armenian. 
 That drove them into the Calvinistic camp. The adoption of the 
 Philadelphia Confession in 1742 established permanently the Cal- 
 vinism of the Baptists. 
 
 The differences between Campbell and the Baptists existed from 
 the very beginning of the union, but they were unobserved or con- 
 doned for the sake of obtaining such a rising genius as Campbell 
 as an adherent and advocate. There is no doubt that Campbell 
 added very much to the prestige and favor of the Baptists among 
 the people during all the time of his relationship with them. He 
 was the ablest, most brilliant and versatile man they had during 
 that period. All his influence accrued to the Baptists. The con- 
 verts he made joined their churches. The victories he won in 
 
 105 
 
zo6 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 the debates with John Walker, W. L. Maccalla, and Robert Owen, 
 were set down to the Baptists. A Baptist who had no sympathy 
 with Campbell's ideas, wrote in 1830: We take pleasure in 
 owning him as the conqueror of Walker and IMaccalla on baptism ; 
 and the Christian public must hail with gratulation, the complete 
 discomfiture of the atheist Owen." ' 
 
 I. The chief points of agreement." 
 
 ^Ir. Campbell and the Baptists were agreed on the main doctrines 
 of Christian faith, which they held in common with all Protes- 
 tants: the authority of the Scriptures, justification by faith, the 
 atonement, the divinity of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the resur- 
 rection, and the future retribution of the wicked. They were of 
 one mind on many secondary doctrines and usages: the form of 
 baptism, the proper subject of baptism, the elements of Christian 
 worship, the observance of the Lord's day, the organization of the 
 local congregation, and the ordination of the ministry. There 
 were far more points of agreement than of difference. 
 
 II. The chief points of disagreement. 
 
 These were of two sorts, doctrinal and practical. Taking them 
 up, as far as possible, in the order of their historical emergence, let 
 us treat 
 
 I. Differences in doctrine and principle, 
 (i) The relation of the covenants. 
 
 Differences developed on this subject earlier than on any other. 
 The controversy was precipitated in 18 16 by the delivery of the 
 Sermon on the Law.' Campbell taught that the Old Testament or 
 Covenant had been abrogated by Christ when he instituted the New 
 Covenant. The Old Covenant was a covenant of w^orks, and was 
 for Jews; the New Covenant is a covenant of faith founded on 
 promises, and is for the Christian. Hence the laws and require- 
 ments of the Old Covenant are not binding upon Christians. The 
 abrogation of the Old Covenant carried with it the law of feasts, 
 fasts, sabbaths, new moons, circumcision, sacrifices, the decalogue, 
 in a word, the entire legislation under the Old Covenant. He did 
 not mean by this that the Old Testament, which contains the written 
 record and memorials of the Old Covenant, was of no value to the 
 Christian, or that it should not be read, or that it contained no 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 133; 1830, Extra 21. 
 
 ^^Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 135. 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1846, 493; Memoirs, I. 471. 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 107 
 
 divine elements. He simply denied the authority of it for the Chris- 
 tian. He believed its essential parts had been re-enacted in the New 
 Covenant, and by so much and only thus, was it binding.^ 
 
 On the contrary, the Baptists taught the equal authority of both 
 Old and New Covenants. Robert Semple voiced Baptist belief in 
 the following words : " Now against this sentiment I must beg 
 leave to enter my most solemn protest. I aver that the Old and 
 New Testaments are essentially the same as to obligation, and 
 stand in the same relation to each other and to us, as different parts 
 of the New Testament do to each other. Some parts of the Old 
 Testament have been declared in the New Testament as abrogated ; 
 and many others, being obviously temporary, ceased to be obliga- 
 tory, because every object has been accomplished for which they 
 were originally given." 
 
 The issue was fairly joined and the difference manifest. The 
 Baptists believed the Old Testament binding as a whole; Campbell 
 believed it abrogated as a whole. One of the recurring charges 
 against Campbell was that he " threw away the Old Testament." 
 It was embodied in the accusations of the Tate's Creek Associa- 
 tion. There was no compromise possible on the subject. It is 
 fair to observe that the Baptists as a whole no longer hold this 
 view. With the entire world of scholarship they now hold more 
 nearly what Campbell taught in 1812 and 1816, and ever after.* 
 
 (2) The design of baptism. 
 
 Mr. Campbell regarded the discovery of the design of baptism as 
 one of the most important contributions to the proper understand- 
 ing of the ancient order of things. Stated in the language of Scrip- 
 ture, baptism was " for the remission of sins." He taught that 
 baptism was a condition of entrance into the kingdom of heaven, a 
 prerequisite to the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy 
 Spirit. He sought to apprehend the significance erf it as set forth 
 in the teaching and practice of the apostles, and to restore it to its 
 rightful place in the church of to-day. 
 
 In his debate with Walker in 1820, he observed that baptism 
 was connected with the remission of sins in the New Testament.* 
 In the appendix to the debate he says : " Baptism is an ordinance 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1891, 9, 67, 193. 
 -Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 9- 
 ^Memoirs, II. 28; Christian Baptist, III. 206. 
 * Memoirs, II. 20, 36. 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 by Avhich we formally profess Christianity." In his debate with 
 ]Maccalla in 1823 he went farther and attempted to explain the 
 connection by saying that baptism formally washes away our sins, 
 while the blood of Christ really washes them away. Writing in 
 January, 1828, he says: ''In my debate with Mr. ^laccalla in 
 Kentucky, 1823, on this topic, I contended that it was a divine 
 institution designed for putting the legitimate subject of it into 
 actual possession of the remission of his sins — that to every believ- 
 ing subject it did formally, and in fact, convey to him the forgive- 
 ness of sins. It was with much hesitation I presented this view of 
 the subject at that time, because of its perfect novelty. I was then 
 assured of its truth, and, I think, presented sufficient evidence of 
 its certainty." ^ He wrote in the same year : " The first three 
 thousand persons that were immersed after the ascension of Christ 
 into heaven, were immersed for the remission of their sins with 
 the promise of the Holy Spirit. I am bold, therefore, to affirm, 
 that every one of them who, in the belief of what the apostle spoke, 
 was immersed, did, in the very instant in which he was put under 
 the water, receive the forgiveness of his sins, and the gift of the 
 Holy Spirit." ' 
 
 He is conscious here that he is making an extreme statement of 
 the matter. In all of his writing on the subject he has before him 
 the possibility of being charged with the doctrine of baptismal 
 regeneration. He seems in a strait in his endeavor to be true 
 to New Testament teaching, and escape baptismal regeneration.* 
 He does not always escape both the Scylla and Charybdis. While 
 his language at times verges upon the doctrine of baptismal regen- 
 eration, yet he would be the first to repudiate the doctrine. He had 
 a difficult task, to state the essentiaHty or necessity of baptism and 
 avoid attributing to it a magical effect. In response to a critic he 
 says : I have carefully considered all that you have advanced 
 and many other communications to the same effect; and instead of 
 weakening my assurance that the act by w^hich we put on Christ, 
 the act by which we come to Christ, the act by which we confess 
 Christ, the act by which we become disciples of Christ, the act by 
 which we come into the kingdom of Christ, the act by which we 
 are married to Christ, the act by which we receive the pardon of 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, V. 121. 
 ^Christian Baptist, V. 161. 
 ^ Christian Baptist, V. 212. 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 109 
 
 our past sins, the act by which we come into the actual enjoyment 
 of the salvation of Christ in this present life — is the act of immer- 
 sion into the name of Christ ; which act presupposes faith in him." ^ 
 Campbell meant to affirm no more than the Scriptures affirm 
 when they say : " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved " ; 
 " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not 
 enter into the kingdom of God " ; '* Repent ye, and be baptized 
 ever}' one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of 
 your sins ; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit " ; For 
 by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body ; " As many as 
 have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ " ; The like 
 figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us " ; Arise 
 and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." If he affirmed in his own 
 interpretation of these declarations more or less than they teach, 
 he did not intend it. He had no dogma to prove, His only purpose 
 seems to have been to find out the teachings of the Scriptures. 
 There was one constant insistence in all of his references to the 
 matter, that baptism is connected in some sense with the remission 
 of sins. 
 
 This is clear from a study of the entire history of the contro- 
 versy, that the Reformers laid an emphasis upon baptism and gave 
 it a significance not given it by any other people. Persons who 
 made a confession of their faith in Christ were at once told to get 
 ready for baptism at the earliest possible moment. That was the 
 culminating act of submission to Jesus, the final step into the king- 
 dom. Doubtless, in the minds of advocates less discriminating in 
 their thought and speech than Campbell, baptism became a saving 
 ordinance. Not so in Campbell's mind. We may attribute to him 
 before 1830, the view enunciated in the debate with Rice in 1842 : 
 " I do not make baptism absolutely essential to salvation in any 
 case." ' 
 
 The Baptists, however, understood him to teach : That there 
 is no promise of salvation without baptism " : " That baptism pro- 
 cures the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit " ; " That 
 in baptism sins are actually washed away." It need not be surpris- 
 ing that Campbell's position was misstated in the foregoing charges. 
 They were made under the heat of controversy, and with the express 
 purpose of showing him in error. Taking this fact into account 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist. VII. 165 ; Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 82. 
 'Debate with N. T. Rice, 519. 
 
no 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 along with two others, namely, that it is not easy to use the lan- 
 guage of Scripture concerning baptism in its first literal import 
 without conveying the thought, and that the teaching of Campbell 
 was frequently gathered from newly made advocates, one has suffi- 
 cient possibilities for misunderstanding. Campbell considered bap- 
 tism always in connection with its antecedents, faith and repen- 
 tance. The New Testament knows of no separation. 
 
 In the famous "Extra No. i," printed in The Millennial Har- 
 binger of 1830, he makes the most systematic and elaborate exposi- 
 tion of his views of the design of baptism. He there draws a dis- 
 tinction between a change of heart and a change of state. Faith 
 and repentance designate the change of heart, baptism the change of 
 state. The terms pardon, justification, sanctification, reconcilia- 
 tion, adoption, and salvation, as applied to Christians in the New 
 Testament, represent a state, not a character. He says : " A change 
 of heart, though it necessarily precedes, is in no case equivalent to, 
 and never to be identified with a change of state." ' He likens the 
 change to the marriage relation. Two persons, a man and a woman, 
 may meet and be perfectly indifferent if not hostile to each other. 
 A change of views with respect to each other takes place. This 
 precedes a change of heart, if they eventually fall in love. Their 
 state is not changed until the marriage ceremony is performed. 
 Love is expressive of a change of heart, marriage of a change of 
 state. Love is not to be regarded as a change of state, though it 
 precedes it. He goes still further and says that a change of state 
 does not necessarily follow the change of heart. " So in religion 
 a man may change his views of Jesus and his heart may also be 
 changed towards him; but unless a change of state ensues he is 
 still unpardoned, unjustified, unadopted, and lost to all Christian 
 life and enjoyment." " Some act, then, constitutional, by stipula- 
 tion proposed, sensible and manifest, must be performed by one 
 or both the parties before such a change (of state) can be accom- 
 plished." 
 
 This is what is meant by " the obedience of faith." The gospel 
 contains a command, which must be obeyed. There can be no 
 obedience without a command. " That it is not faith, but an act 
 resulting from faith which changes our state," he goes on to show. 
 The act which changes the state is immersion. He calls it a " dis- 
 cipling institution " from the command, " Go ye therefore and make 
 
 ^ Millennial Harbinger, 1830, Extra 10. 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 1 1 i 
 
 disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
 Father," etc. He says further : " One reason why we should arrest 
 the attention of the reader to the substitution of the terms convert 
 and conversion, for immerse and immersion in the apostolic dis- 
 courses and in the sacred writings, is not so much for the purpose of 
 proving that the forgiveness of sins, or a change of state, is neces- 
 sarily connected with that act of faith called ' Christian immersion.' 
 as it is to fix the minds of biblical students upon a very important 
 fact, viz., that immersion is the converting act; or, that no person 
 is discipled to Christ until he is immersed." Immersion and 
 regeneration are two Bible names for the same act, contemplated 
 in two different points of view." This proposition he deduced from, 
 the passage, Titus, 3 15 : God hath saved us by the washing of 
 regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." By an examina- 
 tion of his Extra Xo. 2 " {Millennial Harbinger, 1831), on baptism, 
 it is clear that he did not mean the same thing by regeneration that 
 his critics meant. He used it in what he thought was its New Tes- 
 tament sense. What is popularly called regeneration he thought 
 was more correctly expressed in Scripture as, " The renewing of the 
 Spirit" (Christian Baptist, 11. 170). The whole controversy arose 
 out of a change in the meaning of terms used. He distinguished 
 between being born of water and being born of the Spirit. Regen- 
 eration is synonymous with the former, renewing of the Spirit 
 with the latter. Regeneration is the preparatory cleansing process, 
 the putting off of the old man, in readiness for the creation of the 
 new man by the Spirit. Regeneration or baptism makes one fit for 
 the kingdom or the school of Christ. " But the renewal of the 
 Spirit is the entire purification of the heart, the decoration of the 
 character, the fitting of the separated for an inheritance among 
 the sanctified." The former, regeneration, concerns entrance into 
 the present kingdom. It is the birth, not the growth. " Tis educa- 
 tion and not birth that makes the Christian ; but yet unless a person 
 is born he can not be educated ; unless he enter the kingdom of 
 Jesus he cannot enjoy the rights of a citizen." In thus defining 
 regeneration he deprived it of its current meaning. Hence also his 
 understanding of the words convert " and " conversion," was 
 different from the accepted meaning. Likening conversion to a race 
 he said: "Conversion is just the entrance or starting point in the 
 race." He used the term kingdom of God " in a sense not com- 
 mon to the speech of the day. It meant to him simply the present, 
 
112 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 earthly society of Christians. He distinguished this from the 
 future, everlasting kingdom. They were, in his thinking, two dif- 
 ferent kingdoms. He was seriously at fault in changing the mean- 
 ing and use of terms after the controversy had begun. 
 
 He maintained that it would have been impossible for the 
 apostles to speak to their converts as pardoned, justified, sanctified, 
 saved, had there not been some act, such as immersion, agreed on 
 all hands, to be the medium of remission and the act of conversion 
 and regeneration." " They taught all the disciples to consider not 
 only themselves as saved persons, but all whom they saw, or knew 
 to be immersed into the Lord Jesus." He closed the " Extra on 
 Remission " by submitting interpretations of the church fathers 
 and the leading modern denominational commentators in favor of 
 his view that " immersion is the regeneration and remission of sins 
 spoken of in the New Testament." He says that he exhibited the 
 doctrine in the Maccalla debate, without feeHng its great impor- 
 tance and without beginning to practice upon its tendencies for 
 some time afterwards." He dwells upon its value for the religious 
 life. " A change of state so great, so sensible, so complete, so sud- 
 den, operates more like the ancient cures than the cold, dark, 
 and tedious mental regenerations of the philosophizing theologians. 
 The propositions now proved and illustrated, must convince all, 
 that there is some connection between immersion and the forgive- 
 ness of sins." " What that connection is may be disputed by some, 
 but that such a connection exists, none can dispute who acknowl- 
 edges the New Testament to contain a divine communication to 
 man." " Nothing remains, but that it be considered, what it is in 
 truth, the accompanying sign of an accompanying remission; the 
 sign and the seal, or the means and the seal of remission then 
 granted through water, connected with the blood of Jesus, by divine 
 appointment, and through our faith in it." 
 
 One must confess a difficulty in arriving at a just construction 
 of Campbell's doctrine of baptism. Taking one set of expressions 
 or passages from his writings, the conclusion would be inevitable 
 that he taught a doctrine of baptismal regeneration — that no one 
 was safe or could be saved without it, no matter what his Christian 
 life or experiences had been. But this conclusion is set aside by 
 his idea of the difference between the Christian state and the Chris- 
 tian character, and the present and future kingdoms of God. From 
 another set of passages one would conclude that he differed in no 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 essential respect from the Baptist doctrine, namely, that baptism is 
 a sign or symbolic figure of an inner spiritual transformation. Such 
 expressions as " sign," " seal," " medium," etc., are used with 
 reference to it. But that does not account for the bitter opposition 
 of Baptists to his teaching, and the conviction in Campbell's own 
 mind that he differed from their teaching. The difference was 
 really not so great as each tried to make out. There are indica- 
 tions that Campbell was not sure of his own bearings at every stage. 
 He makes no concealment of the fact that he gradually came to his 
 view of it, and so must have been less certain of his ground at 
 one stage than at another. The progress in his thinking, or rather 
 the variation in his expression of it, is more or less marked. Bap- 
 tism is not the same to him at one time that it is at another ; some- 
 times it means more, sometimes less. His difficulty lay in his 
 attempt to rationalize the doctrine of the phrase, " for the remission 
 of sins " — to interpret in other language that which the Scrip- 
 tures do not interpret. 
 
 The following conclusions are offered as a fair statement of his 
 doctrine of baptism : 
 
 1. The remission of sins (in the New Testament teaching) 
 synchronizes with the act of baptism. 
 
 2. Baptism is an act of faith in Jesus Christ, and of repentance 
 toward God, expressed in an immersion in water. In other words, 
 faith and repentance are so closely identified with the act of bap- 
 tism, that baptism becomes a synonym for regeneration. For this 
 reason, that the act of baptism received its meaning from the spirit- 
 ual exercise of faith and repentance going before it, he strenuously 
 opposed any delay in the administration of the act after the confes- 
 sion of one's faith publicly. 
 
 3. Its design is, therefore, to serve as the visible meeting place 
 of God and the penitent soul, in which the sinner witnesses his 
 faith in and acceptance of Christ, and God grants the forgiveness 
 of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. He thought of God as 
 really acting on behalf of the sinner at that time. Baptism is a 
 visible token of a covenant relation, in which God agrees to remit 
 the sins of him who comes in the spirit of penitence.^ 
 
 4. Its religious value is its chief value to men. This value 
 lies in its authoritative declaration to the sinner that he is forgiven, 
 is free from condemnation, and is an heir of eternal life. It declares 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1831, Extra 13, 45- 
 
114 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 to the world that such a one is now a member of the company of the 
 children of God. It is the final step into the kingdom of God. He 
 says : " At what instant of time do we enter this kingdom, or come 
 under the reign of God, and by what means ? I say the moment we 
 vow allegiance to the King in the constituted way — the moment 
 we are naturalized — the moment we are born of water and of the 
 Spirit — the moment we put on Christ — the instant we are con- 
 verted and not before." ' 
 
 Taking into account both his affirmations and denials on the 
 subject, we must conclude as follows : 
 
 (1) He did not teach the doctrine of baptismal regeneration; 
 that is, that there is any efficacy in the water or the act alone. 
 Baptism must always be preceded by faith and repentance. 
 
 (2) He did not teach that baptism was absolutely necessary 
 to salvation. It is not essential or efficacious in the same sense as 
 faith or repentance. 
 
 (3) Its significance and value is chiefly for man. Man needs 
 it, not God. It declared or mediated to man the act of divine for- 
 giveness. 
 
 (4) He did not teach that the act of baptism is meritorious 
 morally or spiritually. It is instrumental, mediatorial. The be- 
 liever looks beyond it. It is symbolic. It is not an end in itself. To 
 stop with it, is to defeat its purpose. 
 
 (5) It is not an act of the body, but of the spirit, in obedience. 
 He says (Millennial Harbinger, 1831, Extra 19): "There are no 
 acts of worship, or of religion ordained by Jesus Christ, that are 
 at all to be regarded as outward or external bodily acts." " But the 
 spirit of man can not act at all without the body ; it can not think, 
 if the brain be not exercised; it can not speak, unless the tongue 
 be moved ; it can not feel, but by the nerves ; it can not move, but 
 by the organs of the body. How unreasonable, then, to separate, 
 or to regard human action in reference to the particular organ 
 which operates. Immersion is as spiritual an act, when proceeding 
 from faith in God's promises, as any act in which a person is 
 either active or passive. Faith is as much a bodily act as immersion. 
 No man without the exercise of his senses can believe anything. 
 ' Faith comes by hearing,' says a master in Israel." 
 
 (6) Baptism is for the remission of sins in the sense that in 
 baptism, or at the time of baptism, the subject of it appropriates 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 136. 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 the fact, and from that time onward, acts upon the knowledge and 
 assurance of the forgiveness of sins.' 
 
 (7) Baptism changes the state of the beHever. It does not 
 change the moral or spiritual character of the believer, only as the 
 consciousness of being in a new state or relationship to God and 
 men, operates to confirm his purpose in it. State reacts upon char- 
 acter ; the marriage state upon devotion to marital duties. Baptism 
 introduces one into the kingdom of God, a state or society. It 
 creates the consciousness of being a m.ember of a new order of 
 things.^ 
 
 The writer appreciates the difficulty of the task of making a 
 consistent and harmonious statement of the doctrine from such 
 diverse materials. It was Campbell's conviction that baptism had 
 lost the place and significance it held in apostolic times. The form 
 of it had been changed from immersion to affusion. This entailed 
 the loss of a beautiful and impressive symbol. The proper subject 
 for it was no longer confined to the penitent believer. Thus it lost 
 its purpose and import. If the churches were generally agreed to 
 or oblivious of these losses, that was nothing against his duty or 
 determination to restore baptism to its apostolic place. Neither 
 was he deterred from his purpose by the consideration that all the 
 value of it had been enjoyed without it, by Quakers and others. 
 His response would be that the Xew Testament made no provision 
 for a perversion of the appointments of the Gospel, much less antici- 
 pated the nature of them. That would be to invite them. Christ 
 and his apostles provided for a perpetual normal order. \\'hat 
 readjustments might be made necessary, they did not provide for. 
 In any event, the purpose of God to save men would not be 
 defeated. 
 
 His methods of interpretation were those of the biblical theo- 
 logian. In many ways he anticipated the modem science of '* Biblical 
 Theology." He says : The first and all-important inquirv^ with me, 
 in reading the oracles of God, has long been, is now, and, I presume, 
 while I live, will be, what were the exact ideas that the writers of 
 the New Testament associated with the terms which they used." 
 His limitations and interested purposes very frequently prevented a 
 consistent application of his principles.' 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 498; Christian Baptist, VI. 157, 158. 
 'Millennial Harbinger, 1831, Extra 8, 9; 1830, 136. 
 ' Millennial Harbinger, 1831, Extra 25. 
 
ii6 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 We need but place alongside of this view of baptism, that of the 
 Baptists, to understand the opposition it would immediately awaken. 
 " Baptism is a sign, or declaration of forgiveness actually received 
 and enjoyed by faith in Christ"; "a sign of what has already 
 taken place" (Jeter, 249). The Reformers baptized a believer to 
 make (completely make) him a Christian; the Baptists, because 
 he is a Christian. To the Reformers it was a rite of initiation 
 into the church; to the Baptists, it was a rite of recognition of 
 membership in the spiritual, invisible church of Christ. The Re- 
 formers taught that baptism formally washes away sins; the Bap- 
 tists, that it figuratively washes away sins.^ The Reformers made 
 no distinction in practice between the visible and invisible church, 
 as the Baptists did. They identified the kingdom of God with 
 the local congregation; the conditions of entrance into the former 
 were made the conditions of entrance into the latter. 
 
 (3) The operation of the Holy Spirit in conversion and 
 regeneration.' 
 
 The doctrine of the Baptists of that day, and indeed of all 
 Calvinistic bodies, was, that the soul of the unbeliever is " dead 
 in trespasses and in sins " ; that he is utterly powerless to believe 
 or help himself out of his condition ; that the Holy Spirit comes in 
 response to prayer and communicates spiritual life, thus regenerat- 
 ing the soul, and enabling him to turn to God in repentance and 
 to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 In opposition to this, Campbell taught, that though the sinner is 
 dead in trespasses and in sins, he has it in his power to believe and 
 help himself ; that he need but act upon the means divinely put at 
 his service in the Scriptures to become a new creature; that the 
 Word of God is such a means for the creation of faith and the 
 regeneration of the soul; that the Holy Spirit operates through 
 the word, not by direct impact upon the soul of the unbeliever ; that 
 the Spirit is not given to the sinner but only to those who have 
 believed, repented and been baptized. 
 
 (a) Concerning the origin of faith, he taught that it was the 
 result of testimony. In exercising faith in the religious sense, men 
 are but using a faculty or power of the mind which they exercise in 
 
 ^Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 79. 
 Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 287; Christian Baptist, V. 14S, 193, 217; H- 
 53; Life of Smith, 146, 161, 216, 287, 305, 4^7, 377, 395- 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 117 
 
 Other things. " The fact beheved always operates according to its 
 own nature." " Evidence alone produces faith, or testimony is all 
 that is necessary to faith." " To exhort men to believe, or to try 
 to scare them into faith, by loud vociferations, or to cry them into 
 faith by effusions of natural or mechanical tears, without submit- 
 ting evidence, is as absurd as to try to build a house or plant a 
 tree in a cloud." Faith abstracted from facts, produces no sub- 
 stantial, no real effect." " A man might as reasonably expect to 
 support animal life by the simple act of chewing as to be saved by 
 the mere act of believing. It is not a man's eating that keeps him 
 alive, but what he does eat; so it is not a man's believing that 
 saves his soul, but what he does believe." " No person can help 
 believing, when the evidence of truth arrests his attention, and 
 without evidence it is as impossible to believe as to bring some- 
 thing out of nothing." " The term faith is used in the Bible in the 
 commonly received sense of mankind, and the faith which we have 
 in the testimony of God differs from that we have in the testimony 
 of men in this one respect only, that as men may be deceived and 
 may deceive others, so the confidence we repose in their testimony 
 in some instances may be limited ; but as God cannot be deceived 
 himself neither can He deceive others, so the confidence we have in 
 His testimony is superior to that we repose in the testimony of 
 men; and as the word comes to us in demonstration of the Holy 
 Spirit, or attested unto us by the supernatural gifts which accom- 
 panied the testimony of the original witnesses, so it affords the 
 highest possible evidence, and therefore produces the greatest 
 confidence." ^ 
 
 Hence in his view faith preceded regeneration or was rather 
 a means to it and was included in the process. He says : " The 
 popular belief of a regeneration previous to faith, or a knowledge 
 of the Gospel, is replete with mischief." " A devout preacher 
 told me, not long since, that he was regenerated about three years 
 before he believed in Christ. He considered himself as born again 
 by a physical energy of the Holy Spirit, as a dead man would be 
 raised to life by the mighty powers of the Eternal Spirit. Upon 
 his own hypothesis, he was three years a godly unbeliever; he was 
 pleasing and acceptable to God ' without faith ' and if he had died 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, III. 277; II. 14; Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 355; 
 Christian Baptist, L 216. 
 
ii8 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 during the three years, he would have been saved, though he 
 beheved not the gospel." ' Such a thing was inconceivable if not 
 ridiculous to Campbell. " The purification of our hearts, the refine- 
 ment of our feelings, the elevation of our character, the reformation 
 of our lives, are the inseparable fruits of the belief of the one fact 
 (Jesus is Christ) upon the evidence contained in the faithful 
 record." 
 
 (b) Concerning the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion, he 
 taught that the Spirit revealed the word of truth and then attested 
 it by signs and wonders. " The truth to be believed could never 
 have been known but by the revelation of the Spirit; that though 
 it had been pronounced in the most excellent language, yet it could 
 not have been believed with certainty but by the miracles which 
 w^ere offered in attestation of it." ^ The work the Spirit does in 
 revealing accounts for its being called the " Spirit of Wisdom " ; 
 that which it does in attesting, accounts for its being called the 
 " Spirit of Power." Both of these exercises of the Spirit were con- 
 fined to the apostolic age in the establishment of Christianity. 
 Hence revelations and miracles have ceased. But the work the 
 Spirit does in the sanctification of souls, on account of which it is 
 called the " Spirit of Holiness or Goodness," continues perpetually 
 in the church. In the series of essays in the Christian Baptist on 
 " The Holy Spirit," he attributes the provision of the means of 
 salvation to the Spirit, and believes that its miraculous work ceased 
 with that. This preparatory work of the Spirit was all-important. 
 So far both Baptists and Reformers were agreed. They parted 
 company on the doctrine of the direct, irresistible, and physical 
 influence of the Spirit upon the soul of the sinner. They joined 
 company again on the doctrine of the Spirit's work in the 
 Christian.' 
 
 The doctrine that a man is totally depraved and can not turn to 
 a life of righteousness until God is pleased to send his Spirit to 
 quicken him, seemed to Campbell not only untrue but immoral in 
 its influence. It dishonored the word of that Spirit in the Scriptures, 
 and discouraged the sinner. He taught that the word of truth in 
 Scripture is the regenerating power of the Spirit. He pointed to 
 abundant illustration of it in the writings and preaching of the 
 
 ' Christian Baptist, I. i86, 244. 
 'Christian Baptist, 11. 16. 
 ' Christian Baptist, I. 184. 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 119 
 
 apostles. He observed that they preached the word, or the Gospel, 
 or Christ, to the people, in contrast with the preachers he heard, 
 who preached the Holy Spirit, and called upon him to come down 
 and convert the unbelieving. Such a thing seemed so blind when 
 the Spirit had sent the word, confirmed by signs and wonders, the 
 records of which were to be found in every Bible. He says : " The 
 present salvation is not a change of body, nor of perception, mem- 
 ory, judgment, imagination, reason; not of the intellectual and 
 animal; but of the moral nature of man." " The means (of man's 
 moral reformation) must be moral unless we can think that physical 
 causes can produce moral effects." ^ God uses means in the accom- 
 plishment of His purposes in the world. In communicating moral 
 influence to men, God uses the same means that men do in com- 
 municating moral influence to their kind. He addresses the under- 
 standing, the will, and the affections through ideas embodied in 
 words. " No other power than moral power can operate on minds ; 
 and this power must always be clothed in words, addressed to the 
 eye or ear." And when we think of the power of the Spirit of 
 God exerted upon minds or human spirits, it is impossible for us to 
 imagine that that power can consist in anything else but words or 
 arguments." " As the spirit of man puts forth all its moral power 
 in words which it fills with its ideas, so the Spirit of God puts 
 forth all its converting and sanctifying power in the words which 
 it fills with its ideas." " We plead that all the converting power 
 of the Holy Spirit is exhibited in the Divine Record." The words 
 must be understood, however, to have their moral influence.* 
 
 This teaching was the cause of much opposition from the Bap- 
 tists, and the basis of many charges. He was accused of " denying 
 the Holy Spirit." Sometimes his doctrine was stated correctly in 
 charges and resolutions, as in the Beaver resolutions : That there 
 is no direct operation of the Holy Spirit on the mind prior to bap- 
 tism " or in the charges of the ]\Iayslick church : " Denying the 
 direct influence of the Spirit till after baptism." * At other times 
 he was misrepresented as in the Dover resolutions : " The denial 
 of the influence of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men." ^ Re- 
 
 ^ Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 287 ; ^Memoirs, H. 354. 
 ^ iMillennial Harbinger, 1831, 396. 
 ^Life of Smith, 330. 
 * Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 571. 
 Millennial Harbinger, 1831, 76, 535. 
 
I20 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 plying to a communication, he said : " Did you ever read anything 
 I have written, denying the operation or agency of the Holy Spirit 
 in the conversion of sinners? No, you did not. Neither have I 
 written anything to that effect." But of the mystic influences, 
 independent of the Lord, and the physical operations upon the 
 hearts of men, zvithoiit the word, so much talked of and prayed for, 
 I learn nothing in the sacred writings." ' 
 (4) The use of confessions of faith.'' 
 
 The Baptists generally believed in the utility, if not the neces- 
 sity of confessions of faith to preserve soundness and uniformity of 
 doctrine. They were a good thing in themselves and a useful supple- 
 ment to the Scriptures. Campbell was squarely opposed to any use 
 of creeds and confessions of faith. They were an evil in them- 
 selves as bonds of fellowship or tests of orthodoxy, whether they 
 contained true or false doctrine. He would not have indorsed the 
 use of a confession of faith of his own making as a test of Chris- 
 tian fellowship. To say that creeds and confessions of faith are neces- 
 sary to make the truth of Scripture more plain and intelligible, he 
 declared, was to deny both the benevolence and wisdom of God. 
 The very words of Scripture are the best for the expression of the 
 truths of Scripture. To maintain that creeds are essential to the 
 unity of the church, is to treat the Scriptures as imperfect or inade- 
 quate. There was unity in the apostolic churches without creeds. 
 " Every human creed is based upon the inadequacy of the Holy 
 Scriptures." 
 
 It was not easy for the Baptists to come to this point of view. 
 They had usually embodied their doctrines in confessions of faith. 
 A formula of faith lay at the basis of the union between Separates 
 and Regulars. It looked like a dissolution of faith to abandon their 
 confessions. There was nothing left to keep out the Unitarian, 
 Antinomian, and Armenian. The church must have some statement 
 of doctrinal belief on the fundamental points, to bar out heretics. 
 The rejection of creeds and confessions of faith by the Reformers 
 was the occasion of many complaints against them, embodied in 
 formal charges by churches and associations. This was the one 
 question frequently present in local church divisions. Generally, 
 
 ^ Christian Baptist, VII. 282. 
 
 'Christian Baptist, II. 229, 241, 265, 175, 198; IV. 201; Millennial Har- 
 binger, 1830, 299, 339. 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 121 
 
 however, it was complicated with other questions of doctrine or 
 principle. 
 
 2. Differences in practice. 
 
 (i) Method of receiving persons into the church. 
 
 The method of the Regular Baptist churches, consecrated by 
 long usage, was to require of the candidate the relation of an expe- 
 rience of his conversion, before the officers of the church, or before 
 the entire assembled congregation. If the experience gave evidence 
 of a genuine conversion, the person was accepted for church member- 
 ship and baptism by a vote of the examiners. The Reformers, on the 
 other hand, required merely a public confession from the candidate, 
 that he believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. This was 
 followed immediately, or very soon, by baptism and the hand of 
 fellowship. This they believed to be the apostolic method of pro- 
 cedure. Their opposition to the relation of an experience was based 
 upon the principle that nothing should be taught or required as a 
 condition of membership in the church, " for which there can not be 
 expressly produced, a ' Thus saith the Lord ' either in express 
 terms or by approved precedent." The Baptist practice seemed to 
 them lacking in both. Then, too, they thought it conduced to 
 insincerity and by no means preserved the church from designing 
 persons, who could fabricate an experience that would deceive the 
 very elect. 
 
 The Reformers did not object to an experience, or its relation, 
 in the proper place, but they did object to the use made of it. They 
 greatly suspected the ordinary experience of conversion, as growing 
 out of, and framed to harmonize with, the doctrine of the direct, 
 mystical, and physical influence of the Holy Spirit. They did not 
 believe in this sort of influence or operation. But to determine the 
 genuineness of such an influence in every case, the examination was 
 made by the Baptists into the personal experience of the candidate. 
 It was the indisputable mark of a genuine conversion. The candi- 
 date was led to look for signs of a providential nature in his own 
 daily life. The most commonplace incidents or accidents were inter- 
 preted as evidences of the divine influence. The feelings, however, 
 were the surest and commonest source of evidence. A kind of 
 model of genuine Christian experience had grown up, to which 
 all were expected to conform. 
 
 In opposition to this, Campbell sought the evidences of conver- 
 
122 
 
 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 sion in the person's obedience to the will of the Lord, and in a life 
 conformed to His/ He said, after relating his experience to John 
 Smith : " I have never doubted or denied the reality of these 
 various workings of the mind as modified by the different tempera- 
 ments of those who are exercised by them. But I do object to the 
 use that is made of them by the clergy. We should not make them 
 tests of one another's Christianity; nor is there anything in the 
 Book that requires a man to tell all the workings of his conscience, 
 as a prerequisite to baptism." " As the apostolic writings afford 
 no example, and sound reason furnishes no argument to require can- 
 didates for immersion to relate a Christian experience before they 
 have obeyed the Gospel, we protest against the custom. To require 
 candidates for marriage to relate conjugal experiences before they 
 have entered upon that relation, is not more egregious than to ask 
 candidates for immersion to narrate a Christian experience." 
 
 This was the most serious departure from Baptist usage by the 
 Reformers. There was no mistaking, hence no misrepresenting, 
 the practice of the Reformers in this matter. It is correctly repre- 
 sented in the Beaver and the Dover resolutions. The Baptists 
 could not be reconciled to an abandonment of the examination into 
 the experience of the candidate for church membership. This would 
 have been, in their minds, to open wide the doors and throw down 
 the very walls of the church to unregenerate persons — a thing 
 that was intolerable to a Baptist. Whether this jealous maintenance 
 of such a custom results in a purer church membership for the 
 Baptists than for other bodies that resort to no such safeguard, 
 is not easy to determine. They intended only the good of the 
 church thereby, and believed themselves in accord with the spirit 
 of the Scriptures if not the very letter. 
 
 (2) The administration of baptism. 
 
 Another practice of the Reformers by which the Baptists were 
 deeply grieved, was the administration of baptism by an unordained 
 person. The Baptists of the Stillwater Association of Ohio brought 
 charges against Cyrus ]\IcXeeley for baptizing a person without 
 being ordained.' One of the charges of the Beaver Association was : 
 That all baptized persons have the right to administer the ordi- 
 
 ^ Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 423, 498. 
 
 'Life of Smith, 168; Millennial Harbinger, 1830, 260; 1831, 82, 83; 
 
 Christian Baptist, IV. 200, 275. 
 ^ Memoirs, 11. 329. 
 
THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 123 
 
 nance of baptism/' It was doubtless this irregularity of the Reform- 
 ers that lay at the basis of the charge of " disorderly and disorganiz- 
 ing measures pursued by some of the preachers of this party," in the 
 Dover resolutions. They also complained of the haste with which 
 the ordinance was administered, and the substitution of the words, 
 " I immerse thee into the name/' for the words, "I baptize 
 thee in the name/' etc. 
 
 (3) The observance of the Lord's supper. 
 
 The Baptist custom was to observe the supper once a month or 
 once in three months. It was a prevailing custom of the Reformers 
 to observe the supper every first day of the week. It was a matter 
 of conscience with them, believing that they found sufficient prece- 
 dent for it in the practice of the apostolic churches. The weekly 
 observance of it was scarcely less binding upon them than immer- 
 sion as a form of baptism. The following propositions summarize 
 the teaching of Campbell: " i. That there is a Divinely instituted 
 order of Christian worship in Christian assemblies. 2. That this 
 order of worship is uniformly the same. 3. That the nature and 
 design of the breaking of bread are such as to make it an essential 
 part of Christian worship in Christian assemblies. 4. That the first 
 church set in order in Jerusalem continued as steadfastly in break- 
 ing of bread as in any other act of social worship or edification. 
 5. That the disciples statedly met on the first day of the week, pri- 
 marily and emphatically, for this purpose. 6. That the Apostle 
 declared it was the design, or the primary object of the church to 
 assemble in one place for this purpose, and so commanded it to the 
 churches he had set in order. 7. That there is no law, rule, reason, 
 or authority for the present manner of observing this institute quar- 
 terly, semi-annually, or at any other time than weekly." " Upon 
 the whole, it may be said that we have express precedent and an 
 express command to assemble in one place on the first day of the 
 week to break bread." ^ 
 
 The Reformers generally favored a freer communion than the 
 Baptists practiced or permitted. 
 
 (4) The call to the ministry." 
 
 The prevailing belief of the Baptists of the time was that there 
 was a special call to the ministry, and that a man was not warranted 
 in going out to preach until he had received unmistakable evidence 
 
 ^Christian Baptist, III. 11, 30, 56; V. 150. 
 ^Christian Baptist, 1. 61, 91, 109, 133, 157. 
 
124 THE SEPARATION: CAUSES 
 
 that God had called him to the ministry. This call was indicated 
 by some sign without or assurance within of a physical or spiritual 
 nature. This call was identical in import and character with that 
 which came to the apostles, 
 
 Campbell rejected this notion and the assumptions underlying 
 it, namely, that it was necessary to qualify one for service and to 
 give one's message and ministry a certain degree of authority. The 
 modern call can not be the same as that to the apostles, for they were 
 especially endowed with utterance and miraculous powers. Their 
 message came with the authority of a divine revelation. He says : 
 " When a brother in distress appears in the presence of a brother 
 rich in this world, the brother of high degree is called by the Word of 
 God and the providence of God ; or, the circumstances of the case call 
 upon him to put his hand into his pocket and to communicate to his 
 distress. Just in the same sense a brother who is well instructed into 
 the doctrine of the kingdom of heaven, who has attained to the full 
 assurance of understanding what Paul and Peter and James and John, 
 and the other writers of the Xew Testament have taught, concerning 
 the way of life and salvation ; when he finds persons ignorant or un- 
 believing either in public or private, is called by the Word of God, and 
 the circumstances of the case, to teach and preach Christ or to show 
 the things that the ambassadors have taught and authenticated ; 
 these things he may urge on their authority, who confirmed their 
 testimony with signs and wonders." ^ Such is the call in which Camp- 
 bell believed. One of the charges of the Tate's Creek Association 
 against the Reformers was, that they taught " that there is no special 
 call to the ministry.'' 
 
 There were many other minor differences of a local sort that 
 divided Baptists and Reformers in faith and practice. The fore- 
 going, however, were the principal differences that issued in the 
 separation. Since the separation, the two bodies have undergone 
 modifications that have brought them nearer together. There are 
 many enlightened individuals in both bodies at the present time 
 who occupy practically the same position on these questions which 
 were in serious dispute seventy-five years ago. There are 
 extremists in both bodies who are just as far apart as ever. 
 
 'Christian Baptist, I. 69; Life of Smith, 377, 380. ^ 
 
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