Editor of “The
Author of
“Great Iron Wheel,” “Trilemma,” “Bible Doctrine of the Middle Life,” “7
Dispensations,” Etc. Etc.
“Remove not the
ancient landmarks which thy fathers have set.”- SOLOMON
“Some remove
the old landmarks.” – JOB
This Little Work is Dedicated
And
It’s Dissemination throughout the Denomination committed
To
EVERY BAPTIST BROTHER AND SISTER
And Especially
MY BRETHREN IN THE MINISTRY AND OF THE PRESS
In
Who love those Principles for which our Baptist Fathers for
18 Centuries suffered
cruel Mockings, bloody
Stripes,
Imprisonments, and Martyrdoms: and are willing to be
Their Successors as the “Witnesses of the Truth”
In this Laodicean Age of universal Luke-
Warmness and Indifferentism with Respect
To the Fundamental Doctrines of
Christianity, and especially the
Characteristic principles
And Policy which
Distinguished
Baptists
In the purest
Ages of the
Churches of Christ
By
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
The
origin of the appellation "Old Landmarkism"—Its present strength.
Introductory—The
real questions at issue between the "Liberals" and the strict or
"Old Landmark" Baptists Fundamental principles upon which the
"strict" policy rests axiomatically stated.
Bishop
Doggett’s position touching a Christian church—The apostles built churches by a
divine model—No organization should be called church unless conformed to that
model—The unmistakable features of that model—1. Its origin divine—2.
Visible—3. Its locality this earth.
The
"ecclesia" of Christ a single congregation—Not universal, national,
or provincial—Was independent of all other bodies —Therefore alone authorized
to preach the gospel, elect, ordain, choose, and dismiss its own officers, receive
and disciple its own members, and administer the ordinances.
The
divine and inalienable rights of a Christian church—Alone commissioned to
preach the gospel—To ordain her officers —To receive, discipline, and exclude
members—To administer her ordinances.
The
Fifth Mark of the apostolic model church—A spiritual membership; i.e., professedly
regenerate—"Christ before the church, blood before water," the symbol
of its faith—Those religious organizations that admit infants and the
unregenerate can not be Christian churches.
Christian
immersion the act appointed for the profession of gospel faith—The twelve
disciples at
The Lord’s Supper
A
local church ordinance not denominational or social—Intercommunion between
different religious bodies, having diverse organizations and diverse faiths,
or, between "sister" churches, contrary both to the genius of
scriptural church building and the symbolism of the ordinance—The
inconsistencies and evils of intercommunion among Baptists.
Objections
and difficulties to non-intercommunion noticed—1. Some pastors could not
commune with the churches they serve, and administer the supper to—2.
"Paul communed with the church at
The
inconsistencies and evils of intercommunion among Baptists.
For
the maintenance of the inspiration of the prophets, as well as the divinity of
Christ, the kingdom he set up must never be "broken to pieces," and
the church he built must have never been prevailed against by violence or
corruption—The true statement of what "Landmarkers" mean by church
succession, not "apostolic succession," nor the succession of any
particular church or churches, etc.
What
it is not, and what it is, to be an Old Landmark Baptist—The true mission of
Old Landmark Baptists.
Defensive
The
current pleas of liberal "Baptists" considered: 1. That preaching is
not an official duty—2. That we do not recognize those societies as churches by
accepting their ordinances—3. That we do not recognize those ministers as
scriptural ministers, by accepting their official acts—4. That we do not
indorse their erroneous doctrines and practices by affiliating with them.
How
did Paul regard, and how did he teach the churches he planted, to regard
teachers of false doctrine?—How did he instruct the early Christians and
churches to treat them?—Associate with, or withdraw from, and avoid them?—Can
it be supposed that they invited them into their pulpits, and to the Lord’s
Supper, though those teachers belong to the church at Jerusalem?
Does
the history of the churches of Christ establish the fact, disputed by
Affiliationists, that the ancient Baptists, by whatever name called, refused to
affiliate with, or in any way recognize, Pedobaptist societies as scriptural
churches, or their ministers as gospel ministers?—The teachings of history.
How
the "fathers" of New England Baptists regarded Pedobaptist societies
and their ministers, from A. D. 1638 until 1776—not as churches or brethren,
but enemies and persecutors.
Were
the fathers of Virginia Baptists "Old Landmarkers?"—Did they, like
too many of their descendants, receive, as valid, the immersions of
Pedobaptists, and recognize them as evangelical churches?
What
were the Landmarks set by the "fathers" of the Philadelphia
Association, the oldest in America—Decisions concerning alien immersion—The
testimony of the venerable Spencer H. Cone—Conclusion of the argument.
The
inconsistencies of, and evils abetted by Baptists who practice
inter-denominational affiliations.
Last
words to my brethren.
APPENDIX.
A. A correction and explanation.
B. Pulpit recognition.
C. Old Landmarkism in Philadelphia.
D. Jesse Mercer, an Old Landmarker, 1811.
E. Kiffin, of England, in 1640.
F. Review of Objections to this Book.
PREFACE
The origin of the appellation "Old Landmarkism"—Its present strength.
"Et
quorum pars ful."—Virgil, L, 2, 1. 6
My
thoughts were first awakened to the subject discussed in this little book in
1832, upon witnessing the immersion of my mother and sister by a Pedobaptist
minister, and the plunging of another subject face forward as he knelt in the
water, and the pouring water upon another while kneeling in the water, the
sprinkling it upon another in the same position, and the sprinkling upon
several others while standing on the banks of the stream, and yet others out of
a pitcher in the meeting-house. Those different acts for "one baptism"
made an indelible impression, and the more so because the administrator
seemed to he in ill humor when he immersed, and dipped his hand in water and
laid it upon the heads of the candidates he immersed while he repeated the
formula! The questions started were: "If he did not believe in
immersion, was the act at his hands valid? If ‘what is not of faith is sin,’
could his sin be an act acceptable to God?"
Twenty-two
years after, that mother applied to the 2d Church in
Shortly
after I had the pleasure of seeing that mother and sister observe the ordinance
as at first delivered.
In
1846 I took charge of "The Tennessee Baptist," and soon commenced
agitating the question of the validity of alien immersions, and the propriety
of Baptists recognizing, by any act, ecclesiastical or ministerial, Pedobaptist
societies or preachers as churches and ministers of Christ. This
agitation gave rise to the convention, which met at Cotton Grove, XV.
"Rev.
J. R. Graves offered the following questions:
"1st.
Can Baptists, consistently with their principles or the Scriptures, recognize
those societies not organized according to the pattern of the Jerusalem Church,
but possessing different governments, different officers,
a different class of members, different ordinances,
doctrines and practices, as churches of Christ?
"2d.
Ought they to he called gospel churches, or churches in a religious sense?
"3d.
Can we consistently recognize the ministers of such irregular and unscriptural
bodies as gospel ministers?
"4th.
Is it not virtually recognizing them as official ministers to invite them into
our pulpits, or by any other act that would or could be construed
into such a recognition?
"5th.
Can we consistently address as brethren those professing Christianity,
who not only have not the doctrine of Christ and walk not according to his
commandments, but are arrayed in direct and bitter opposition to them?"
These
queries were unanimously answered in the negative, and the Baptists of
Tennessee generally, and multitudes all over the South, indorsed the decision.
The
name of Old Landmarkers came in this way. In 1854, J. M. Pendleton, of
From
this brief history it will be seen that we, who only deem ourselves
"strict Baptists," are not responsible for the name, but our
opposers. But that we have no reason to be ashamed of it will be seen by every
one who will read this little book. Why should we object to the name
"Old Landmarkers," when those ancient Anabaptists, whom we alone
represent in this age, were content to be called Cathari and Puritans, which
terms mean the same thing as Old Landmarkers?
I
put forth this publication now, thirty years after inaugurating the reform, to
correct the manifold misrepresentations of those who oppose what they are
pleased to call our principles and teachings, and to place before the Baptists
of America what "Old Landmarkism" really is. Many believe that simple
opposition to inviting ministers into our pulpits is the whole of it, when the
title to the tract indicated that that was only one of the
landmarks of our fathers. Others have been influenced to believe that we hold
to "apostolic succession;" others, that we hold that baptism is
essential to salvation, but its efficacy ineffectual unless we can prove the
unbroken connection of the administrator with some apostle; and yet others,
that we hold ‘that any flaw in the qualification of the present administrator,
or any previous one in the line of his succession, however remote, invalidates
all his baptisms and ministerial acts, as marriages, etc., past, present, and
future, and necessitates the re-baptisms and re-marriages of all he has ever
immersed or married. It is certainly due to those who bear the name to be
vindicated from these hurtful misrepresentations. I think it is no act of
presumption in me to assume to know what I meant by the Old Landmarks,
since I was the first man in Tennessee, and the first editor on this
continent, who publicly advocated the policy of strictly and
consistently carrying out in our practice those principles which all true
Baptists, in all ages, have professed to believe. Be
this as it may, one thing is certainly true, no man in this century has
suffered, or is now suffering, more than myself "in the house of my
friends," for a rigid maintenance of them.
In
1846 pulpit affiliations, union meetings, receiving the immersions of
Pedobaptists and Campbellites, and inviting Pedobaptists, as "evangelical
ministers," to seats in our associations and conventions, even the
Southern Baptist, had become, with but few exceptions, general throughout the
South. At the North not only all these customs, but inviting Pedobaptist
preachers to assist in the ordinations, and installations,
and recognitions of Baptist ministers, was quite as common. I have noticed
that in some of these meetings Universalist, if not Unitarian ministers
affiliated, and delegates were appointed by Baptist associations to meet
Pedobaptist associations and Methodist conferences. A glance at my file for
1856 notes this action by a
"Delegates
of fraternal courtesy were also appointed, as follows: Bro. Brierly to the
Congregational Association of California; Bro. Saxton to the Methodist
Conference, North; and Bro. Shuck to the Methodist Conference, South."
Baptist
papers made a glowing, pleasing record of all these inconsistencies without a
note of disapproval.
At
this writing, January, 1880—and I record it with profound gratitude—there is
only one Baptist paper in the South, of the sixteen weeklies, that approve of
alien immersion and pulpit affiliation ("The Religious Herald"),
while already two papers in the Northern States avow and advocate
Landmark principles and practice. I do not believe that there is one association
in the whole South that would today indorse an alien immersion as
scriptural or valid, and it is a rare thing to see a Pedobaptist or Campbellite
in our pulpits, and they are no longer invited to seats in our associations and
conventions anywhere South.
The
heavy drift of sentiment throughout the whole South, and the "Great
West" and Northwest, is strongly in favor of Baptist churches doing their
own p reaching, ordaining, baptizing, and restricting the participation of
the Supper to the members of the local church celebrating it.
With
these statements, before the reader forms an opinion, a fair and impartial
consideration of these chapters is entreated. A Christian man will certainly
heed the injunction of the apostle, "Prove all things, and hold fast to
that which is good," i.e., in accordance with the
teachings of God’s Word.
J.
R. GRAVES.
PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION
The
first edition of this little work offered to the public in June last has been
exhausted, and there is a call for a second. I have reason to be grateful for
the consideration it has received from a portion of the Baptist press, and from
distinguished brethren. Some few of these can be seen on the fourth page. By a
portion of the press, and a class of brethren, it has been ferociously assailed
in spirit and terms they are not accustomed to use in noticing a book put forth
by the bitterest assailant of Baptist principles. I expected that my position
would be objected to by many of my brethren; but I had a right to expect the
courtesy that Christian gentlemen and scholars always extend to an author whose
work they see fit to notice. The principle objections to the book—its logical
method, and the observance of the Supper as a church ordinance—I have briefly
noticed in the Appendix. I have added the Old Landmark Platform constructed by
Jesse Mercer,
J.
R. GRAVES.
CHAPTER I.
Introductory.
The real questions at issue between the "Liberal" and
the Strict, or "Old Landmark"
Baptists—Fundamental principles upon the "strict"
policy rests axiomatically stated.
"I
have known a man so set in his way of thinking that he would not admit the
truth of an axiom if it was against him."—Old Author.
"Convince
a man against his will, and he’s of the same opinion still."—Old Adage.
"He
who answereth a matter before he heareth, it is folly and a shame unto
him."—Solomon.
Facts
Taken For Granted.
1st Fact.
That
Christ while on earth did "set up a kingdom" and "build a
Church," unlike any institution that had ever been seen on earth.
2d Fact.
That
Christ "set up" but one kingdom, and built but one house,
which he designed to be called, in all after ages, "the house of
Cod," "the Church of the living God," and to be "a
pillar and ground of the truth."
3d Fact.
That
Christ did not found His "kingdom" of provinces or parts in deadly antagonism
to each other, and all in open rebellion to His own authority,
laws and government—a kingdom constitutionally "divided against
itself"—or construct his divine "house," which he
designed for His own glory and praise, of heterogeneous and discordant
materials, so that, from their very nature, they could never
be "fitly framed together" and become a homo geneous, compacted
whole, but ever and necessarily "a house divided against
itself."
"Every
kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or
house divided against itself shall not stand."—Christ.
But
Christ’s kingdom is never to be brought to desolation, and his Church is to
stand forever.
The
Direct Inferences from these admitted facts are:
First
Inference—That the popular "church-branch theory" is a bald
absurdity. That theory, as preached and taught by those who pride themselves
upon being "undenominational Christians," is that all these different
sects are "branches of the Church." Branch is a relative term,
and implies necessarily a trunk or body; but they are
unable to tell us what or where the trunk or body of the tree is! But the
absurdity of the conception of a tree bearing natural branches of
fifteen or twenty different kinds of wood, does not seem to occur
to the people or their teachers!
Second
Inference—The absurdity of the "church - army theory," which is the
popular pulpit illustration with "undenominational preachers." This
theory is, that all the different denominations compose but one great army,
Christ being the "Captain," and the various sects the regiments,
brigades and divisions, and their different creeds the different flags, etc.
The illustration breaks down fatally when we remember that the parts of an army
are all under the same laws and army regulations, and drilled by the same
tactics, and not in conflict, each regiment with every other
regiment in the army, as these different denominations, called churches,
are—doing the army more deadly harm than the common enemy can do!
Third
Inference from the premise is the equal absurdity of the "universal church
theory." This theory is, that all the different and opposing sects, taken
together, constitute the kingdom of Christ on earth, and all the true
Christians in these sects constitute the "invisible, spiritual
Church." This theory—of one kingdom, composed of a multitude of discordant
elements, irremediably divided against themselves and engaged in destroying
each other—is sufficiently noticed above. It is too preposterously absurd to
be put forth by men who have any respect for the wisdom of the Divine Founder
of the Church. Infidels could wish for no better argument against Christianity.
I honestly believe that more infidels are made by those who preach, hold, and
teach these absurd and unscriptural church theories than by all the speeches
and writings of infidels themselves. Convince a man that it is true that Christ
originated all these diverse sects, and is the author of their radically
different and mutually destructive faiths, and he must be an infidel or a fool.
If they mean invisible kingdom, the reply is, Christ has not two
kingdoms or two churches, considered as institutions, for He has but one Bride,
and will have but one "wife"—He is not a bigamist.
4th Fact.
It
will be granted by all that there are fifty distinct religious organizations in
America alone, [see Churches and Sects in America] each radically
dissimilar in form and faith, each asserting its right to be considered an evangelical—which
means scriptural—church, and, in more respects than any other, like the
original organization which Christ set up to be the model and pattern for all
His churches.
Now,
the unthinking multitude is taught to believe that all these sects are equally evangelical,
and that it is proof of "intolerant bigotry," and the lack of all
"Christian charity," to assert that all can not be churches, or if one
is indeed scriptural, all the rest must be unscriptural. The
absurdity of admitting them all to be equally churches of Christ does not occur
to them. Let us see.
Axiom
i.
Things
equal to or like the same thing are equal to or like each other.
Corollary.—If
these fifty different and conflicting organizations, claiming to be churches,
are each evangelical, i.e., scriptural, they
must be like each other in doctrine and organization; but they are essentially
and radically unlike the one to the other, and therefore they can not all be scriptural.
The
man who admits they are alike evangelical, or any two of them, involves himself
in the absurdity of asserting that things unlike and unequal to each other are
like the same thing!
It
is asserted by the advocates of an "undenominational Christianity,"
that Baptists and Pedobaptists hold "in common all the fundamental
doctrines and essential principles of Christianity, differing only in non-essentials."
This
is a thorough misstatement of the known and palpable facts in the case, and
calculated to deceive and mislead the unthinking.
Protestants
are fundamentally opposed to each other; e.g., the
Presbyterians will admit, and openly maintain, that their Calvinism is
vitally opposed to the Arminianism of the Methodists, and Methodists
will as freely assert that their Arminianism is fundamentally and essentially
opposed to Calvinism. Presbyterians hold and teach that Arminianism is subversive
of Christianity, and Methodists affirm the same of Calvinism. If one
preaches the Gospel, the other certainly does not.
Every
sound Baptist in the land will affirm that the fundamental doctrines and
principles of Pedobaptism are utterly subversive of the whole system of
Christianity. Therefore, it is not true that Baptists and Pedobaptists
"hold in common" all the fundamentals of Christianity and are equally
evangelical, in doctrine they differ radically.
Axiom
ii.
Two
truths or a thousand can no more antagonize, than two or one thousand parallel
lines can cross each other.
Direct
Inference.—Two or one thousand evangelical—which always means
scriptural—churches can not antagonize, but must be essentially one in fundamental
doctrines and principles, having "one faith and one baptism" in form
and design, as certainly as one Lord and Savior.’ 1. Therefore, all evangelical
churches are equal to and like each other. 2. Therefore, the fifty
different denominations in
Axiom
iii.
Baptist,
Campbellite and Pedobaptist organizations, being fundamentally and vitally
different in doctrine, in character and in principles—if Baptist churches are
evangelical, as all Baptists do believe, then all Pedobaptist and Campbellite
societies are not evangelical, and vice versa.
Rem.—It
requires us to do violence to the plainest dictates of reason to demand that we
admit that opposites and contradictories are one and the same—equal.
Axiom
iv.
Contradictory
systems or theories no more than antagonizing elements in nature—light and
darkness—can exist in the same time or place without antagonism. Harmony or
quiescence is impossible.
Direct
Inference.—There can not be any harmony or real union of effort between
a system of religion founded in truth, and systems of religion founded in
error; and sham unions are hypocritical and sinful.
Definition.—Compromise
is the settlement of differences between two or more parties by mutual
concessions.
Fundamental
Principles.—Principles, moral convictions and the revealed truths of God can
not be denied, yielded or modified to effect a compromise; while opinions,
prejudices, feelings and self-interests may be.
E.g.,
politics has been defined "the science of compromise" because
based upon opinions, self-interests and prejudices, and these may be conceded
or modified.
Christianity—scientia
scientiarum—being a system of divinely revealed truths and principles to
be held and proclaimed in their entirety, and therefore admitting
no increase or diminution, can neither be conceded nor modified. Therefore,
between Christianity—the gospel of Christ—and systems of religion that are not
Christianity, between the gospel and "a gospel which is another
gospel," there can be no compromise or affiliation.
Less
or more, then the gospel is not the gospel, but error; hence the fearful
penalty threatened in Revelation Chapter 22, against those who add to, or take
from, the things revealed.
By
withholding any of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity in our preaching,
we can no more preach the gospel of Christ than we can spell the English
language without the consonants; and to agree to withhold any part of the
gospel, for any length of time, to effect a compromise with those who do not
hold it, is manifest treason.
Those
ministers who hold "union meetings" with those who believe and teach
contrary to God’s Word, can not at the close say: ‘We have not shunned to
declare unto you the whole counsel of God."
Axiom
v.
Compromise,
being based upon mutual concessions, when effected between truth and error,
truth must always suffer, since error has nothing of truth to surrender.
Axiom
vi.
"The
accessory before or alter the fact Is equally guilty with the
principal."—Common law.
Unscriptural
systems of religion and churches are counterfeits of Christianity and
counterfeit churches. To associate with the teachers of these systems so as to
impress them and their followers, and all who witness our
acts, that we recognize them as the accredited ministers of God’s truth; we
encourage them in their work and thus "bid them God-speed" and make
ourselves accessories to, and partakers of their sins.
Now
the work I have undertaken to accomplish by this "little book" is threefold:
1.
To establish the fact in the minds of all, who will give me an impartial
hearing, that Baptist churches are the churches of Christ, and that they alone
hold, and have alone ever held, and preserved the doctrine of the gospel in
all ages since the ascension of Christ.
2.
To establish clearly what are the "Old Landmarks," the characteristic
principles and policy, of true Baptists in all these ages.
3.
To demonstrate, by invincible argument, that treating the ministers of other
denominations as the accredited ministers of the gospel, and receiving any of
their official acts—preaching or immersion—as scriptural, we do
proclaim, louder than we can by words, that their societies are evangelical
churches, and their teachings and practices orthodox as our own; and that by so
doing we do encourage our own families and the world to enter their societies
in preference to Baptist churches, because, with them, the offense of "the
cross hath ceased."
I
close by assuring the reader that in these pages he will not find one term of
"abuse or personality." I shall not treat of men or motives,
but discuss creeds, doctrines and practices, and them by the
Word of God and in the spirit of the Master; an therefore, whatever my critics
or opposers may say, they can not charge me with being
"uncharitable"—the trite but handy thrust—for the terms
"charity" and "bigotry" can have no more rightful
application in discussing creeds and religious doctrine than in
repeating the multiplication table. The sole province of charity is to judge
kindly of men’s motives when they do wrong or teach error.
With
the sole desire to gain the "well-done" of my Divine Master I shall
write these pages regardless of the praise or censure of sinful men.
CHAPTER II.
Bishop Doggett’s position touching a Christian church—The apostles built churches by
a divine model—No organization should be called church unless conformed
to that model—The unmistakable features of that model—1. Its
origin, divine—2. Visible—3. Its locality, this
earth.
"For
see that thou make all things according to the pattern shown thee in the
mount" (Heb. 8:5).
The
following statements I copy from an editorial article in the Methodist
Quarterly when published in
"Unless
the professed followers of Christ organize upon the apostolic model they are
not a
"Ministers
and members professing the religion of Christ may congregate together for the
purpose of worship, and may organize, yet they will not be a
"We
do not suppose that any unprejudiced mind would call any body of men and women
the true church—so particularly described by the inspired writers as the true
church has been—unless it comes up fairly and fully in every minute particular
to a description proceeding from that wisdom that could not err in the
description in any remote or conceivable degree."
There
is no misunderstanding these statements. It is the conviction of Bishop
Doggett—1. That Christ did leave a church as a model of church building to the
apostles, and for all subsequent ages. 2. That the marks or features of this
divine pattern are so particularly described by the inspired writers that no
intelligent inquirer need mistake it.
Let
us now dispassionately inquire for some of the unmistakable and essential marks
of the "pattern" after which Christ commanded his apostles and
ministers to the end of time to build.
Moses
at his peril would not have varied the tabernacle in the least thing, from the
divine pattern, and may we dare to build churches altogether different from the
pattern Christ has given?
First
MARK
The
Church and
Proofs—Daniel
I
understand these Scriptures to teach that this organization, called here
"kingdom" and "church" is the conception of the divine
mind, the expression of the divine thought, and the embodiment of the divine
authority on earth. No created being, angel or man, assisted in its origination
or construction; it is the "stone cut out without hands;" it is a
perfect product of infinite wisdom. For man or angel to presume to modify it in
the least, by additions, changes, or repeals, is to profane it and offer an
insult to its divine Founder; far more sacred and inviolable is it than God’s
altar of rough ashlers: "If thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast
polluted it." (Ex. 20:25). And for man to set up any form of church as
equal, or in opposition, to it, and influence men to join themselves to it,
under the impression that they are uniting with Christ’s church, is an act of
open rebellion to Christ as the only King of Zion; while it is
"offending"—deceiving, and misleading these that desire to follow
Christ; and He has said, that "it were better that a mill-stone were
hanged about the neck of that man, and he cast into the midst of the sea."
(Matthew 18:6). It must be true that those who originate such false churches,
and those who support them by their means and influence, occupy the positions
of rebels against the rightful and supreme authority of Christ. Designed as the
"house and church of the living God" was by an architect possessing
infinite wisdom, who saw the end from the beginning, every conceivable exigency
that could effect it to the end of time, must have been foreseen and provided
for; and the very intimation that changes have become necessary, the better to
adapt it to fulfill its mission, is impiously to impugn the divine wisdom that
devised and set it up.
If
I am right in my conception of the character of this divine institution, then
it follows that the sanctity and authority of its divine Founder are so
embodied in its government, as they were in its type—the Jewish theocracy—that
as men treat His church, its doctrine, its laws or its members, ‘they treat its
Author. To despise and reject its teachings is to despise the Author of those
teachings; and those who hate or persecute its members for their obedience to
its laws and fidelity to its principles, will be confounded at last to learn,
that, inasmuch as they did it to one of the least of Christ’s followers they
did it to Christ Himself. (Matthew 25).
Christ
enjoined it upon His apostles and ministers for all time to come, to construct
all organizations that should bear His name according to the pattern and model
He "built" before their eyes; and those who add to or diminish aught,
do it at their peril. (Rev. 22:18,19). Organizations bearing the name of Christ
devised and set up by men are manifestly counterfeits, and certainly
impositions upon the ignorance and credulity of the people. Human societies are
but the expression of human opinion; only human authority is embodied in their
laws and regulations; and to observe and obey them is only obeying the men who
established them; and it is written: "His servants—slaves—ye are whom ye
obey." It is rejecting Christ as king, and choosing men for our masters
when we unite with human societies instead of a
Now
it cannot be truthfully denied that the Catholic and the various Protestant
sects were originated and set up by men many ages after the ascension of
Christ; since all their own standard Church Histories frankly admit the fact.
They are therefore not divine—but human institutions, which rival and
antagonize—or, in the strong language of Bro. Bright of the Examiner-Chronicle,
N. Y.: "They are an organized muster against the church and kingdom of our
Lord Jesus Christ." One thing can not be denied, so long as they had the
power, they assaulted His kingdom and shed the blood of His brethren. Every
reader can easily satisfy himself of the truth of this statement if he will but
turn to Protestant histories. See History of "Religious
Denominations."
Second
Mark of a
It
is a Visible Institution.
Notwithstanding
the contradictory teachings prevalent, this is a self-evident fact that an
institution or organization must be visible. But the church and
And
this, too, is manifest, that the only church that is revealed to us is a
visible church, and the only church with which we have anything to do, or in
connection with which we have any duties to perform, is a visible body. It has
a specified organization, officers, faith, laws and ordinances, and a living
membership, and therefore it must be visible. Christ never set up but one
kingdom, was never constituted King of but one kingdom, and His Word recognizes
but one kingdom; and if this is visible, He has no invisible kingdom or church,
and such a thing has no real existence in heaven or earth. It is only an
invention employed to bolster up erroneous theories of ecclesiology.
Third
Mark of the
Its
Locality is upon this Earth.
Since
I have used the terms church and kingdom, it may be well to explain here what I
understand by them and their relation to each other. They were used as
synonymous terms by the evangelists so long as Christ had but one organized
church for they were then one and the same body. So soon as "churches were
multiplied," a distinction arose. The kingdom embraced the first church,
and it now embraces all the churches. The churches of Christ constitute the
Baptism
is an ordinance of, and in, each local church—not of the kingdom, and Christ
himself says: "Except a man be born of water, and the Spirit, he can not
enter into the
The
locality of Christ’s church, and therefore kingdom, is this earth; all the subjects
of His kingdom are here; all the work of His church is here. This earth was
given to Him by His Father to be the sole seat of His throne and His kingdom.
(See Psalms second chapter.) All authority, power and judgment over all flesh
were vested in Christ, and He was appointed to reign on this earth until He
should put all His enemies under His feet, and then will come the end when He
will give up his kingdom to His Father, when the Godhead will rule with
undivided scepter over it, as before sin entered it. Christ, then, has no
church in heaven—never had; nor has He, as Messiah, any kingdom in heaven, or
will He ever have; nor, if we will believe the Scriptures rather than mere
theorists, will He always have a kingdom on this earth: "Then cometh the
end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father."
Did He not teach His disciples to p ray: "Our Father, who art in heaven;
thy kingdom come"? Not Christ’s kingdom, for that had already come, and
the disciples were in it; but the Father’s kingdom; and when the Fathers will
shall be done on this earth as it now is done in heaven, will not this earth
then be a heaven as much as any other place in the universe?
CHAPTER III.
The "ecclesia" of Christ a single congregation—Not
universal, national, or provincial—Was independent of all other bodies
—Therefore alone authorized to preach the gospel, elect, ordain, choose, and
dismiss its own officers, receive and disciple its own members, and administer
the ordinances.
"The
church which is at Cenchrea" (Rom. 16:1).
"Salute
. . . Nymphas and the church which is in his house" (Gal.
"Uhi
tres ecciesia est, licet laici."—Tertullian.
"Ea
quae est in quoque loco ecclesia."—Irenaeus.
All
congregations were [in the 1st and 2nd centuries] were independent of each
other."—Gieseler.
Several
important marks of a true church I pass for lack of space, and because not so
essential to this discussion—e. g., the perfect equality of its ministers, the
purely democratic and executive character of its government—that I may notice
more at length what I will call the,
Fourth
Mark of the Divine Model.
It
was a Local Organization, a Single Congregation.
Now,
there are three theories concerning a church, and u p on one or the other of
these all organizations claiming to be churches are built; but, according to
Bishop Doggett, only that one can be a Christian church that is in all respects
conformed to the scriptural model, so particularly described by the inspired
writers. Let us examine these theories:
The first is the Catholic or Universal church theory. According to this, there
can be but one church, of the denomination adopting it, throughout the world.
No single congregation is a church in any sense, but an infinitesimal part of
the universal idea. The Greek Catholic Church is formed upon this theory,
having the Grand Patriarch at
The
Latin, or Roman Catholic Church, is constructed upon this idea. No local
congregation in one place is a church, but only a minute part of the great
whole, the seat of which is at
The
reader will notice that, according to this theory, (1) the word can not be used
in the plural—there is but one Roman Catholic, and but one Greek Church in the
world; (2) that the local congregations are not churches; and (3) that these
universal churches never were, and never can be, assembled in one place for any
purpose.
The second is the National or Provincial theory. This is like the
universal, only limited. All the local congregations in the nation, province or
country, in some way associated, constitute the one church of that
nation or province.
The
Church of England is an illustration of this theory. The thousands of local
societies scattered throughout the empire of
The
Old School Presbyterian Church of this country conforms to this idea. Before
the division of the Old School body, all the local bodies in the
The
Methodist Episcopal Churches of America also illustrate the provincial theory.
There are only two Methodist Episcopal Churches in these
But
this point needs no argument, since it was forever settled by the Supreme Court
of the
Let
it be borne in mind that, according to this theory of church building, (1)
"ecclesia" can not be used in the plural, and (2) the
church can not be gathered into one place to discipline its members or to
observe the ordinances.
The third is the Baptist, or scriptural theory; viz., the
church is a local organization. This implies that the primitive model
was a single congregation, complete in itself, independent of all other bodies,
civil or religious, and the highest and only source of ecclesiastical authority
on earth, amenable only to Christ, whose laws alone it receives and
executes—not possessing the authority or right to enact or modify the
least law or ordinance, or to discipline a member, save for the violation of
what Christ himself has enjoined. This church acknowledges no body of men on
earth, council, conference or assembly as its head, but Christ alone, who is
invisible, as "head over all things" to it.
Proofs.—1.
The term ecclesia itself.—The Holy Spirit selected the Greek
word, ecclesia, which had but one possible literal meaning
to the Greek—that of a local organization.
2.
New Testament use.—It is used in the New Testament 110 times,
referring to the Christian institution, and in 100 of these it undoubtedly
refers to a local organization; and in the remaining 10 instances it is used figuratively—by
synecdoche—where a part is put for the whole, the singular for the plural, one
for all. In each of these instances what is true of all the churches is true of
any one—e. g., Ephesians
3.
Ecclesia in the plural.—It is used in the plural thirty-six
times, which fact is demonstrative that the universal or provincial idea was
not then known.
4.
The ecclesia of the New Testament could, and was required to assemble
in one place.—This is impossible for a universal or invisible church
to do. It was often required to assemble. (Matthew 18:17; 1 Cor.
5.
Ecclesia in a single city and house.—"Unto the
6.
Historical testimony.—The earliest writers knew nothing of an
invisible, universal or provincial church.
Clement,
A. D. 217.—"To the
Eusebius
referring to this epistle says: "There is one acknowledged epistle of this
Clement, great and admirable, which he wrote in the name of the church of
Rome to the
Irenaeus,
A.D. 175-200—"For the churches which have been planted in Germany do not
believe or hand down any thing different; nor do those [i.e., churches]
in Spain; nor those in Gaul; nor those in the East; nor those in Egypt; nor
those in Lybia; nor those which have been established in the central regions of
the world."
Tertullian,
A.D. 150.—Expressed the idea of a Christian church in his clay in these words:
"Three are sufficient to form a church, although they be laymen."
Giesler.—Of
the churches of the first and second centuries, says: "All congregations
were independent of one another" (Vol. 1, chap. 3).
Mosheim.—"During
a great part of this [second] century all the churches continued to be, as at
first, independent of each other; . . . each church was a kind of little
independent republic" (Vol. 1, p. 142).
Bro.
Owen.—"In no approved writer for two hundred years after Christ is mention
made of any organized, visibly professing church except a local congregation"
(By Crowell, in "Chap. Man., p. 36).
No
fact is better established than this, and therefore the various Catholic and
Protestant organizations can lay no just claim to be patterned after the
apostolic model; and, according to Bishop Doggett’s axioms, should not be
considered or called Christian churches.
CHAPTER IV.
The Divine and inalienable rights of a Christian Church—alone commissioned to preach
the Gospel—to ordain her officers—to receive, discipline
and exclude members—to administer her ordinances.
"God’s
house is a church of the living God, a pillar and ground of the truth" (1
Tim.
I
hold these postulates to be so self-evident to every commonly intelligent
reader of God’s Word, that I will exalt them into axioms and devote this
chapter to their application.
Axiom
i.
Each
church is a living body, to which Christ committed both the sacred oracles and
ordinances of Christianity.
Axiom
ii.
The
true churches are the only authorized exponents of Christ’s revelation, and of
what Christianity is; and, therefore, to them is thus committed its wholeness
and its symmetry.
It
is admitted by all commentators that—
1.
Christ commissioned His churches alone to preach His gospel.
The
first commission He ever issued on earth was to that body of disciples which
John called "the Bride," one of the titles of the Christian church.
The last commission was to the same body on
To
the saints organized into churches—for we find no companies of unbaptized and
unorganized persons spoken of as saints in the New Testament—was "the
faith"—which is but another word for "the gospel," with
all its ordinances—at first delivered, and, for all time, to be held by it. We
can not, for one moment, conceive that Christ or His apostles committed the
gospel to, and commissioned it to be preserved and preached by, those who
neither experimentally understood, nor had themselves obeyed it, and whose
teaching and practice tended directly to pervert and subvert it.
Paul,
addressing the Hebrew churches, says: "Therefore we receiving a kingdom
that can not be moved,’ etc. To Timothy he declared that "the church
of the living Cod was the pillar and the ground of the truth."
This teaches that to the church alone was the gospel entrusted to be preserved
in its purity, and to be published to the world, for it was the ground
and the pillar of the truth. Says Barnes in loco:
"Thus
it is with the church. It is entrusted with the business of maintaining the
truth, of defending it from the assaults of error, and of transmitting
it to future times. The truth is, in fact, upheld in the world by the
church. The people of the world feel no interest in defending it, and it is to
the
If
the church alone was commissioned to p reserve and to preach the gospel, then
it is certain that no other organization has the right to preach it—to trench
upon the divine rights of the church. A Masonic Lodge, no more than a Young
Men’s Christian Association; an Odd-Fellows’ lodge or Howard Association, no
more than a "Woman’s Missionary Board," have the least right to take
the gospel in hand, select and commission ministers to go forth and preach it,
administer its ordinances and organize churches. "Young Men’s Christian
Associations" are not churches or any part of a church. Nor is a
"Woman’s Missionary Society" in any conceivable sense, a church of
Christ, and their daring to assume the mission and exercise the prerogatives of
the divine church, is no less daring and impious than that of Uzziah when he
put forth his hand to seize the ark of God! The church is degraded in the eyes
of the world when its divine mission work is assumed by organizations of men’s
and women’s origination, and confusion and distraction are introduced into the Christian
church.
It
is through His church that Christ wishes and ordains that the glory of
all we can do, or give, or influence, should flow to Him in all ages, in this
and in all time to come, as well as in the past.
The
second divine prerogative of a
2.
To elect and commission—i.e., ordain—her own officers.
It
is evident that, if a church must exist before her officers, and that she is
absolutely independent of all other bodies, she must be authorized to elect and
to commission her officers without being required to call upon some outside
party. (1) The church at
A
church may, if she sees fit, invite as many ministers as she pleases to advise
and assist her officers in this work, but she must allow them no authority in
the matter. They may all decide that the candidate is qualified for the work,
but if she is not, after due examination, no ordination can take place;
and, the presbytery may decide adversely, but if the church is satisfied, it is
her right to ordain, and the presbytery can not prevent her act. One church
does not make a minister for, nor can she impose one upon, another church. When
one church calls a minister to preach to her, she virtually commissions him to
preach the gospel for her, or if the reader prefers, she indorses the act of
the church ordaining him. If the minister is a member of her body, she can, if
she deems him unworthy, withdraw the authority she gave him to preach, and
retain him as a member. A man may be qualified to be a good church member,
and not qualified to be a preacher of the gospel. Of this the church is
the only judge.
This
power, with all her other prerogatives, is delegated to her, and it is her
bounden duty to exercise it; she can not delegate her prerogatives.
"Quod
delegatur non delegatum est" is a legal maxim as old as the
civil code. What is delegated can not be delegated. She can not authorize her ministers
to examine and baptize members into her fellowship without her personal
presence and action upon each case. A minister, therefore, has no right,
because ordained, to decide who are qualified to receive baptism and to
administer it. Their ordination only qualified them to administer the
ordinances for a church when that church called upon them to do so. A minister has
an equally just right to administer the Lord’s Supper to whom, and
when, and where he pleases, as he has to baptize whom he
pleases, and one act would be as null as the other.
A
distinguished scholar in the South, in order to find a ground upon which to
unite the advocates of ministerial authority to baptize whom they will, and the
advocates of church authority alone, proposes that the pastor be allowed
the veto power—i. e., the right to reject whom he pleases.
This would virtually place the keys of the church door, and all the ordinances
of the church in the hands of the pastor, and put the whole church at his feet.
He would be a petty pope indeed, and no pope ever had more control of the
ordinances than he would have. Nor would he be long in making his power felt—his
arrogance and self-sufficiency as well.
The
question was discussed and decided in the negative by the old Goshen
Association in
It
is strangely advocated, by the same writer, that the act of any one church,
whether scriptural or not, binds the action of every other church in the
world;— e.g., suppose a church in this place should, without just cause, and by
a process not recognized in the New Testament, exclude a member—say for
contributing his money for foreign missions—that every other church of Christ
would be bound to respect that act, and would have no authority to restore that
outraged member to his church rights, of which he had been wickedly robbed in
open violation of the law of Christ! We refer all to 3 John 9, as determining
this case.
When
a church has excluded a member, she has no further jurisdiction over him than
over a publican, or one who never belonged to her body. She has no right to say
what church shall not, any more than what one shall, receive him. Each church
on earth has an unquestioned right to receive whom she pleases to her
fellowship. If she can fellowship a certain person, it is not her
business or duty to inquire if a church possibly exists on earth that can not;
and for this reason reject him. I do not discuss here what would be policy or
comity in a case where the church was knowing to the fact that the
applicant had been excluded for unchristian conduct from a sister church; but I
am asserting the abstract right of one church to dictate to another whom she
may or may not fellowship. No church on earth is compelled to receive a person
because he has a letter of credit from another sister church. That church itself
may be without credit—may be in known disorder, and then the church may have no
fellowship for the person applying. His character may be unsatisfactory, or he
may come with a baptism irregular and null in the estimation of the church, and
certainly she has the right to decide upon the qualifications of the members
she must fellowship and admit to her ordinances. To grant pastors the
"veto power," and that "the acts of one church bind all
others," would be to subvert the government of Baptist churches altogether,
and introduce ministerial lordship and a species of Church Centralism in the
place of
4.
It is the inalienable and sole right and duty of a Christian church to
administer the ordinances, Baptism, and the Supper.
That
these ordinances were designed to be of perpetual observance, commemorating
specific and important events or acts in the work of Christ, no intelligent
Christian will deny. The rites and ordinances of an institution belong,
unquestionably, to that institution, and may be rightly said to be in it. I
mean by these expressions that they are under the sole control of the
organization; they can he administered only by the organization as such, and
when duly assembled, and by its own officers or those she may appoint, pro
tern pore. A number of its members, not even a majority in an
unorganized capacity; is competent to administer its rites, and certainly
another and different body can not perform them—e. g., the rites of Masonry
belong to the respective lodges; ‘they can not be performed outside, or
independent of. the lodge by any number of Masons: the officers are mere
ciphers so soon as the lodge adjourns, and Odd Fellow lodges certainly can not
administer the rite of initiation for a masonic lodge, or vice versa.
Corollary
1.—No Baptist Association or Convention can ordain ministers; dictate the
discipline of churches; administer baptism or the Lord’s supper; and if
Pedobaptist and Catholic organizations are not scriptural churches, then they
not only have no right to preach or power to ordain ministers; but they have no
right, any more than have Masonic Lodges, to administer baptism and the Lord’s
Supper, and such acts of theirs ore worse than null and void.
Corollary
2.—The official acts of a minister of a church are held valid as to third
parties, as the acts of an officer, de facto, though not, de lure, would be,
should there be found to hove been material defects as to his legal
qualifications for the office. This is a scaled question in all civil matters,
and should be in ecclesiastical.
REM—There
ore certain qualifications, personal and ceremonial, scripturally required to
render a man eligible to ordination, as personal regeneration, "aptness to
teach," a valid baptism, etc. Of these the church alone is judge, and
responsible for any defect that may exist, and not parties applying to the
church for its ordinances. The church may, years after, be satisfied that her
pastor is on unregenerate man, or covetous, or his baptism defective—e. g., he
was not entirely put under the water when baptized, or by on unqualified
administrator, or by on impostor upon his own responsibility without
examination by a church, or by an impostor while officiating for a church;
still all his official acts, as marriages, baptisms, ordinations, are, de
facto, valid.
The
baptisms of John, of Judas, and of the false teachers in Paul’s day, who
belonged to the church at
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CHAPTER V.
The Fifth Mark of the apostolic model church—A spiritual membership;
i.e., professedly regenerate—"Christ before the
church, blood before water," the symbol of its faith—Those
religious organizations that admit infants and the unregenerate can not be
Christian churches.
"Ye
also as living stones are built up a spiritual house" (1 Pet. 1:5).
"The
Lord added to the church daily the saved (tous soozomenous)" (Acts
The
character of the material of which a public building, or a house for the
protection of a family, is constructed, is manifestly of the very first
importance. God never has commanded a structure to be erected for His service,
that He did not specifically indicate the material, and Christ no less
specifically commanded the material that should be used in His house—the
membership of His ecclesia. Let us look then, for the
Fifth
Mark of the "
The
membership all professedly regenerate in heart before baptized into it.
The
typical teachings of the Old Testament require this. Paul distinctly teaches
(Heb.
There
are three theories of church constituency extant between which Christendom is
divided; and if one be the true one the other two must be false, and the
pretended churches built upon them counterfeit and of pernicious influence.
1.
The first theory is the Catholic.
According
to this the church is the instrumental source of salvation, and her ordinances
are God’s appointed sacraments of salvation—channels of grace; so that
out of the church, without the use of these sacraments, there is no salvation;
therefore those "churches," accepting this theory, teach that it is
the duty of all, however wicked, to unite with "the church,"
to receive the grace of salvation, and to bring their children, young or
old, into it, and give them baptism, etc. This theory, if carried out, would
introduce the whole world at once into the church, and obliterate the least
distinction between the world and the church. It would be all church and no
"world;" or, rather, all world and no church. All purely
Catholic countries, and those where Protestant state churches" prevail,
are proofs of this. These, therefore, can not be considered scriptural churches
in any sense—Methodist and Episcopal societies accept this theory.
2.
The second is the Presbyterian theory.
According
to this, believers and their children—natural seed—irrespective of
regeneration, are entitled to membership. But this theory, carried out
according to the standard expositions of it, would introduce the whole world
quite as certainly as the former; for the "seed of believers" is made
to include all who have descended from believing ancestors, however remote.
"The
seed and posterity of the faithful, born within the church, have, by their
birth, interest in the covenant and a right to the seal."—Westminster
Assembly’s Confession.
"Children
may be lawfully accounted within God’s covenant if any of their ancestors,
in any generation, were faithful" (Bro. Rathburn: quoted by
Tombes, p. 32).
"Infants
that are born of believers belong to God before their baptism. Though they had
not a father or mother that was acquainted with God, yet perhaps, they had some
ancestors who were so favored, and therefore they are members of the
church" (Peter Martyr, in Booth’s P. Ex., vol.
II, p. 201).
Well
said old Thomas Boston, in opposing this theory, that it, like the Catholic,
would sweep in all the world, "so long as it remains undoubted that all
the world is come of Noah and of Adam." This theory is, therefore,
evidently false, and, like the first, subversive of the spiritual idea of the
church Christ established; and its societies are certainly no more churches
than is the Catholic hierarchy. From the above consideration, the reader can
appreciate the statements of the two Langes of Germany, distinguished
Pedobaptist scholars:
"All
attempts to make out infant baptism from the New Testament fails. it is
utterly opposed to the spirit of the apostolic age and to the fundamental
principles of the New Testament" (Bro. L. Lange: Infant Baptism,
p. 101).
J.
Lange, the renowned commentator: "Would the Protestant church fulfill and
attain to its final destiny, the baptism of new-born children must be
abolished. It can not, on any point of view, be justified by
the Holy Scriptures" (History Baptism, pp. 34,
35).
3.
The third is the Baptist theory.
This
is, that none but Christians should be baptized, and thus added to the
church. I mean a person should give satisfactory evidence that he has been
regenerated in heart, made a new creature in Christ, before he is baptized.
All human societies—and by this test they may infallibly be known—baptize,
and add to the church in order to save. Baptists do it, because they believe
the subject is saved. This is the grand characteristic that makes
Baptists a peculiar people—that separates them from all other. They invariably
place Christ before the church, while all others place the
church before Christ. For this reason Baptists do not give baptism
to their infants, nor to unregenerate persons. I have not the space, in this
little work, to make an extended argument against infant baptism; its
unscripturalness, and its vast and positive evils (I should be pleased if the
reader will study my little work—"The Origin and Evils of Infant
Sprinkling") to Christianity and the race; but I will simply
indicate the four principal arguments in addition to the one given above,
either one of which is sufficient to condemn it forever with every unprejudiced
man or woman.
I.
The Word of God contains neither precept for, nor example of, Infant Baptism,
which is frankly admitted by hundreds of the most learned Pedobaptist scholars.
If
infant baptism be a Christian duty, it must be a positive duty; and if
positive, it must be clearly and unmistakably commanded, since all positive duties
are clearly commanded.
A.
Bledsoe, LL.D, late editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review, vol.
14, pp. 234, 235, the most scholarly man the Methodists of America ever had,
makes this declaration:
"It
is an article of our faith that the baptism of young children is in any wise to
be retained in the church as most agreeable to the institution of Christ. But
yet, with all our searching, we have been unable to find in the New Testament a
single express declaration, or word, in favor of infant
baptism. This may, perhaps, be deemed by some of our readers a strange position
for a Pedobaptist. It is by no means, however, a singular opinion. Hundreds of
learned Pedobaptists have come to the same conclusion; especially—since the New
Testament has been subjected to a closer, and a more conscientious and more
candid exegesis than was formerly practiced by controversialists"
[Italics Mine].
Bro.
Bledsoe quotes Bros. Knapp. Jacobi and Neander, distinguished German
Pedobaptists, in proof that infant baptism was not instituted by Christ or His
apostles, or known in the first ages, and adds:
"We
might, if necessary, adduce the admission of many other profoundly learned
Pedobaptists, that their doctrine is not found in the New Testament, either in
express terms or by implication from any portion of its teachings."
II.
That the practice of Infant Baptism was unknown to the churches of Christ in
the first two centuries after Christ. is admitted by all standard Pedobaptist
scholars and historians.
Curcelleus,
acknowledged to be the most learned Protestant scholar of the sixteenth
century, says:
"Pedobaptism
was not known in the world the two first ages after Christ; in the third and
fourth it was approved by few; at length, in the fifth and
following ages, it began to obtain in divers places; and, therefore, we [Pedobaptists]
observe this rite, indeed as an ancient custom but not as an apostolic
tradition. The custom of baptizing infants did not begin before the third age
after Christ, and there appears not the least footstep of it for the first two
centuries."
So
Neander, Mosheim, Gieseler, Schaff, Coleman. Now, if infant baptism was not
instituted by Christ nor His apostles, nor known for ages after Christ, it is
evidently a "commandment of men," and Christ Himself has said:
"In
vain do they—all those—worship me who teach for doctrine the commandments of
men" (Matthew 15:9).
Such
systems, no more than the worship of such bodies of men, can be pleasing or
accepted by Christ, but condemned and abhorred by him, whatever men, who would
be considered "liberal," may think or say, Christ does not, he can
not, approve them, nor should we, and hope to please him.
III.
All the teachings of Christ and His apostles positively forbid the practice of
Infant Baptism, and the admission of the unregenerate to baptism and
church-membership.
Catholics
baptize all these, and their graveyards as well; and on the same authority they
do their infants.
1.
John, Christ’s first gospel minister and apostle, it is admitted by all,
baptized only penitent believers, and he positively declared that
children, by virtue of their connection with pious ancestors, were not entitled
to baptism. Christ never authorized any man to teach differently.
2.
Thus Christ, during His ministry, made disciples before He baptized them
(John 4:1), and therefore He did not make disciples by baptizing them,
and therefore no one is authorized to say it can be done. Christ certainly
never commanded His apostles or ministers to teach or baptize otherwise than He
instructed John and His apostles during His own ministry. The commission is the
permanent law for Christian baptism; and in it Christ positively forbade the
baptism of unbelievers and non-believers, by specifying the character to be
baptized, viz., "he that believeth." Since "the specification of
one thing is the prohibition of all other things;" if He prohibited the
baptism of a bell, mules and apes, He did that of a baby—an unbeliever.
3.
The formula Christ gave forbids the baptism of infants or unregenerate persons.
He
commanded all who were to receive His baptism to be baptized into, not
in, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost. Whether into or in the name, equally implies by the authority—and
no minister who has the fear of the Sacred Trinity before his eyes, will
declare he does an act by the authority of Christ until he can find an express
precept arid command for it—and every intelligent minister and Christian knows
such authority can not be found in the Word. But the preposition into,"
with a subject that is impenetrable and indivisible, is manifestly used
figuratively, and means every-where so used—a "profession of," or
"faith in," and union with, etc. See "eis metanoian"
(Matthew 3:11; Acts 2:38), into repentance, means upon their
profession—state of repentance; "eis ephesin amartioon," into
remission, a profession of being in that state; "eis ti ebaptisthete"
and "eis to Ioannes baptisma" (Acts 19:3). What
faith did you profess by your baptism? And they said, We were baptized into
John’s baptism—i.e., declared our belief in the faith, or
doctrine we understood, that John taught. "Eis ton moousen ebaptisanto,
baptized into Moses (1 Cor. 10:2), was an act by which they expressed their
faith in the existence of Moses, and their allegiance to him as their guide and
lawgiver, and a baptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost, can certainly mean no less than a declaration or profession, on the
part of the subject, of his belief in the tri-personality of the Godhead, and
allegiance to their equal authority. Baptism was designed to be a profession of
our faith; but infants are unable to exercise or profess faith, and
unregenerate persons do not. Baptism is designed to be the answer of a good
conscience toward God, but an infant has no conscience.
IV.
The uniform practice of the apostles demonstrated how they understood their
commission. (See Acts 2.)
V.
The evils of the practice are many and fearful to the subject. to Christianity,
the church, and to the world.
These
are so many, and so great, that Brother Gill declared infant baptism to be
"part and pillar of popery;" and so distinguished a Pedobaptist and
scholar as Brother J. Lange, of
"All
attempts to make out infant baptism from the New Testament fails. It is utterly
opposed to the spirit of the apostolic age and to the fundamental principles of
the New Testament."
It
seems to me, from these considerations, that the conviction of every candid
person must be that Christ designed the material of His churches to be spiritual—built
of lively stones— i.e., their members to be all
"circumcised in heart;" "born from above;" in a word, professedly
regenerated persons, and that the primitive and apostolic churches were
each and all composed of such. This, then, is the irresistible.
Conclusion.
All
those religious organizations that, by fundamental law, do admit infants and
the confessedly unregenerate to baptism and membership, are not, and should
not, be considered, called, or by any act recognized as churches of Christ or
evangelical bodies.
CHAPTER VI.
Christian immersion the act appointed for the profession of gospel
faith. The
twelve disciples at
"Into
what then were ye baptized?" (Acts 19:3).
"Know
ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death?" (Rom. 6:3).
"Having
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies bathed in pure
water, Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without
wavering." (Heb. 10:22,23).
The
Sixth Mark of the
Its
baptism is the profession, on the part of the subject, of the faith of the
Gospel by which he is saved.
Christian
baptism is not the celebration of a religious rite by modes indifferent; but it
is a specific act, instituted for the expression of specific truths;
to be administered by a specific body, to persons possessing specific
qualifications. When one of these properties is wanting the transaction is
null—since, unless the ordinances are observed as Christ commanded, they are
not obeyed, but perverted.
Now
the divine institutor of the rite selected but one word to indicate the act he
intended, and that word—baptizo—which never had but one meaning when
referring to persons, viz., "To dip in, or under water,"
(Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon, sixth and last
edition, gives but this one definition) and, therefore, immersion in water was
the act He specifically commanded; by specifying one act, He forbade any other
to be done in His name, Having seen that a scriptural church is the only
organization He has authorized to administer the act, and only to persons who
give satisfactory evidence of being regenerate in heart, it now remains to
inquire for the symbolism of the rite.
The
Scriptures are clear, in teaching that baptism is for the profession of
something on the part of the subject, and that something is the faith of
the gospel—the ground on which the soul must rest upon for its salvation. Paul
explicitly states this fact. (See Heb. 10:23, above quoted.) That ground is the
finished work of Christ, and our participation in it. This we are to profess
and set forth in our baptism.
When
Paul heard from the disciples at
John
baptized only those who gave him evidence of having repented toward Cod, and
were exercising faith in Christ soon to appear, and no one could exercise these
graces without the influences of the Holy Spirit; and he did distinctly mention
the existence and work of the Spirit. These disciples had, doubtless, been
immersed by Apollos, a disciple of John, who was preaching in these parts, for
he knew nothing but the baptism of John. Now the faith which John preached
before Christ came, was not the proper faith to be preached after he came;
since he required them to believe that Christ was yet to come, and
no one but John was authorized to administer his baptism. There were,
therefore, three things unscriptural connected with their case.
1.
These persons were unregenerate when they were immersed.
2.
They did not profess the proper faith in their baptism.
3.
They were not baptized by one having any authority to baptize.
Though
they acted conscientiously, and were perfectly satisfied with the act, they
were nevertheless unbaptized. This case should convince any one that Brother
Jeter’s position is wrong. He holds that if persons have been dipped in water,
in the name of the Trinity, and are satisfied with the act, it is valid baptism
to them, irrespective of the faith they professed in it, or the moral or
ecclesiastical qualifications of the administrator. These had been dipped, and
were satisfied with the act. The immersion of a traveling imposter, without the
vote of any church, would then be valid baptism, and Paul, under the direction
of the Holy Spirit, baptized them. This has been the authority quoted by
Anabaptists in all ages, as well as in this age, to justify them in baptizing
those immersed by unscriptural organizations; and those who oppose them are
forced to deny that these Ephesian disciples were rebaptized. "But by no
rules governing the Greek language can the original be wrested to teach
otherwise than that Paul, or one of his companions, baptized these
disciples." The English is a faithful translation of the text; and by the
laws of the English language, the version can not be construed to teach
otherwise than that Paul laid his hands upon those who were said to be
baptized; and it is certain that he did not lay his hands upon those John
baptized. For a critical exposition of this passage, see little work by the
author—"The Baptism of John." This example is positive
instruction to us to readminister the act where there has been an irregularity.
The church at
"Dost
thou believe all the articles of the Christian faith as contained in the
apostolic creed?"
(Answer
by sponsor for the infant) "I do."
"Wilt
thou be baptized in this faith?"
Ans. "That
is my desire."
Having
established the fact that the subject of baptism does not profess any private
personal faith he may entertain, but always the faith or creed of the
church baptizing him, let us here notice the faith of each of the leading
denominations around us; that we may know into what we were baptized—if we have
been baptized by them, or expect to be baptized by them.
The
Greek Catholic Church (A.D. 313-337).
This,
the oldest apostate church existing today, requires all its subjects
personally, or by sponsors, to be baptized into this faith, as the ground of
salvation:
"We
believe that baptism is a sacrament appointed by the Lord, which, except a
person receive, he has no communion with Christ; from whose death,
burial, and resurrection proceed all the virtue and efficacy of baptism. We are
certain, therefore, that both original and actual sins are forgiven to those
who are baptized in the manner which our Lord requires in the gospel; and that
whoever is washed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost, is regenerated, cleansed, and sanctified."
There
is no mistaking this language. The baptismal rite is Cod’s appointed channel by
which He conveys the grace of salvation to the soul, and is therefore called a
"sacrament," without which there can be no salvation.
The
Roman Catholic Church (A.D. 610)
teaches
this faith, and requires all baptized in her communion to profess it, viz.:
"Baptism
is a sacrament instituted by our Savior to wash away original sin, and all
those we may have committed; to communicate to mankind the spiritual
regeneration and grace of Jesus Christ, and to unite them to the living Head.
"If
any man shall say that baptism is not essential to salvation, let him be
accursed . . . In baptism, not only our sins are remitted, but all the
punishment of sins and wickedness" . . . (Council of Trent).
The
faith of these two "churches," that constitute the apostate part of
Christendom, from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries, are very similar. The
perversion of the primitive faith, touching the ordinance, was by
transposition; they put the water before the blood, and made it necessary to
reach the blood through the water. This simple change corrupted the whole
gospel, perverted the whole plan of salvation, and made regeneration depend
upon the will of men—the priesthood. I ask every Baptist right here to stop and
answer this question: Should the most esteemed and influential Baptist Church
on this continent, from this day, baptize into this faith, and for this
purpose, would you vote to receive the baptisms of that church as scriptural
and valid? You can decide this.
Campbellite
Design of Baptism
Compare
the above with the faith into which Campbellites baptize their converts. They
baptize for the remission of sins. What do they mean by the expression?
Mr. Campbell, the originator of the sect, is certainly qualified to explain:
"In,
and by the act of immersion, as soon as our bodies are put under the water, at
that very instant all our former or old sins are washed away" (Christian
Baptist, p. 100).
"Immersion
is the means divinely appointed for the actual enjoyment of the first
and great blessings."—Millennial Harbinger.
"Remission
of sins can not be enjoyed by any person before immersion."
"Belief
of this testimony is what impelled us into the water, knowing that the efficacy
of his blood is to be communicated to our consciences in the way which
God has pleased to appoint; we stagger not at the promise, but flee to the
sacred ordinance [water of baptism] which brought the blood of Jesus
in contact with our consciences. Without knowing and believing this,
immersion is as a blasted nut—the shell is there, but the kernel is
wanting" (Christian Baptist, p. 521).
The
reader can see for himself that Campbellites baptize into the self-same faith
the Catholics do. He, if possible, more strongly emphasizes the doctrine of
baptismal regeneration. He asserts, with all the force he can give his
language, that the sinner can only come to Christ through the water; that he
can only reach the blood of Christ by being immersed into the water; and
he elsewhere affirms that immersion and regeneration are terms meaning the same
thing. Campbellites, therefore, unite with the apostate teachers of
Christianity in placing water before blood; thus bringing an
unpardoned, unregenerated sinner to water baptism, as a sacrament of salvation.
Can a
The
Protestant Episcopal church baptizes into this faith: viz., in the catechism
the subject is taught to say, there are two sacraments as generally necessary
to salvation—i.e., baptism and the supper of the Lord. At
his confirmation he is required to answer thus to the question: "Who gave
you this name?"
Ans. "My
sponsors in baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God,
and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." All who are baptized in this
"church," come to the water as sinners, unpardoned and unregenerate,
in order to receive pardon, and regeneration, and salvation. The teachings of
the prayer-book abundantly sustain this.
The
Methodist Episcopal Church
Many
come to us immersed by these societies, but are they baptized? Let the question
be asked, into what is every Methodist baptized?
To
save space I will state that the office for the baptism of both infants and
adults in the Discipline, is copied, almost verbatim, from the Book
of Common Prayer used by the Episcopalians; and, touching the efficacy of
baptism in the case of infants, Wesley, the father of the system, who copied
the office from the Book of Common Prayer, is competent to
explain.
"It
is certain that our church supposes that all who are baptized in their
infancy, are at the same time born again; and it is allowed [no Methodist ever
disputed it in Wesley’s day] that the whole office for the baptism of infants
proceeds upon this supposition" (Wesley’s Works, vol.
1, p. 405).
Now,
into what do Methodists baptize adults?
"By
baptism, we who are by nature children of wrath, are made the children of
God." In all ages the outward baptism is a means of the inward . . . By
water, then, as a means—the water of baptism—we are regenerated
or born again (Wesley’s Works, vol. 6, sec. 4).
I
might quote pages of similar teachings; and lest some one should say this is
not what Methodists now teach, I ask, Do they not still use the office
prescribed in the Discipline, and pray the same prayers at baptism,
as they did in Wesley’s day? The last Methodist Conference that met
in
"Baptism,
too, has been unnecessarily deferred, not only in case of children, but
sometimes postponed to an indefinite period in the case of adults. The practice
of requiring a public profession of regeneration before baptism, has resulted in
evil, and that the design of the sacrament is perverted, and the people
encouraged to expect the divine blessing without the use of means, [i.e., baptism].
We call attention to these evils, that we may seek diligently to remove
them" (Copied from Western Methodist).
This
is sufficient. To teach and practice that a sinner can be regenerated without
water baptism, as a means, is an evil in the estimation of the Methodist
conference today. No regenerated person can be baptized according to the
"Methodist Discipline." Every adult, without exception, is required
to confess himself unregenerate, and unpardoned, and that he comes to baptism
to obtain these blessings. Every song prepared to be sung at their baptism
teach the same thing. Now, can a Baptist, with the teachings of God’s Word
before him, indorse such baptisms as valid, and the design scriptural, by
receiving them? That Baptist must know that immersion would be worse than null,
if administered by Baptist Churches for such a purpose. The subject would profess
a false and pernicious faith in his baptism. There are three vital
defects in immersions administered by Methodists.
1.
There is the lack of any church authority—Methodist societies are not churches
of Christ, and therefore can not baptize.
2.
The lack of qualification on the part of the subject—he confesses him- or
herself unregenerate, and that he seeks it in the act.
3.
The design is unscriptural—the faith it requires to be professed, as shown
above, false and pernicious.
The
Presbyterian Faith Required to be Professed
By
referring to "Shorter Catechism" we find this:
Q.—What
is a sacrament?
A.—"A
sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein [i.e.,
in the receiving of which] by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of
the New Covenant are represented, sealed and applied to believers."
Now
the covenant of grace is worthless to any one, unless it is sealed and applied
to him. Therefore, unless the sacrament is received, none of the benefits of
Christ’s death can be enjoyed by any one. This is clear. Now, what ordinances
are sacraments?
"A.—The
sacraments of the New Testament are baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
"Q.—What
is baptism?
"A.—Baptism
is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein Christ hath ordained the washing
with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost to
be a sign and seal, of engrafting into himself of remission of
sins by his blood, and regeneration by his Spirit of adoption, and resurrection
unto everlasting life."—S. Catechism. This is a palpable
misrepresentation. For Christ commanded to dip in or under water; and Christ
Himself
was immersed into the river
In
these extracts it is clearly taught that baptism is a sacrament—i.e.,
a rite by which the benefits of Christ’s death are applied; and also, a seal,
by which they are made sure—confirmed to those receiving. Of course, if the
benefits of Christ’s death—i.e., regeneration, justification,
pardon and adoption—are applied in and by baptism, it can not be supposed the
subject possesses them before baptism; and, therefore, none but unregenerate
and unpardoned persons can be baptized, in accordance with the Presbyterian
design of baptism. It is substantially the same as the Catholics and
Campbellites—to make one a Christian and child of God. Water is put before
Blood.
An
immersion or baptism by this sect would be marked by the same three vital
defects with that of the Catholics—i.e., no scriptural
authority—for Presbyterian societies are not churches (see last chapter)—an
unscriptural subject, and an unscriptural design; and Baptist Churches can not
recognize them as valid by receiving them without renouncing their own as
unscriptural; for, of two contradictory propositions, if one be true, the other
must he false.
Baptist
Faith Professed in Baptism
Our
historical ancestors, the Anabaptists (A. D. 1120), five hundred years before a
Protestant sect existed, or Luther or Calvin had been born, taught this
concerning the above doctrine of regeneration by baptism, in a little work
defending Antichrist:
"A
third work of Antichrist consists in this, that he attributes the regeneration
of the Holy Ghost unto the mere external act, baptizing infants into that
faith, teaching that thereby baptism and regeneration must be had; on which
principle he bestows orders, and, indeed, grounds all his Christianity, which
is contrary to the Word of the Holy Scriptures."
Can
it be that Baptists of this age, instead of protesting against, will approve and
indorse the teachings and act as scriptural, by receiving them? Those old
Baptists held the faith concerning baptism that we profess to teach. From
fourteen articles of faith they put forth I copy—
"Article
7.—We believe in the ordinance of baptism. The water is the visible external,
which represents to us that, which by virtue of God’s invisible operation, is
within us, viz., the renovation of our mind and the mortification of our
members through faith of Jesus Christ; and by this ordinance we are received
into the holy congregation of God’s people, previously professing and declaring
our faith and change of life."
Christ
was our great exemplar as well as teacher, and He not only indicated by His
example how we should be baptized, but at the very water’s edge He declared the
true design of baptism. He declared that His own was to fulfill all
righteousness." We know He came to earth to work out a
righteousness for His people, to satisfy the infinite claims of Divine justice.
This He could not accomplish literally, by being baptize , else He might have
ascended in a chariot of glory to the right hand of His Father when He came up
out of the water. But He did fulfill all righteousness, in some sense, and it
must have been fulfilled figuratively. He painted before their
eyes the three great acts by which He did fulfill the all-righteousness the law
required. 1. He must sink in death. 2. Be buried. 3. Rise again from the dead.
By these acts, prefigured in His baptism, He prefigured His crucifixion, His
burial, and His resurrection. Paul taught .that Christian baptism represented
the crucifixion of Christ (Col. 3:1), and Christ, referring to His coming
crucifixion, called it a baptism —immersion (Luke 12:50). Paul also
declares that three acts constitute the whole gospel, by which we are saved, if
we rightly apprehend and believe: 1. How that Christ died for our sins;
2. That he was buried; 3. That He rose again the third day (1 Cor. 15:1-5).
Christ,
then, in a lively figure, set before the eyes of all His sacrificial work—the
gospel of our salvation—and He has made it the duty of every disciple of His to
do the same. And is it too much for Christ to require us to represent these
great acts of His redemptive work, and profess our own personal faith in them,
for our own salvation, as we are about to enter His church? The soul, redeemed
by His precious blood, will rejoice to do it, despite the sneers of an ungodly
world, and the opposition of modem priests and Pharisees.
This
is the baptism Christ instituted for His church, and He forbade it to recognize
or receive any other. In this design we see it is—
Blood
Before Water
By
this simple test human societies, and all counterfeit churches, can be easily
distinguished from the churches of Christ, viz., in the former, water is put
before blood, and the church before Christ; in the latter Christ is put before
the church, and blood before water. Reader, how do they stand in your faith,
and which came first in your baptism, blood or water?"
Conclusions
1.
Where there is no scriptural baptism, there are no scriptural churches of
Christ, no scriptural ordinations, no scriptural ministers, no scriptural
ordinances. (Brother N. L. Rice, Presbyterian, admits this—"no baptism, no
church").
2.
If immersion be the act which Christ exemplified in His own baptism, and
commanded for baptism, then Pedobaptist societies are without baptism, and,
consequently, are not churches, and are without scriptural ministers or
scriptural ordinances.
3.
If baptism is not a "seal," nor the law of pardon, nor a
"sacrament" of salvation, but an act by which we profess the saving
faith we possess, and in which we symbolize the death, burial and resurrection
of Christ, then it must be admitted that Baptists, alone, truly baptize, and
the immersions of other denominations are in no sense baptisms, and should not
be indorsed as valid.
CHAPTER VII.
THE LORD’S SUPPER
A
local church ordinance, not denominational, or social—Intercommunion
between different religions bodies, having diverse organizations and
diverse faiths, or, between "sister"
churches, contrary both to the genius of scriptural church building
symbolism of the ordinance.
"Because
there is one loaf, we, the many [members of the one church at
"Now
I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the
ordinances as I delivered them unto you" (1 Cor. 11:2).
The Seventh Mark of the Model Ecclesia.
The
Lord’s Supper was observed as a local church ordinance. commemorative
only of the sacrificial chastisement of Christ for His people, never expressive
of personal fellowship, or of courtesy for others, or used as a sacrament.
That
the Supper is a commemorative ordinance, instituted by Christ, to be observed
in each local church, until He comes again, every Baptist will admit. This
implies that each participant must, at least, he a member of some scriptural
church, which also implies that he must have been scripturally
baptized—immersed. Now the question I wish more particularly to discuss in this
chapter is:
Can a local church, scripturally or consistently, extend the invitation to
participate beyond her own membership and discipline?
I
well know that but few brethren can follow me in this discussion with
unprejudiced minds, such is the power of denominational precedent over us all.
I shall, without doubt, be confronted, at the very threshold, with the
"traditions of fathers," and the almost immemorial "usages"
of the denomination. But it weighs not a feather’s weight with me; though it
can be proved that Baptists, since the days of Paul, and that by the very
churches he planted and instructed, have practiced inter-communion, the
question is, "What were the instructions he gave?" These must
constitute the "Old Landmarks" to guide us in the observance of this
ordinance, and not "denominational usage," or the mistakes and errors
of our fathers, if our ancestors did, indeed, err from the "old
paths." The writer can easily remember when Baptist Associations were wont
to close their sessions by celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and this they did for
years; but was it right because our fathers did it? Who will advocate this
practice today, or what Association on this continent will presume to
administer the supper? And yet, what a clamor would have been raised about the
ears of the man who, in those days, had lifted his voice in
condemnation of it! Fifty years our fathers were wont to advise the churches to
send their licentiates to the Association to receive ordination, and it was
wont to select a Presbytery, and between them ordain the minister. But who will
advocate so unscriptural a procedure now? Twenty-five or thirty
years ago, the overwhelming majority of our churches in the South would indorse
a Campbellite, and alien immersion as valid; but there is not an Association in
the South, let the question be fairly laid before it, would indorse them today.
And why? Because the attention of the churches have been called to a serious
consideration of the question by discussions, pro and con, and
scriptural truth and consistency have triumphed.
Now,
touching the Lord’s Supper, Baptists have not departed from "the form of
sound words" in formulating their belief. They universally hold that it is
a local church ordinance, i.e., an ordinance to be
observed in and by a local church, but they have generally fallen into a
"slip-shod" way of observing it, quite as unscriptural as either of
the bad "usages" I have mentioned above.
They
now generally observe it, not as a strictly local church ordinance, i.e.,
confined to the members of the singular church celebrating the rite, but as a
denominational observance, as belonging to the kingdom rather than to each
local organization of the kingdom. Many and great evils, and gross
inconsistencies, damaging to our denominational influence and growth, have
sprung out of this practice, which it is my object to point out. Encouraged, as
my faith is by the past, I believe that in a few years our churches will, as a body,
return to the "old paths," in this, as in other matters, and walk
in them, and find rest from the opposition which they have justly brought down
upon their own heads.
Arguments
From Our Church Constitution.
1.
It is a local church ordinance.
A
church, by its constitution, is strictly an independent body. It absolutely
controls its own acts, and can, in no sense, control those of any
other church. Her prerogatives, like her responsibilities, terminate with
herself, and her authority is limited, as to the objects over which it is
exercised, to her own membership, and she has not a church privilege she can extend
to those outside her pale. If, then, the supper was committed to each local
church, its observance was limited to the membership of each church, and it can
rightly be observed, only by the united membership of such churches, and
not by them, in common with the membership of other churches. A church can
extend her privileges, no more than her discipline, beyond her organization.
I
never heard an intelligent Baptist claim that the members of other Baptist
churches have a right to participate in the supper, when spread in any
Again,
when a person, having accepted Christ as his Savior, and seeks, as he should,
the privileges of His church, he unites with a local church only, and not with
the denomination generally, and receives and enjoys church privileges in that
church alone. He can vote on all questions of ecclesiastical polity in that
particular church, and in no other. He can participate in the supper in that
church and no other, since he is under the watch and care of that church and no
other.
2.
To each local church is committed the sole guardianship of the ordinances
she administers.
She
is commanded to allow only members possessing certain qualifications, to come
to the feast. Any who may have fallen into heresies, or whose Christian
conversation is not such as becometh godliness—drunkards, fornicators,
covetous, revilers, extortioners, etc.—with such she is not to eat.
The
church at
Each
church, then, is made the guardian of this feast. She can not alienate the
responsibility; she must see that no disqualified person comes to the table;
she must, then, have absolute control of the supper; but, if it is her duty to
invite the members of all Baptist Churches present, regardless of their known
character, then she has no power to discharge this duty. She would evidently
have no control over this ordinance; would be robbed of one of her most
important prerogatives as a church. But, if it is not her duty to invite any
but her own members, then, she ought not to do it, and, if the act robs her of
the power to obey the laws of her Head, and preserve the purity of this sacred
ordinance, then, she may know the practice is wrong, and fraught with
evil.
I
conclude with this argument in logical form:
1.
Any practice that puts it out of the power of the church to discharge a
positive command of Christ must be sinful, and forbidden by Christ.
2.
The practice of inviting all members of Baptist Churches present, to observe
the Lord’s Supper, does put it out of the power of that church to discharge
‘the positive duty enjoined (1 Cor. 5).
3.
Therefore, the practice of inviting all members of Baptist Churches present is
sinful and forbidden by Christ (Q. E .D.).
Argument
from the Symbolism of the Supper.
AXIOM.
The
symbol can not be appropriate where the thing signified is wanting—and
conversely: Those things can not be appropriate, or scriptural, that contradict
the symbol.
No
one will question these axioms, and all Baptists believe that the elements
Christ employed were symbolic of great facts. Let us see what they symbolized.
The
One Loaf.—There should be but one loaf upon the table. Christ used but one.
Paul specifies the use of but one: "Because there is one loaf,
we, the many, are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf" (1
Cor.
This
one, undivided loaf was designed to teach that only one undivided
body—organization—church as such—not several churches as an Association, nor
parts of several—was authorized to celebrate this ordinance, or could do it
without vitiating it. The symbolic teachings of the "one loaf" is
stultified whenever one church, with the fragments of a dozen others, attempts
to observe the supper. Could the administrator say, "We are one
body"—or organization, or church—and tell the truth?
Here
Paul specifies that one, and only one, church like that at
Corinth should come together "in church," i. e., as a single church,
and in "church capacity," to observe this ordinance. An organization
assembles "in lodge" to receive members, and perform their rites, and
so a local church must organize as such, to observe the supper; a plurality of
churches, or parts of churches, can not.
Artos.—The
loaf was of one specific kind and quality of flour. It was not a loaf of
barley, nor of maize; neither of oat nor rye flour, much less a mixture of these,
but it is specified one wheaten loaf—"heis artos not, madza"—and
this loaf was not of unbolted, but of "fine flour"—all the impurities
of the wheat carefully removed. God never permitted any other flour to be used
in His ordinances of old, or offered in any sacrifice upon His altars. It
certainly had a meaning, as a type; it certainly has a symbol in the
The
Signification of the Fine Wheaten-Loaf.
The
quality of the loaf signified the one faith, and that the pure
faith once delivered to the saints unadulterated. Where there
are divers faiths in the same church, this ordinance can not be observed. This
was the case—divisions produced by heresies —in the church at
Thus
the symbolism of the one loaf of one flour forever settles the
question of their communion by different sects, and inter-communion among
Baptist Churches; they are not the "one body," organization, church,
nor have they the same faith. Will Protestants claim that they and Catholics
are one—the self-same body—organization? If not, they can not observe
the supper together. Will they claim that their faith is one? Will Protestants
claim that their various organizations are one and the same? Will Presbyterians
aver that the Arminianism of the Methodists is the same as Calvinism? They are
the poles asunder. How, then, without profaning the feast, without making the
symbolism testify to a falsehood, can Presbyterians, Methodists, and
Campbellites observe the supper together? They certainly are not one body, one
church; nor have they the one and the same faith.
The
last time the Old and New School Presbyterian assemblies met the same year in
"The
committee are of opinion that for Presbyterians to hold communion in sealing
ordinances with those who belong to churches holding doctrines contrary to our
standards (as do Baptists, Methodists, and all others), is incompatible with
the purity and peace of the (Presbyterian) Church, and highly prejudicial to
the truth as it is in Jesus. Nor can such communion answer any valuable purpose
to those who practice it, etc."
Bro.
D. Monfort, Presbyterian, in a series of letters, gives the following reasons
for not giving free invitations to other churches, and especially Baptists:
"1.
They do not belong to the fellowship (i.e., of the
Presbyterian Church), and therefore they can not consistently receive
the tokens of it. 2. They profess to be conscientious in refusing
the fellowship, and it is uncharitable to ask them to violate their
consciences, etc." (Letter IV).
Bishop
Hedding, Methodist, in his work on the administration of the Discipline, asks:
"Is it proper for a preacher to give out a general invitation in the
congregation to members in good standing in other churches to come to the
Lord’s Supper?"
"No;
for the most unworthy persons are apt to think themselves in good standing,
etc."
And
again: "There are some communities, called churches which, from heretical
doctrines or immoral practices, have no claim to the privileges of Christians,
and ought not to be admitted to the communion of any Christian people"
(Pages 72, 73).
This
is what the Discipline enjoins: "But no person shall be admitted to
the Lord’s Supper among us who is guilty of any practice for which we would
exclude a member of our Church."
"Inveighing
against our doctrines or discipline" are the capital charges mentioned in
section 5; and what Presbyterian or Baptist does not oppose both the doctrine
and discipline of Methodism as unscriptural and evil? Can these bodies practice
open communion?
AXIOM
No
church may dare to celebrate the ordinances unless she possesses the faith and
the facts symbolized.
The
Unleavened Loaf.—The loaf used by Christ was one of those prepared for the
Passover Supper, and was, therefore unleavened. God required, on pain of death,
that no leaven should be used in any bread brought to His altar, or mingled in
any sacrifice or ordinance typical of the sacrifice of Christ for us. All the
burnt offerings for sin typified Christ’s sacrifice, and the Paschal Feast was
an eminent type of Christ, our Passover. He certainly had good and sufficient
reasons for using this sort of bread. It was not mere capriciousness in Him.
But He explained to the Jews why He instituted the unleavened bread of
the passover. It was to teach them and their children, in the generations
following, that He, their Sovereign Lord, alone and unassisted, had delivered
them and brought them up out of Egypt: "Remember this day, in which ye
came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the
Lord brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be
eaten" (Ex. 13:3). Their salvation was of the Lord alone. To
symbolize this fact, all leaven of every sort was to be diligently sought for
in all their coasts for 7 days, and burned with fire; and by this they were
given to understand that God was jealous of His honor, and that no part of
their salvation was ever to be ascribed to either man or idol. The passover was
a type pointing forward to what the symbols of the supper point back to, the
sovereign grace of God in Christ, by whom we are redeemed from the "power
of sin and Satan," and not by works of righteousness which we have done or
may do; and, therefore, it is absolutely essential to the scriptural observance
of the supper that unleavened bread should be used. With leavened bread,
Paul’s allusion would be meaningless where he recognizes the church at
The
Wine.—The Savior used wine made of "the grape" —it was "the
fruit of the vine." He commanded; and, if it was not lawful
for leaven to be used in this feast, He certainly did not use an element that
was little less than leaven itself. It could not have been unfermented wine He
used and commanded, as some, more zealous than wise, are now teaching; for
unfermented wine, in the first place, is a misnomer. There never was, there can
not be, a drop of wine without fermentation. It is must,
and not wine, until fermentation ensues, and unfermented juice of the grape
is but a mass of leaven. It is this element in the juice that causes it to
ferment, and fermentation is the process by which it throws off, and clears
itself, of this impurity. Thoroughly fermented wine contains no leaven, and,
therefore, it is only after this natural clarification of itself that the
Savior used, and commanded His churches to use it; and, limiting this element
to wine, He forbade the use of any other liquid than the pure juice of the
grape, when fermented and clarified.
One
Cup only should be used, to preserve the symbolism; yet, where the church is
large, and the wine to be used necessarily considerable, it can be placed upon
the table in one vessel, and thanks given, before it is divided into
smaller ones, to be distributed. The church, though many, may be said, all to
drink of one wine, and of one vessel, or measure of wine.
As
a crowning proof that no leaven must be used at this feast, either in the bread
or wine, I refer the Bible student to those burnt-offerings of old, which were
typical of Christ. No leaven was allowed to be used (Ex. 34:25; Lev.
The
Argument From the Design of the Supper.
Ritualists,
whether Protestants or Romanists, have perverted this ordinance, as well as
baptism, into a "sacrament" and "seal" of salvation; thus
making it indispensable to the salvation of both infants and adults, and, in
addition to this, they teach that the supper is a mark of Christian courtesy,
or sign of Christian fellowship, in partaking of which Christians commune with
one another.
I
have not space in this work to notice and expose the doctrine of
transubstantiation, as taught by Romanists, nor of con-substantiation,
as held by Lutherans, nor that of the "mystical body" after
consecration, as taught by Episcopalians and Methodists.
The
Savior expressed the whole design when he said: "Do this in remembrance of
me." It is, therefore, nothing more and nothing less, than a simple
ordinance, commemorative of what Christ is, and what He has done for us—a
remembrance of Him.
It is,
in no sense, a "sacrament." It conveys no
saving grace, nor can it be a "converting rite;" for the converted,
the regenerated, and saved, alone may, scripturally, partake of it. It is as
gross a perversion of this ordinance, for Protestants to teach that it is a
‘seal," or a "sacrament of salvation," as for Catholics to teach
it is the veritable body, and blood, and divinity of Christ; and, for this
reason, Baptists can not unite with either in its celebration, if it was not a
church ordinance. This statement will be questioned by those who know little of
the teachings of the Word of God, and less of the teachings of Protestants.
Presbyterians
teach that it is both a "sacrament" of salvation, and a seal of the
Covenant of Grace; which, if true, no one ever was, or can be, saved without
them.
Q.—What
are the sacraments of the New Testament?
A.—The
sacraments of the New Testament are baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Q.—What
is a sacrament?
A.—It
is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by
sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed
and applied to believers (Conf. Faith, p. 335).
Q.—Wherein
do the sacraments of baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, agree?
A.—The
sacraments of baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, agree in that the author of
both is God; the spiritual part of both is Christ and His benefits; both are
seals of the same covenant (p. 297).
The
Methodist "church" teaches the same pernicious doctrine, i.e.,
that the supper, like baptism, is a sacrament of salvation, to be eaten by
the unregenerate as a means of obtaining regeneration, the pardon of sins, and
salvation.
In
their articles of faith it is declared to be a "sacrament." Wesley,
the founder of the sect, explains what his church holds and teaches on this
ordinance:
"The
Lord’s Supper was ordained by God to be a means of conveying to men either
preventing, or justifying, or sanctifying grace, according to their several
necessities, . . . or, to renew their souls in the image of God. To come
to the Supper of the Lord no fitness is required at the time of communicating,
but a sense of our state of utter sinfulness and helplessness. Every one who
knows he is fit for hell, being just fit to come to Christ, in
this as well as all other ways of his appointment. . . . In latter
times, many [these are Baptists] have affirmed that the Lord’s Supper is not a
converting ordinance. . . The falsehood of this objection
appears both from Scripture precept and example" (Wesleyana,
pp. 283, 284).
The
ordinance is not more grossly perverted by the Catholics. How a Baptist, or a
Christian, at all conversant with the Bible—a regenerate person—can dare
to partake of the Supper as a sacrament, or a "seal," to secure
conversion, justification, or remission of sins, I can not imagine. All who
partake for any such purpose, eat and drink "unworthily," and make
themselves guilty of the body and blood of Christ.
The
ordinance is a simple memorial of Christ’s work and love for us, a photograph
He has left His betrothed Bride till He comes again to marry her; and He asks
her not to worship it, but to look upon it as oft as she pleases, with the sole
purpose of remembering Him and no one else, on earth or in heaven. It is one
little service He claims all for Himself, and will allow no thought to be given
to another. There are times when we may properly think of earthly friends—of
mother, of dear wife, husband, of precious children, of departed saints, of
living relatives, but it would be doing insult to Christ, and profaning this
sacred memorial, to remember any one but "Him who loved us and died for
us."
We
do not, therefore, commune with one another at the Lord’s Table, but with
Christ only, if we eat and drink "worthily." We have no occasion to
leave or absent ourselves from the supper lest we indorse, by our act, the
Christian character of some one who may be there. We disobey a positive command
of Christ. "Do it," and we refuse to remember Him when we neglect
this duty.
Nor
is it designed to be used as an expression of fellowship, or
"courtesy" towards other Christians or members of other Baptist
Churches. The ordinance is profaned and eaten "unworthily" when it is
observed with this design. Baptists of other churches present can not complain,
if they are not invited, of any injustice done them, for no right of theirs, or
duty of the celebrating church, has been violated or omitted; and, as I have
shown, no discourtesy has been shown them, because the ordinance was not
given for the purpose of expressing our courtesy to others.
The
command is: "Do This In Remembrance Of Me."
The
Opinions of Eminent Baptists
We
are not altogether alone in the views above expressed. at least so far as the principle
is concerned.
Bro.
A. P. Williams, in his "Lord’s Supper," says: "Having done these
things [i. e., believed, been baptized, and added to the church] he has a right
to the communion in the church to which he has been added; but nowhere else.
As he had no general right when running at large, so he has no general
right now" (p. 93).
Now,
if he has no right to the Supper anywhere, save in his own church, it is
because Christ has not given him authority to eat anywhere else, which is
tantamount to a positive prohibition. It is certain that no other church has
any right to extend her church privileges beyond her own bounds.
If
he has no right to commune anywhere else, it is because Christ has not given
him the right, and therefore, he has no right to claim, or to exercise the
right. It is not true, as open and intercommunionists assert, that
"they are entitled to the Supper wherever they find it."
"Now,
here (Acts 2:41, 42; 20:7; 1 Cor. 10:16, 17) it is plainly argued that
this joint participation in the one cup, and the one bread is designed to show
that the participants are but one body; and, as such, they share
this joint participation; but, if the communion were obligatory upon Christians
as individuals, and not as church members, it could
not show this" (p. 70).
Yet
Bro. Williams, influenced by feeling or usage, says that members of
other Baptist Churches, while they have no right on the premises, still may be
invited as an act of "courtesy." But, according to his own teachings,
as above, the symbolism of the Supper is vitiated whenever it is done; for it
is no longer a church ordinance, but a denominational or social rite.
Prof.
W. W. Gardner, Bethel College, Kentucky, in his able work on "Church
Communion," says: "The same is equally true of communion at the
Lord’s Tables which is a church act, and the appointed token, not
of the Christian, nor denominational, but of church-fellowship
subsisting between communicants at the same table. Hence, it follows that a
member of one
Bro.
Richard Fuller—"If any thing can be plain to those who prefer the Word of
God to sentimentalism and popularity, it is that baptism is to follow faith
immediately; that it is an individual duty, and must precede membership; and
that as the Passover was a meal for each family only, so the
Supper is a family repast, for the members of that particular church in
which the table is spread. This is so plain to our minds, hearts,
consciences, that there is never any discussion about it."
If
the supper is a repast for the members of each particular church only, it is
because the Divine law governing the feast has made it so, and, therefore, it
would be in violation of that law for a church to invite, or allow others than
her own members, to partake of it; and equally so for members of another church
to accept such an unlawful invitation. This is so plain to my mind that
discussion is useless.
President
Robinson, of
Bro.
Curtis, author of an able work on "Communion, and Progress of Baptist
Principles:" "Thus, then it is clear [i.e., from 1 Cor. 15]
that the Lord’s Supper is given in charge to those visible churches of Christ,
in the midst of which He has promised to walk and dwell (Rev. 2:1). To each
of these it belongs to celebrate it as one family [Then certainly
not as parts of different families or bodies.] The members of that
particular church are to be tarried for, and it is to be a symbol of their
relations, as members, to each other. In all ordinary cases, it
should be partaken of by each Christian in the particular church of which he is
a member" (Progress of Baptist Principles, p. 307).
It
is only from the Scriptures we learn how an ordinance is to be ordinarily observed.
From what book can Bro. Curtis, or any one else, learn how they are to be extra
ordinarily observed? The one specified form of their observance is
the only form we may observe. Christ, nor His apostles, gave exceptional
cases, or warrant us in the least deviation whatever, in any circumstance.
Several
of the leading Baptist papers of
"Some
four or five years ago we were appointed to write an essay on the Lord’s
Supper; and, after the most thorough examination we were able to give the
subject, we were driven to the following conclusion, viz.: that the Supper is
an ordinance within a Gospel church, and that there is no authority in the
Scriptures for extending it beyond the jurisdiction of the church administering
the ordinance. From this conclusion we drew the practical inference that, as
there is no Scripture warranting inter-communion among the members of different
churches of the same faith and order, Baptists who claim that the Scriptures
are a sufficient rule of faith and practice, ought to stop just where the law
stops; in other words, the churches should restrict the ordinances to those
over whom they exercise jurisdiction."
This
is an important "Landmark" of the primitive churches, which every
friend of scriptural order should assist in restoring to its erect and firm
position.
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CHAPTER VIII.
Objections and difficulties to non-intercommunion noticed —Some pastors could not commune
with the churches they serve, and administer the Supper to—"Paul
communed with the church at Troas"—Not established—Testimony of
Alford, Barnes—The false teachers whose doctrine Paul called "leaven"
and commanded the church at Corinth to purge away from the Lords Supper,
were members of Baptist Churches— Conclusion.
"Objections
are not arguments unless insuperable."—Logic.
It
is objected—
1.
That "should the churches return to the strict practice, many ministers
who are now ‘pastoring’ four or five churches could not commune with the
churches they serve and for which they administer the supper."
This
is not the fault of the theory, but of those churches that have no pastors.
Christ ordained that each church should have a bishop, as he ordained that each
wife should have one husband, and each flock a shepherd, and he also ordained
that each church should support its own pastor; and, if unable to do so, it
should not assume church form and prerogatives. In this case the pastor can
participate with his church, for he will he a member of, and under its
jurisdiction. Still there is no real difficulty in the case, when the minister
is willing to act scripturally. He can administer this ordinance to the church,
without exercising the rights of a member, as well as receive members into the
church, and administering the other ordinance, without voting on the
qualifications of the subject. He has the same right to vote, as he has to eat,
with a church of which he is not a member. We often administer the supper for
churches at their request, but participate only with our own.
Christ
made no exceptions to meet difficulties arising from departures from His order,
and we have no right to do it. We can not divide a principle; we must take the
whole or none at all; for unless we observe the ordinances as He
commanded, we do not observe them at all—they are null and void, and
worse—perverted and profaned.
Scriptural
Objection.
The
only Scripture we have seen quoted to sustain the practice of intercommunion
among Baptists, is Acts 20:7. The brethren who quote this should never smile
in pity upon Pedobaptists for quoting Mark 10:14 to prove Infant Baptism.
All that passage lacks of being a proof text for the practice, is the
substitution of the one word baptized, for "blessed;’ and all this passage
lacks to be of any service to our brethren, is the statement that Paul and Luke
did eat the Lord’s Supper with the Baptist Church at Troas, but it does not say
it, or even intimate it. And let me here state that the practice of the
apostles and first ministers, divinely commissioned to promulgate the gospel
and establish churches in foreign lands, certainly should not be quoted to
justify ministers, or private members, in doing the same thing. No one is
warranted to preach, and to baptize now, without having received baptism or the
ordination of some church, because John the Baptist did so. No deacon can claim
the right to preach and baptize, by virtue of his office, when traveling in a
strange country, should a stranger demand baptism at his hands, because Philip,
once a deacon, baptized the eunuch. I insist that, could a score of passages be
produced to prove that Paul, or any other apostle did commune with the churches
he planted, it would prove nothing in support of denominational communion, so
long as Paul’s letters to the church at Corinth are allowed to be the law to
all our churches of this age, and in which the supper is still to be observed
with "one loaf," and by one church, one body. and the church
required to purge out the leaven that she may observe a pure feast.
But
this serviceable proof-text is confidently quoted to prove opposite theories!
It is the sole reliance of those who would establish weekly communion,
and of those who favor inter-communion, and of the advocates of social
communion! In the first edition I conceded to claimants that there was a
church at
I
can only indicate the conclusions here, and refer the reader to a little volume
designed to be the companion of this—"Intercommunion, Unscriptural and
Inconsistent," etc. for the scriptural and historical facts.
1.
Paul did not even preach in Troas, at his first visit, when all say this church
was planted, for the Holy Ghost strictly forbade him to do so in any part of
Asia Minor at this visit (See Acts 16:6,7).
2.
No door was opened at that time to preach in
It
is not supposable that the Holy Spirit forbade him to preach in
3.
There is not the slightest evidence that there was a church at Troas at Paul’s
last visit, according to Luke’s record; but contrariwise, for none is
mentioned—no meeting, no address to it, and no parting, as at Ephesus (17th
verse to the end)—and no allusion to it in the New Testament.
4.
There is no intimation that any were assembled on Sunday evening to "break
bread" save Paul, Luke and the seven brethren mentioned.
5.
There is no evidence that the Lord’s Supper was celebrated by
Paul and his company, but contrariwise. In the original, whenever the Lord’s Supper
is indicated, the expression is "to break the loaf"—the definite
article is before artos—never "to break bread."
6.
The company assembled to partake of the evening meal together, when Paul
commenced reasoning with these brethren, instructing them out of the
Scriptures, which he had there with him, and left there (2 Tim. 4:13). The verb
translated preach here, is nowhere else so translated, but "to discourse,"
"to reason with," "to dispute."
7.
The meal (v. 11) was either the delayed supper or a special repast prepared for
Paul after discoursing to them over six hours, and the restoration of the young
man; since he was going to leave at daybreak, he continued on "talking"
(See Alford and Barnes, in loco.).
8.
John was banished to
9.
History corroborates the position that there was no church at
10.
If brethren, to sustain an unscriptural practice, will dogmatically infer that
the Lord’s Supper was observed at
If
they will hold and affirm that the Supper was observed without a church, then,
to be consistent, they should maintain that it is a social and not a church
ordinance. Which horn will they take?
Direct
Scriptural Proof Against Inter-Church Communion.
There
were certain teachers that belonged to the church at Jerusalem who had a great
zeal for the law, and they seemed to have made it a point to visit all the
churches planted by Paul, to antagonize the doctrine he taught, and these,
everywhere they went, introduced confusion into the churches, and bewitched the
brethren with their Judaistic teachings. The elders and brethren at
"Forasmuch
as we have heard, that certain which went out from us, have troubled you with
words, subverting your soul, etc." (Acts
How
did Paul regard these brethren?
"I
marvel that you are so soon removed from him who called you into another
gospel, which is not another: but there be some who trouble you, and would
pervert the gospel of Christ.
"Behold,
I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you
nothing. . . Christ is become of none effect unto you . . . A little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump."
The
false doctrine taught by those teachers Paul called "leaven."
In
warning the church at
"For
such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
apostles of Christ; and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be
transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end," etc. (2 Cor.
Again
he says: "For many walk, of whom I have told you before, and now tell you,
even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is
destruction" (Phil. 3:18).
How
did Paul instruct the churches to treat these brethren? Associate and
"commune" with them, or to avoid and withdraw, and purge them as
leaven, away from their tables? Hear him: "Though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach another gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let
him be accursed." "I would they were cut off who trouble
you."—"Turn away from them." "Withdraw from every brother
who walks disorderly." —"Note that man, and have no company with him,
that he may be ashamed." How about communing with such? "Purge out
the old leaven"—i.e., all these false teachers
and those who hold with them.
This
to my mind settles this question of intercommunion in Paul’s day. The church at
Corinth could not invite all the members of the church at Jerusalem to partake
of the supper, without violating the positive instructions of Paul; for there
were thousands of members, if not the majority of that church, who held with
these false teachers, and supported them. (See Acts
No
thinking man can believe, with Paul’s instructions before his eyes, that the
church at
As
late as the thirteenth century the practice of each church limiting its supper
to its own membership seems to be established. This was called the aphorism of
Ignatius—one altar and one bishop in each church. But not into the histories of
the apostate churches, which, unfortunately, most of our histories are,
may we look for primitive purity; and little do we know of those that kept the
faith, save through their enemies, who generally misrepresented them. The
instructions given to the New Testament churches must be our
"Landmarks."
Conclusion.
1.
Intercommunion between opposing denominations holding diverse faiths, is a
profanation of the Lord’s Supper.
2.
The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance of each local church, to be observed by its
own members qualified to receive it and by none else. Therefore,
3.
Intercommunion between Baptist churches is unscriptural.
CHAPTER IX.
The Inconsistencies and Evils of
Intercommunion among Baptists.
"Truth
is never contradictory nor inconsistent with itself."—Tombes.
Baptist
churches, with all their rights, have no right to be inconsistent, nor
to favor a practice unwarranted by the Word of God, and productive of evils.
Under the inflexible law of "usage," which compels the pastor to
invite "all members of sister churches present" to the Lord’s Supper,
the following inconsistencies and evils, exceedingly prejudicial to our
denominational influence and growth, are practiced and fostered.
1.
Baptist Churches that practice intercommunion have practically no communion of
their own. They have church members, church conferences, church discipline, but
no church communion; and, therefore, no scripturally observed Lord’s Supper,
and, therefore, none at all, as I have shown in Chapter VII. The communion of
such churches is denominational, and not church communion.
2.
Baptist Churches that practice intercommunion have no guardianship over the
Lords Supper, which is divinely enjoined upon them to exercise. They have
control of their own members to exclude them from the table if unworthy, but
none whatever of others more unworthy who may come. Such churches can exclude
heretics, drunkards, revelers, and "every one that walketh
disorderly" from their membership, that they may not defile the feast; but
they cannot protect the table from such so long as they do not limit it to
their membership.
3.
There are Baptist Churches that exclude from their own membership all drunkards,
theater-goers, dancers, horse-racers, and visitors of the race-course, because
they cannot fellowship such practices as Godly walking or becoming a Christian,
and therefore believe that they are commanded to purge the feast of all such
characters as leaven, and, yet, by the invitation to the members of all other
Baptist Churches, they receive the very same characters to their table every
time they spread it.
ILLUSTRATION
1.—The church at C——excluded a member for "general hard drinking and
occasional drunkenness," because she could not eat with such. He united
with the church at W——the next month, for he was wealthy and family
influential; and on the next communion at C——he accepted the urgent invitation
of courtesy, and sat down by the side of the brother who preferred the charge
of drunkenness against him.
ILLUSTRATION
2.—The church at M——excluded two members on the charge of adultery, for
marrying contrary to the law of Christ; the one having a living wife, and the
other a living husband; they had both been legally divorced, not for the one
cause specified, but it was generally believed that they deserted their
respective companions that they might obtain an excuse for marrying. Three
months after they both united with a church ten miles distant, and now never
fail to accept the affectionate invitations of the former church to commune
with it.
4.
There are multitudes—I rejoice to say nearly all our Southern churches outside
the cities—who will not receive persons immersed by Catholics or Campbellites,
Protestants or Mormons, because they do not regard them as baptized at all; yet
by their open denominational invitations they receive all such—and there are
many of them in the churches—to their table, as duly qualified.
ILLUSTRATION
1.—The church at S——refused to receive two Campbellites on their baptism. They
offered themselves to the
ILLUSTRATION
2. —The church at H——has several members received on their Mormon immersions.
Her sister church at P——repudiates such immersions as null and void, yet these
very members never fail to accept her liberal denominational invitations. From
principal and solemn duty she forbids all such as her members, but from
courtesy invites all such, as foreigners, to commune with her.
CONSISTENCY.—If
each Baptist Church had its own communion, with its own members, independent of
all others, then each church could receive into membership, or exclude from
membership, whoever it pleased, and no other church or communion be injured by
it. On the one hand, the church excluding a person would have no power to
prevent his uniting with another church made up of members no better than
himself; and, on the other hand, the church receiving the excluded person would
not, in so doing, restore him to the communion from which he had been cast out.
The
evils of denominational communion
1.
It opens the door to the table to all the ministerial impostors that pervade
the land. They have repeatedly started from
The
remedy is, let no strange traveling preacher be admitted to the table as a
participant, nor into our pulpits, until the church has written back and
learned that he is in all respects worthy.
2.
Denominational communion never has been sustained, and never can be, but at the
expense of peace. It has always been the occasion of discord among brethren. It
has alienated churches one from the other. It has distracted and divided
associations, and all for the very good reason that it is departure from the
simplicity that is in Christ.
3.
It has encouraged tens of thousands of Baptists, on moving away from the
churches to which they belong, to go without transferring their membership to a
church where they are going, as they could have the church privileges—preaching
and COMMUNION—without uniting with, and bearing the churches burdens. Nor has
it stopped here. It has done more in this way to multiply backsliders and
apostates all over the country than any other one thing that can be named. If
Baptists could have no such privileges without membership, they would keep
their membership with them and enjoy it.
4.
To this evil may be traced four out of five, if not nine out of ten, of all the
councils called to settle difficulties between churches during the last
twenty-five years. The difficulties have in one form or another, grown out of
this practice, and would not have been, had our churches observed only church
communion.
5.
All the scandal heaped upon us as "close communion Baptists" with
much of the prejudice produced in the public mind and fostered against us, has
come from our denominational communion. Had our churches severely limited their
communion as they have their discipline, to their own members, we should no
more have heard of "close communion Baptists" then we now do of
"close-membership Baptists," or "close-discipline
Baptists."
6.
We annually lose thousands and tens of thousands of worthy persons who would
have united with us, but for what they understand as our unwarranted
close-communion. Our practice can never be satisfactorily explained to them as
consistent, so long as we practice a partial, and not a general, open
communion. Our denominational growth is very materially retarded by our present
inconsistent practice of intercommunion. If we practiced strict church
communion, these, and all Christians, could understand the matter at once; and
no one would presume to blame us for not inviting members of other
denominations to our table, when we refuse, from principal, to invite members
of other Baptist churches—our own brethren.
7.
It is freely admitted by reliable brethren who enjoy the widest outlook over
the denomination in
We
have had assurances of the correctness of the statement from many of the
standard men in our denomination.
In
the last conversation had with the late Brother Poindexter, of
"You
are aware that I have not fully endorsed all your positions known as Old
Landmarkism, but I wish you to know my present convictions for your
encouragement. I have carefully examined all the arguments, pro and con, and
watched the tendency of things the last 20 years, and I am prepared to say that
I am convinced that what you call "Old Landmarkism" constitutes the
only bulwark to break the increasing tide of modern
"liberalism,"—which is nothing but open communion—that threatens to
obliterate every vestige of Bible ecclesiasticism from the earth. Though my
sympathies, and feelings, and practice, often, have been upon the liberal side,
yet I am convinced that Baptists, if they long maintain their denominational
existence, must stand squarely with you upon these principles."
Brother
J. P. Boyce, the distinguished president of the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary,
He
has openly proclaimed to the world his repudiation of "alien
immersions" by immersing, in 1879, Brother Weaver, pastor of a
CHAPTER X.
The Continuity of the
For the maintenance of the inspiration of the prophets, as well as the divinity of
Christ, the Kingdom He set up must never be "broken to
pieces," and the church He built must have never been prevailed
against by violence or corruption—The true statement of what "Landmarkers"
mean by church succession, not "apostolic succession,"
nor the succession of any particular church or churches, etc.
"In
the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom that shall
never be destroyed; neither shall it be given to another people; .
. . it shall stand forever" (Dan.
"On
this Rock will I establish (Gr.) my church, and the gates of Hades shall not
prevail against it" (Matt.
"We,
therefore, receiving a kingdom that can not be moved," etc. (Heb.
"The
fall of a kingdom is the disgrace of its founder."
Landmark
Baptists very generally believe that for the Word of the Living God to stand,
and for the veracity of Jesus Christ to vindicate itself, the kingdom which He
set up "in the days of John the Baptist," has had an unbroken
continuity until now. I say kingdom, instead of succession of churches, for the
sake of perspicacity. Those who oppose "church succession confuse the
unthinking, by representing our position to be, that the identical organization
which Christ established—the First Church of Judea—has had a continued
existence until today; or, that the identical churches planted by the apostles,
or, at least, some one of them, has continued until now, and that
Baptist ministers are successors of the apostles; in a word, that our position
is the old Romish and Episcopal doctrine of apostolic succession. I have, for
full a quarter of a century, by pen and voice, vehemently protested against these
misrepresentations, as Baptists have, for twice as many more, against the
charge of teaching that no one can be saved without immersion, an d quite as
vainly; for those who oppose us seem determined to misrepresent, and will not
be corrected. We repudiate the doctrine of apostolic succession; we do not
believe they ever had a successor, and, therefore, no one today is preaching
under the apostolic commission any more than under that which Christ first gave
to John the Baptist. They are our opposers who, in fact, hold to apostolic
succession; for the majority do believe that, if ministers, they are p reaching
by the authority contained in that commission! So much for this charge.
Nor
have I, or any Landmarker known to me, ever advocated the succession of any
particular church or churches; but my position is that Christ, in the very
‘days of John the Baptist," did establish a visible kingdom on earth, and
that this kingdom has never yet been "broken in pieces," nor
given to another class of subjects—has never for a day "been moved,"
nor ceased from the earth, and never will until Christ returns personally to
reign over it; that the organization He first set up, which John called
"the Bride," and which Christ called His church, constituted that
visible kingdom, and today all His true churches on earth constitute it;
and, therefore, if His kingdom has stood unchanged, and will to the end,
He must always have had true and uncorrupted churches, since His kingdom cannot
exist without true churches.
The
sense in which any existing Baptist Church is the successor of the First Church
of Judea—the model and pattern of all—is the same as that existing between any
regular organization and the first such organization that was ever instituted.
Ten thousand local organizations of like nature may have existed and passed
away, but this fact in no wise affects the continuity of the organization. From
the day that organization was started, it has stood; and, though it may have
decayed in some places, it has flourished in others, and never has had but one
beginning. Thus it has been with that institution called the
We
do not admit that it devolves upon us more than upon every other lover of Jesus
to prove, by uncontestable historical facts, that this kingdom of the Messiah
has stood from the day it was set up by Him, unbroken and unmoved; to question
it, is to doubt His sure word of promise. To deny it, is to impeach His veracity,
and leave the world without a Bible or a Christ. We dare not do this. We
believe that His kingdom has stood unchanged as firmly as we believe in the
divinity of the Son of God, and, when we are forced to surrender the one faith,
we can easily give up the other. If Christ has not kept His promise concerning
His church to keep it, how can I trust Him concerning my salvation?
If He has not the power to save His church, He certainly has
not the power to save me. For Christians to admit that Christ has not preserved
His kingdom unbroken, unmoved, unchanged, and uncorrupted, is to surrender the
whole ground to infidelity. I deny that a man is a believer in the Bible who
denies this.
Nor
do we admit the claims of the "Liberals" upon us, to prove the
continuous existence of the church, of which we are a member, or which baptized
us, in order to prove our doctrine of church succession, and that we have been
scripturally baptized or ordained. As well might the Infidel call upon me to
prove every link of my descent from Adam, before I am allowed to claim an
interest in the redemptive work of Christ, which was confined to the family of
Adam! We point to the Word of God, and, until the Infidel can destroy its authenticity,
our hope is unshaken. In like manner, we point the "Liberal" Baptist
to the words of Christ, and will he say they are not sufficient? When
the Infidel can prove, by uncontestable historical facts, that His kingdom has
been broken and removed one year, one day, or one hour from the earth,
then we surrender our Bible with our position.
The
wire of the Atlantic Cable is of peculiar formation, peculiarly insulated, and
history informs us that several years ago it was laid down across the entire
ocean, from
I
can not forbear quoting a paragraph from the reply of Bro. J. W. Smith to
Albert Barnes: "Whatever is found in the New Testament is as worthy
as if you traced it there. It is only a doubtful practice, whose thread
must be traced thus carefully through the labyrinth of history, with painful
uncertainty, lest you reach its end, while yet a century or two from Christ.
Why, sir, if between us and the apostolic age there yawned a fathomless
abyss, into whose silent darkness intervening history had fallen,
with a Baptist Church on this side, and a New Testament on the other, we should
boldly bridge the gulf, and look for the record of our birth among the hills of
Galilee. But our history is not thus lost. That work is in
progress, which will link the Baptists of today with the Baptists of
Jerusalem" (p. 38).
I
have no space to devote to the historical argument to prove the
continuity of the kingdom of Christ, but assure the reader that, in our
opinion, it is irrefragable. All that any candid man could desire—and it is
from Catholic and Protestant sources—frankly admitting that churches,
substantially like the Baptists of this age have existed, and suffered the
bitterest persecution from the earliest age until now; and, indeed, they have
been the only religious organizations that have stood since the days of the
apostles, and are older than the Roman Catholic Church itself.
I
am aware that such an opinion has come to be scouted by our
"Liberal" brethren in these days of growing looseness and love of the
praise of men, but I am sustained by standard names among Baptists. J. Newton
Brown, editor of Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, a scholar
who had given twenty-five years to the study of history, maintained that
"the ancient Waldenses, Cathari, Paterines, and Donatists
were our historical ancestors, and that a succession of whom continued up to
the Reformation."
Bro.
Joseph Beleher says: "It will be seen that the Baptists claim the high
antiquity of the commencement of the Christian church. They can trace a
succession of those who have believed the same doctrine, and administered the
same ordinances, directly up to the apostolic age" (Rel. Den. in
Europe and America, p. 53).
Bro.
Howell says: "I assert that from the days of the apostles to the present
time, the true, legitimate Baptist Church has ever been a missionary body"
(Letters to Dr. Watson, p. 3).
Benedict
says: "The more I study the subject, the stronger are my convictions that,
if all the facts in the case could be disclosed, a very good succession could
be made out" (His. Bap., p. 51).
I
add to these Bra. W. R. Williams, J. L. Waller, D. B. Ray, and Crump. Orchard
has, beyond all question, made out the succession, century by century, in
various countries, in his invaluable book, "A Chronological History of
Baptist Churches." "The Seven Churches of Revelation," in course
of preparation by the writer, will do this. Not those who affirm, but
those who deny the continuity of the kingdom of Christ, are to be pitied for
their ignorance or their prejudice.
I
quote, with pleasure, the closing paragraph of that great national work,
"The History of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands," by Bro. J.
J. Dermout, chaplain to the King of Holland, and Professor Ypeig, Professor of
Theology in the University of Groningen—both distinguished Presbyterians.
They certainly could have no object, save fealty to the truth of history,
to pen a line favorable to Baptists, and no motive but scholarly honesty, to
concede to Baptists a church existence far anterior to their own, and that of
the Catholic. They say:
"We
have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and, in
later times, Mennonites, were the original Waldenses and who, even from the
most ancient times, have received such well deserved homage. On this account,
the Baptists may be considered as of old—the only religious community which has
continued from the times of the apostles—as a Christian society which has kept
pure, through all ages, the evangelical doctrines of religion. The uncorrupted
inward and outward condition of the Baptist community affords proof of the
truth, contested by the Romish church, of the great necessity of a reformation
of religion, such as that which took place in the sixteenth century, and also,
a refutation of the erroneous notion of the Roman Catholics, that their
denomination is the most ancient" (Trans. by Prof.
Tobey in South. B. Review, vol. v, p. 20).
Monastic,;
in his "History of the Voudois Church," i.e., those
who were the ancient Waldenses, says: "The Voudois church is a link that
unites them to the primitive church. By means of it they establish the anterior
existence of their constitution, doctrine, and worship to that of the papistical
idolatries and errors" (Bap. Suc., p. 547).
Theodore
Beza, the successor of Calvin, Presbyterian, says: "As for the
Waldenses, I may be permitted to call them the very seed of the
primitive and purer Christian church, since they are those that have
been upheld, as is abundantly manifested, by the wonderful
providence of God; so that neither those endless storms and tem pests,
by which the whole Christian world has been shaken for so many succeeding ages,
and the western parts, at length so miserably oppressed by the bishops
of Rome, falsely so called, nor those horrible persecutions,
which have been expressly raised against them, were ever able so far
to prevail as to make them bend or yield a voluntary subjection to the roman
tyranny and idolatry" (Jones’ Church History, p.
353).
Whatever
the enemies of Christ may say —and they are His real enemies, who disbelieve
His plain statements—His kingdom has stood unshaken, and will stand as a
monument to His faithfulness, His power, and His veracity until He comes again.
"Oh, where are kings
and empires now,
Of old, that went and came?
But, Lord, thy church is praying yet,
A thousand years the same.
"For, not like
kingdoms of this world,
Thy holy church, O God!
Though earthquake shocks are threat’ning her,
And tempests are abroad,
"Unshaken as eternal
hills
Immovable she stands;
A mountain that shall fill the earth,—
A house not made with hands."
CHAPTER XI.
What it is not, and what is, to be
an old Landmark Baptist—The true mission of old Landmark Baptist.
"Now
I entreat you, brethren, to watch those who are making factions and laying
snares, contrary to the teachings which you have learned; and turn away from
them. For such like ones as they, are not in subjection to our anointed
Lord, but their own appetites; and by a kind and complementary words the
decedent hearts of the unsuspecting."(Rom.16:17,18.)
"Be
not a partaker and other men’s sins: keep thyself pure" (1 Tim 5:22).
"If
anyone comes to you, and brings not this doctrine, do not receive him into your
handles, nor wish him success; for he who wishes him success partakes in his
evil works" (2 John 10:11). (Translation of Emphatic Diaglott)
"Can
two walk together; except they be agreed?" (Amos 3:3).
Landmark
Baptist are continually charged by all who oppose their characteristic
principles and policy—Baptists who know better, not excepted—with many and
grievous offenses, in order to make us obnoxious to our own brethren and, and
detested by all others. It seems proper, therefore, at this point, to refute
all these, by stating, first, what Old Landmarkism is not, before making a
summary of what it is.
1.
Old Landmarkism is not the denial of spiritual regeneration to those with
whom we decline to associate ministerially or ecclesiastically.
Still
we by no means feel warranted in saying that we believe that the members of
those societies, which hold and teach that baptism is a sacrament or seal of
salvation, or essential to the remission of sins—as all Pedobaptists and
Campbellite societies do hold and teach—are Christians, or even presumptively
regenerate, since they do not require a credible evidence of regeneration as a
condition of membership. They may believe that baptism, "duly
administered," confers the grace of regeneration upon adults and infants
as well, but Baptist do not, and, therefore we cannot believe that because they
are members, it is therefore probable that they are regenerate, as we
are justified in believing with respect to Baptist Churches that require a
credible profession of regeneration in every instance. It must be true that the
vast mass of Pedobaptists, and the overwhelming mass of the membership of
Campbellite societies are unregenerate, and we are not justified in applying to
them the title of brethren in Christ; for we will thereby mis-teach them, and
brethren, ecclesiastically, we know they are not.
But
Landmarkism does not pretend to sit in judgment upon the state of any man’s
heart, but upon his ecclesiastical relations only. Refusing to affiliate with
them, ministerially and ecclesiastically, is not declaring by our act that we
believe their ministers and members are unregenerate, but that they
are not members of scriptural Churches. Refusing to invite their ministers
to preach for our churches, and to accept their immersions, is no more denying
their Christian character than refusing to invite them to our communion table—Baptist
know this, and all Pedobaptists ought to know it. We mean by our refusal, to
emphasize our protest against their organizations as scriptural churches,
and consequently against their ministers as authorized to preach and to
administer the church ordinance’s. We do not recognized unbaptized and
unordained men, who are Baptists in sentiment, as scriptural ministers, and
qualified to administer Church ordinances; and why should we be expected to
recognize those we regard as disqualified, and who violently oppose our faith
and practice? It is manifestly inconsistent in Baptists to do so, and
Pedobaptists know and freely admit it. In all mere Christian duties, as
private Christians, we are at liberty to participate, but never ministerially
or ecclesiastically. By no act that can possibly be so construed, must we
recognize other societies as Christian churches, or other ministers as
Scriptural ministers.
2.
Landmarkism is not the denial of the honesty and conscientiousness of
Pedobaptists and Campbellites.
We
concede to all the honesty of purpose we claim for ourselves, and we accord to
them equal conscientiousness; but we, nevertheless, belief them honestly
deceived, and conscientious in the belief of unscriptural and pernicious
errors; and that it is our bounden duty to undeceive them by all
possible scriptural means; but by no word or deed of ours to confirm them in
their error. It is the highest proof of love to endeavor, even at the hazard of
losing their friendship, to correct the mistakes and errors of our friends;
while to leave them unwarned of a danger of which we are aware, is the part of
an enemy.
3.
Landmarkism is not a proof of our uncharitableness.
We
are charged with manifesting a spirit uncharitable and un-Christlike. This
charge is without foundation. Christ called Himself the "truth;" He
hated and opposed all error; he failed not upon all occasions to rebuke and
denounced it; He recognized only those as His friends who were like Him in this
respect.
Charity
not only rejoices in the truth, but is opposed to that which is not truth, and
"hateth every false way." Christ, nor charity, then, requires of us
to surrender Christian principle, and to be unfaithful to the teachings and
requirements of duty. We cannot hope to please Christ, by recognizing the
institutions and traditions of men, as equal to His own churches and
Commandments. That is not Christian charity, but a false liberality and treason
to Christ, to surrender or compromise that which He has committed to us to
firmly hold and faithfully teach.
Landmarkism,
then, is not opposed to the spirit of true Christian charity, but to an
unscriptural and pernicious "liberalism" which is being palmed
off upon the world for Christian charity—a spirit which is truly opposed to
Christ, and is the "bane and the curse of a pure Christianity," and daily
demonstrates itself as the very spirit of persecution itself.
4.
Landmarkism is not the denial to others the civil right, or the most perfect
liberty to exist as professed churches, or to their ministers to preach their
views, as it is falsely asserted.
We
accord to all denominations and to all "religions," Jews and
Gentiles, Mohammedan and Pagan, the same right to exist; and to their priests
and teachers the same civil right to teach and propagate their
doctrines, as we claim for ourselves. It is one of the peculiar characteristics
of Baptists, which they have maintained in every age; and viz., the absolute
liberty of conscience and belief, and the freest expression of them. We would
fight as soon to vindicate religious liberty in this country, to an idolatrous
Chinese or a Jew, as to a Baptist. We would not, had we the absolute power to
do so, forbid Pedobaptists, or Campbellites, or Mormons from preaching, and the
fullest enjoyment of their religious rights; but do most positively deny that
they have any scriptural right to exist as churches of Christ: we do deny their
claims to be called or treated as churches of Christ; we do deny the
scripturalness of either their doctrines, or other ordinances, and their authority
to ordain ministers of the gospel, precisely as we would the right of the
lodge, or Young Men’s Christian Associations, should they assume to do so. We
do deny that their ministers have any more authority to preach the gospel and
administer church ordinances, than the officers of lodges have, by virtue of
their office; but, in saying this, we make no allusion to their personal
Christian characters whatever. All the members and officers of a
lodge might be true Christians, but that would not constitute the lodge
a Christian church, or is officers Christian ministers. The only force we would
bring to bear against Pedobaptists, and Campbellites, and Mormons, to put an
end to their existence as churches, or to their ministers to arrest their
preaching, is the sword of truth, wielded in the dauntless spirit of Paul and
the love of Christ. We would convert them from the error of their ways,
and bring them all, by the force of moral suasion, into sweet subjection to the
Law of Christ. We would exterminate the isms by converting the ists.
We
may as well notice here Mark 9:28, which our would-be undenominational brethren
constantly quote as proof positive, that we should not oppose in anyway, but
rather encourage all religious teachers, of even manifest errors, to propagate
their false doctrine so long as they claim to be religious teachers and the
friends and followers of Christ. The Apostles forbade a person to cast out
devils in the name of Christ, because he did not follow them! The
Protestant commentators have generally made all possible use of this passage to
support their cause as against the pretensions of the Romish church, and
Baptists have been influenced to use it against the advocates of apostolic
succession, who claim that no one is authorized to preach unless ordained in
the succession; and now "liberal Baptists," who would recognize all
sects as equally "Christian churches," and all the ministers
of those sects as "evangelical ministers," and bid them
God-speed—quote it against Landmarkers. But the passage yields them no
encouragement to disrespect and violate the order which Christ
established, and the positive injunctions of Paul. This man, whom John and his
fellow apostles saw casting out devils, in the name of Christ, was certainly
not an enemy of Christ, and could not have been doing anything contrary to
His will or authority, or he could not have cast out devils. He was
undoubtedly either one of John’s disciples, or one of the seventy who had been
authorized by Christ Himself to do this very miracle when He sent them forth;
and this man may have continued to proclaim the mission of Jesus, and to cast
out devils. He was, most unquestionably, a disciple of Christ, though not one
of the apostles, and therefore, had been baptized. The only irregularity
complained of by John was, that he followed not Christ continually, as the
apostles were required to do, to qualify them for their work after the
ascension of Christ; but it was not required of him, nor of any other
disciple of Christ, save the twelve, to follow Christ constantly. That this man
was a friend and disciple of Christ, is established by the great faith
he had in Him as Messiah or the Son of God—greater than the Apostles themselves
were at times able to exercise. (See Matt 17:16-22). Will a Baptist, therefore,
in the exercise of impartial candor, claim that this passage warrants him in
maintaining that anyone, irrespective of baptism or church relations, or faith
in the doctrine of Christ, is authorized to go forth and preach his erroneous views
in the name of Christ, and to administer church ordinances, and that we must
bid him God-speed, and thus endorse his doctrinal errors which are subversive
of true Christianity, and his irregularities totally subversive of the church
and kingdom of Christ. Let all who desire to believe this know of a certainty
that Christ never set up a kingdom and divided it against itself, nor can it be
that "the house of God, which is the church of the living God" is
divided against itself.
The
following are indisputable facts:
1.
That without scriptural baptism there can be no Christian church, and
consequently no scriptural ministers, and no scriptural ordinances.
2.
That sprinkling and pouring of water upon persons, adults, and infants, as a
sacrament of salvation, is not scriptural baptism, but as gross a perversion of
it, as it is to administer it in order to procure the remission
of sins.
It
is a stern and solemn fact—
3.
That we, as Baptists, can not by our words or acts declare that
Pedobaptists or Campbellites societies are scriptural churches, or their
teachers scriptural ministers, or their ordinances scriptural, without
testifying to that we know to be untrue, and without lending all our influence
to support and bid "God-speed" to their false and pernicious teachings,
and thus becoming partakers of their wrongdoing—as guilty in the sight of God
as they themselves are. (See 2 John 10: 11).
What
is the mission of Landmark Baptist?
1.
As Baptists, we are to stand for the supreme authority of the New Testament as
our only and sufficient rule of faith and practice. The New Testament, and that
alone, as opposed to all human tradition in matters, both of faith and
practice, we must claim as containing the distinguishing doctrine of our
denomination—a doctrine for which we are called earnestly to contend.
2.
As Baptists, we are to stand for the ordinances of Christ as He enjoined them
upon His followers, the same in number, and mode, and order,
and in symbolic meaning, unchanged and unchangeable till He come.
3.
As Baptists, we are to stand for a spiritual and regenerated church, and that
none shall be received into Christ’s church, or be welcomed to its ordinances,
without confessing a personal faith in Christ, and giving credible evidence of
piety.
The
motto on our banner is:
Christ
Before the Church, Blood Before Water.
4.
To protest, and to use all our influence against the recognition, on the part
of Baptists, of human societies as scriptural churches, by affiliation,
ministerial or ecclesiastical, or any alliance or co-operation that is
susceptible of being apparently or logically construed by our members, or
theirs, or the world, into a recognition of their ecclesiastical or ministerial
equality with Baptist churches.
5.
To preserve and perpetuate the doctrine of the divine origin and sanctity of
the churches of Christ, and the unbroken continuity of Christ’s kingdom,
"from the days of John the Baptist until now," according to the
express words of Christ.
6.
To preserve and perpetuate the divine, inalienable, and sole
prerogatives of a Christian church -- 1, To preach the gospel of the son of
God; 2, To select and ordain her own officers; 3, To control absolutely her own
ordinances.
7.
To preserve and perpetuate the scriptural design of baptism, and its validity
and recognition only when scripturally administered by a gospel church.
8.
To preserve and perpetuate the true design and symbolism of the Lord’s Supper,
as a local church ordinance, and for but one purpose—the commemoration
of the sacrificial death of Christ—and not as a denominational ordinance, or as
an act expressive of our Christian or personal fellowship, and much less of courtesy
towards others.
9.
To preserve and perpetuate the doctrine of a divinely called and scripturally
qualified and ordained ministry, to proclaim the gospel, and to administer the
ordinances, not upon their own responsibility, but for, and under the direction
of, local churches alone.
10.
To preserve and perpetuate that primitive fealty and faithfulness to the truth,
that shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God, and to teach man to
observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded to be believed and obeyed.
Not
the belief and advocacy of one or two of these principles as the marks of the
divinely patterned church, but the cordial reception and advocacy of all of
them, constitute a full "Old Landmark Baptist."
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CHAPTER XII.
DEFENSIVE
The current pleas of liberal "Baptists" considered: 1. That
preaching is not an official duty. 2. That we do not recognize
those societies as churches by accepting their ordinances. 3. That
we do not recognize those ministers as scriptural ministers, by
accepting their official acts. 4. That we do not indorse their
erroneous doctrines and practices by affiliating with them.
"Then
said Pilate to the chief priests, and to the people, I find no fault in this
man. And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the
people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to
this place."
"And
the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together; for before they were
at enmity between themselves" (Luke 23:4-5, 12).
It
argues a degenerate state of affairs when Baptists have to defend themselves
against the attacks of their own brethren, for consistently maintaining the
time-honored principles of their own denomination. When professed Baptists make
friends with a common enemy, they even show a more "fierce," and
bitter, and persecuting spirit, than those who once put our fathers to death
for holding the self-same sentiments that Landmark Baptists hold today. But
this is the case, while the impartial and candid world renders the verdict:
"We find no fault in these men,"—conceding that our course is
strictly consistent with Baptist principles, while that of our opposers is not.
Affiliationists deny—
1.
That preaching of the gospel is official or strictly ministerial work but
equally the duty of all.
We
oppose to this, 1. The plain teachings of the Scripture. Jesus specially called
and ordained—i.e., commissioned those who preached
during His public ministry—John the Baptist, the seventy, and the apostles. The
very term he selected to designate their work, Kerusso, is used
in the Greek to indicate the special official duty of proclaiming as a herald.
2. "Paul distinctly declares that he was specially called, ordained, and
put into the ministry" (1 Tim. 1:11, 12 and 2:7). He reminds both Timothy
and Archippus that they were specially designated for this office (1 Tim. 4:14;
Col. 4:17). He also declares that evangelists, pastors, and teachers are
special gifts to the churches. He commanded Titus to ordain elders in every
city, and left Timothy in Crete for this purpose. Why ordain men to do a
specific work—as preaching and administering the ordinances—if all Christians
are equally obligated to do it? 3. We oppose to their position the almost
united voice and practice of all denominations of Christendom, in all ages, and
the unbroken practice of Baptists founded upon the Word of God. 4. The
unvarying practice of these very brethren themselves. They invariably
require a Baptist to be baptized and ordained, by the authority of some church,
before they deem him qualified to preach and administer the ordinances. Not one
of them, if a member of a Presbytery, would lay his hands upon a brother who
should confess he was not convinced that he had any special call to
preach, or any impression of duty in that direction that members in common have
not; nor would he presume to lay his hands upon him if he knew he was
unbaptized. If "it is as much the duty of one Christian as another to
preach the gospel," then the doctrine of a special call and the duty of ordination
should both be repudiated, and all men, women, and children, if only church
members, should proceed to preach and baptize when, where, and
whomsoever they please! The preaching of the gospel, and administering the
ordinances, belong strictly to a specific officer of a local church—can
only be done by its authority and under its guardianship. The minister is then
a church officer, and his work is official work. Should not Baptists promptly
reject a theory that would so completely anarchize the whole polity of the
church? Let all decide who are revolutionists and distractionists—those who
plead for the "Old Landmarks" or modern "liberalists"—who
are laboring to undenominationalize our people, and lead the denomination into
open communion! Despite all their sophistries, it is as certain as the
teachings of the Scriptures are true, that the preaching of the gospel and
administering its ordinances, is official work; and that no one may take
this office or work unto himself but "he that is called of God, as was
Aaron" (Heb. 5:4).
2.
It is in the next place denied that we do recognize and indorse the
ministers of other denominations, as scriptural ministers, and as
upon a perfect equality as ministers with ourselves, when we invite them
to preach and pray in our pulpits, and do work which we strictly limit
to our own ministers.
Such
a denial should fill the brethren who make it with "shame and
confusion of face." It is an accepted axiom, by all nations
and in all ages, that "actions speak louder than words."
No man of truth can, or will, deny that the act does seem to teach this.
But says Bro. Jeter, the recognized leader of ecclesiastical looseness in the
South: "We do not understand ourselves to indorse them as
scriptural ministers, nor do we intend so to indorse them, and we do not
believe they so regard our ministerial associations with them.
We
can not regard this as an ingenuous declaration, but the specious plea of an
advocate, since reason, common sense, and the united and outspoken voice of
Pedobaptist ministers, as well as the world at large, affirm that they and
their churches do understand us to publicly recognize them as scriptural
ministers of scriptural churches, and in all respects equal to our
own ministers, when we invite them to perform ministerial functions for us.
When
the civil courts call upon a man to perform a certain act, which the law
authorizes only a certain qualified officer to do, is it not understood by all
men that the courts recognize that man as a legally qualified officer? When
they act upon the cases prepared for them by a professed magistrate, do
they not recognize the man filling that office as a legal magistrate? It is not
the part of common honesty to deny it. But some have admitted, that did they
believe that Pedobaptist and Campbellite ministers understood their exchange of
pulpits, and general ministerial affiliation with them, as indorsing them as
scriptural ministers, they would refuse to invite them to do so, and we believe
that Bro. Jeter has so admitted.
Let
us settle this question here, and forever, with all candid men. It is a
well-known fact to all, that they do so regard our association with
them. Any Baptist can satisfy himself by asking any Pedobaptist, or addressing
a courteous letter to one of their representative men, and they will tell him
frankly that they would regard an invitation to fill a Baptist pulpit, with the
distinct understanding that they did so as unbaptized and unordained men, as a personal
insult. Elder J. W. Jarrell, of Illinois, addressed letters
of inquiry to ten or twelve prominent Pedobaptist ministers, and their replies
should satisfy every one.
It
must be presumed that the answers of Bro. Stuart Robinson (O.S.P.), Louisville,
Ky., and Bro. Charles Hodge, Princeton, N. J., forever determine this matter.
Says Bro. Robinson: "The idea of inviting one to preach in the character
of a layman seems to me a paradox."
Bro.
Hodge says: "When one minister asks another to exchange pulpits with him,
such invitation is in fact, and is universally regarded as an acknowledgment
of the scriptural ordination of the man receiving the invitation.
"No
man who believes himself to be a minister can rightfully, expressly, or by
implication, deny the validity of his ordination; and, therefore, if invited to
lecture or speak in the character of a layman, he must decline."
I
have said it is a fact well known to Bro. Jeter and all our opposers—for they
are all intelligent men—that our affiliating acts are regarded as endorsements
of their ministerial character by Pedobaptist ministers.
In
a discussion of this very question with Bro. Jeter, Bro. J. B. Link, of the Texas
Baptist Herald, put in this strong language: "Pedobaptists hold
the pulpit to be sacred to the ministry, and understand them to be indorsed
whenever invited into it. When a Baptist who does not so hold, invites them to
the pulpit, not intending such endorsement, as many pretend they do not, he
practices duplicity knowingly or ignorantly."
To
justify this putting of the case, he appealed to the Texas Christian
Advocate: "Will the Texas Christian Advocate please tell us how
he regards the invitation of one of its ministers into a Baptist pulpit, which
invitation regards him only in the light of an unbaptized religious teacher,
without church membership or ecclesiastical authority of any sort? What would you
say to that?"
This
is that editor’s reply, well-known to Bro. Jeter and all editors: "When
one gentleman invites another to his house, receives him into his parlor, and
seats him at his table, he recognizes him on terms of perfect social equality.
So when one Christian minister invites another to occupy his pulpit, all
who witness the courtesy thus extended, regard it as a proclamation of perfect
ministerial equality. Only Christian ministers are invited to the pulpit. If,
however, the one who gives the invitation is a Jesuit and a hypocrite, who
wishes to make a show of liberality he does not feel, and believes the brother
he thus pretends to honor as a minister is only ‘an unbaptized religious
teacher, without church membership or ecclesiastical authority of any sort,’ he
should be treated as all hypocrites and pretenders deserve to be treated."
This
is rather hard upon Bro. Jeter and all our pulpit affiliationists, but it is
true. (See App. B).
The
Texas Presbyterian, in its next issue, emphatically indorsed the
sentiment of the Texas Christian Advocate, and Bro. Hill, late
editor of Presbyterian organ at Louisville, asserted the same.
This
fact, then, that we do recognize them, and that they so understand it, is
established by the highest possible proof and testimony. We agree with other
Pedobaptists, in declaring that it is a personal insult for a Baptist or church
to invite a Pedobaptist minister to preach or perform any ministerial office,
with the understanding that he does so as an unordained and unbaptized
religious teacher, and he would prove that he was himself as unworthy the
office, as the inviting minister, should he consent to disclaim by his act that
he was a minister or even a church member.
3.
It is strangely denied by our "liberal" brethren
that we do impliedly recognize the societies as scriptural churches,
whose ordinances we receive as valid, and the offices of whose ministers
we accept.
In
the judgment of charity we will say, that those who can conscientiously make
this denial are shame fully ignorant of the simplest principles, not of church
organization only, but of any organization.
I
pause not to reason, with those ministers who can make this declaration, but
with those brethren whom they endeavor to deceive and mislead by such a
statement.
To
use a carnal, worldly illustration, but not approving of the same, we will
grant that there is only one body on earth that can celebrate a Masonic rite,
admit a member into a Masonic Lodge, or confer the Master Mason’s Degree. That
body is a Masonic Lodge. An Odd-Fellows’ Lodge, or a Grange Lodge can not do
it. Now, when the Masonic Lodges of this city recognize these acts, and such an
officer, when performed and made by another body professing to be
a Masonic Lodge, do they not thereby give the highest endorsement possible of
the true Masonic character of that Lodge? If a body can masonically perform
Masonic rites, and confer Masonic Degrees, that body is a Masonic Lodge. The
body that can make Masonic officers, whose acts are legal in the order, is most
certainly, "to all intents and purposes, a Masonic Lodge. A wayfaring man,
though a fool, can understand this. Now apply this common sense to churches.
There is but one organization on this earth that can authorize a man to preach
the gospel—i.e., confer scriptural ordination—and
that body is a scriptural church. There is but one organization on earth that
is authorized to administer Christian baptism or the Lord’s Supper, and that is
a scriptural church. There is but one body on earth that possesses Christian,
or Evangelical, or gospel ministers, and that body is a scriptural church. Now
when we recognize the preachers of Pedobaptist societies as ministers of the
gospel, by inviting them to perform the functions of gospel ministers, do we
not thereby recognize the societies which ordained them as churches of Christ?
When we receive the immersions of those societies as valid baptisms, do we not
thereby proclaim, louder than words can express it, that those societies are
scriptural churches, and in all respects equal to our own? Brethren, be not
deceived by your teachers. Axioms are not more self-evident than these facts.
Those ministers, and their members, and the world, and the masses of our own
people so understand these acts, and they have a right — they ought to so
understand them, for they are logical and irresistible conclusions from the
premises.
That
the Methodist Church—i.e., the General Conference (North)—for 1876 regarded
"Union Meetings" as an open proclamation, on the part of those
denominations that engage in them, that Methodist societies are evangelical
churches, may be learned from the following resolution that can be found on
page 371 of the Discipline for that year:
"Resolved,
That we regard the annual observance of the week of prayer, in concert with the
Christian people of other denominations, as highly salutary and an
appropriate recognition of the unity of the church," etc.
That
is, they are an acted declaration that all the multi-form and opposing sects
together constitute the one church of Christ!
Did
you believe it? Can you, then, act it?
4.
We do impliedly indorse the doctrines of the societies those ministers
represent.
But
if they are churches of Christ, then is their infant-membership; then is their
sprinkling for baptism; then are their distinguishing doctrines—their
sacramentalism, and ritualism, and priestism, their baptism as a "seal and
a sacrament," and their communion as a means of salvation, and their
hierarchical and aristocratic church governments—scriptural for no organization
on earth—unscriptural in these regards as every sound Baptist believes
Campbellite and Pedobaptist societies to be—can be, or should be regarded as a
church of Christ. By recognizing their religious teachers, then, as ministers
of Christ, we recognize their societies as scriptural churches, and we do
thereby indorse the false doctrines and most pestilential errors of those
societies as scriptural.
By
such unscriptural and inconsistent conduct we destroy the world’s faith in the
authenticity, and its regard for the authority of the Bible, by making it teach
manifest contradictions; and we teach our children and the world
that there is no essential difference between Pedobaptist and Campbellite
ministers and our own, and between their societies and the churches of
Christ—between the doctrines held and propagated by those societies and our
own, and between their ministers and our own; that all—ministers, and churches,
and doctrinal teachings—are truly and equally evangelical! Is not the
insensible and powerful tendency and influence of all this to fill those
societies with our children, our neighbors, and the world, and to effectually
obliterate Baptist Churches from the earth, by destroying all denominational
distinctions and preparing an easy down-grade into the slough of open
communion?
The
principles that distinguish us as Baptists are so intimately connected and like
a chain inter-linked, that we may as well break or give up every link as any
one, and we can not consistently hold to one without holding to all.
Dear reader, decide here and now, to give up all or to hold to all,
and may God help you; for an inconsistent "half-and-half" Baptist
is as offensive to God as to man (Rev. 3:16).
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CHAPTER XIII.
How did Paul regard, and how did he teach the churches he planted,
to regard teachers of false doctrine?—How did he instruct the early
Christians and churches to treat them? —Associate with, or
withdraw from, and avoid them?— Can it be supposed that they
invited them into their pulpits, and to the Lord’s Supper,
though those teachers belonged to the church at Jerusalem?
"—;but
there be some who trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
If we, or an angel from heaven, preach otherwise unto you than that which
we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."
"I
would they were cut off who trouble you. Now we command you, brethren,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw from every brother who walks
out of order, and not according to the instructions which you received from us.
And if any one obey not our word by this epistle, point him out, and do not
associate with him, so that he may be ashamed."—Paul.
"It
is affirmed that our position as Landmark Baptists, of non-association with the
teachers of acknowledged and dangerous heresies ministerially, and the
non-recognition of their societies ecclesiastically, is contrary to the
teachings of Scripture."
This
charge is most persistently made by those Baptists who advocate and practice
affiliations with Pedobaptists and Campbellites, and recognize their
ordinations and immersions; and, by such misrepresentations, they prejudice us
in the eyes of our own brethren and the world, as bigots and sectaries.
Now,
I propose to show the reader that the Scriptures are not more opposed to
rantism, or infant baptism, than it is to association with those ministers and
teachers who teach things contrary to what the apostles taught, and that no one
feature more characterized Baptist Churches, from the fourth to the eighteenth
centuries, than their refusal to recognize, in any way, the teachers of
acknowledged heresies, and those organizations claiming to be churches, yet, in
their estimation, human societies, and apostate from the truth. This charge
must be the offspring of the most willing ignorance, or unprincipled opposition
to truth and consistency.
1.
What are the teachings of the Scriptures?
(a)
This much will be admitted by all Baptists, that our churches are scriptural
church organizations. If so, they alone constitute the visible
kingdom of Christ, which is the antitype of the kingdom of Israel, in the Old
Testament.
Paul
and Peter distinctly affirm this, (Heb. 12; 1 Pet. 2:9) and the teachings of
the type should find a fulfillment in the antitype. What were those teachings?
God of all nations selected but one to be unto him "a peculiar treasure
above all people, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation," and he straightway
commanded them that they should not affiliate with the nations around them in
their religious rites and ceremonies, neither "walk in the manners of
the nations;" for, by so doing, they would render themselves
idolaters, since the worship of those nations was purely human, and corrupted
the religion which he had given them. The churches composing the antitype must,
therefore, keep themselves separate and distinct from all human organizations
and societies claiming to be churches, and, in no way, affiliate with them or
their teachers, or recognize their rites and ceremonies, which are human
inventions, and by so doing admit they are divine, and thus make themselves idolaters.
This is the teaching of the type, and upon it the apostles base their
earnest exhortations to churches: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people," etc. (1 Pet. 2:9).
But
teachers of false doctrine abounded in Paul’s day, for the mystery of iniquity
had already commenced working in his day; and, let us mark how he taught the
churches to regard every one who preached contrary to the doctrine he had
taught them. By his teachings, the charge of our opposers must be tested, and
our own practice as Baptists determined, whatever may have been the practice of
our historical ancestors. It should be borne in mind that these teachers, who
subverted the faith of many by their false doctrines, were not heathens, nor
infidels, nor heads of alien and formidable organizations, set up in direct
opposition to the churches of Christ, as all Pedobaptist and Campbellite
societies are, but what made it more delicate and difficult to fix relations
and determine the character of the intercourse, they were Baptists—influential
members of the church at Jerusalem, and of churches which he himself had
planted. They did not teach the churches to substitute sprinkling for the act
Christ enjoined, nor to baptize infants, nor that baptism is "the law
of pardon," nor "a seal and sacrament essential to salvation;"
and thus subvert the gospel of Christ, and make the law of God of none effect
by their traditions; but these teachers did it quite as effectually and far
more plausibly, and, if charity should be extended to false
teachers, it should have been to those whom Paul antagonized. Those teachers,
like Pedobaptists, taught that the covenant made with Abraham was binding upon
Gentiles, as well as Jews—was the covenant of Grace—and, therefore, unless all
were circumcised, and kept the law, as well as the requirements of the gospel,
they could not be saved. There were many thousands of these Judaized brethren
in the church at Jerusalem, even after that church with the apostles and elders
had answered the question sent up by the church at Antioch, that the Gentiles
were free from the law of circumcision; for teachers from Jerusalem had
troubled this church with this doctrine: "And certain men, which came down
from Judea, taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised, after the
manner of Moses, ye can not be saved" (Acts 15:1).
And
when this question was raised in the church at Jerusalem, the record reads:
"But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed
[i.e., in Christ, and were members], saying, That it was needful to circumcise
them, and to command them to keep the laws of Moses" (v. 5).
Paul,
in his letter to the churches at Galatia, thus speaks of these brethren:
"And because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who came
privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might
bring us into bondage. To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for one
hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. But of these, who
seemed to be somewhat (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me, God
accepteth no man’s person), for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference,
added nothing to me, but contrariwise," etc.
And
in this language he taught these churches to regard them and their teachings:
"I marvel that you are so soon removed from him who called you into
another gospel, which is not another; but there be some who trouble you, and
would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven,
preach another gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be
accursed. . . . I would they were cut off who trouble you"— [excluded from
the church, which it was not in Paul’s power to accomplish, but he could wish
and advise it.]
"Behold,
I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you
nothing. . . . Christ is become of none effect unto you . . . Ye did run well;
who did hinder, that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not
of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."
And
there was another element in this doctrine that made it popular, besides that
of its being held and taught by those metropolitan ministers, who
came down from Jerusalem and taught them to despise Paul, which Baptists of
this age should notice.
Let
Paul state it: "As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh,
they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer
persecution for the cross of Christ! And I, brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased."
Thousands
and tens of thousands would he "Old Landmark Baptists" today were it
not for the Overweening desire "to make a fair show in the flesh,"
and to avoid the odium and persecution that the consistent advocacy and
practice of Baptist principles would bring upon them. Every strict, consistent,
faithful Baptist knows, full well, that the days of persecution have not
passed, and they know, like Paul, something of the "perils among false
brethren." I must be allowed to add that the above language of Paul ought
to settle the question concerning intercommunion among the apostolic churches.
Many of them, like the church at Jerusalem, were corrupted by these false
teachers whom Paul calls "leaven," and he specifically
commands the church at Corinth to purge out all leaven that the feast might be
kept pure.
To
the church at Corinth he wrote thus: "For such are false apostles,
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no
marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it
is no great thing if his ministers [these brethren were not aware that
they were the ministers of Satan] also be transformed as the ministers of
righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works."
Can
it be that God ever allowed a true child of his to live and die in the
service of Satan? Those who teach doctrines that subvert the gospel, Paul
declares to be the ministers of Satan, and that their end will he answerable to
such a service! Was he uncharitable? Not only Paul’s usefulness and happiness
were measurably destroyed, but his very life was put in peril by these false
brethren. (2 Cor. 11:13-16; 26).
To
the church at Philippi he wrote thus: "For many walk, of whom I have told
you before, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross
of Christ, whose end is destruction" (Phil. 3: 18).
2.
How did he instruct the churches to treat these false teachers, though
professed Christians and brethren?
Did
he exhort them to be liberal, and very charitable, and associate with them as
brethren beloved? and did he advise Timothy and other ministers to affiliate
with them, invite them into their houses to teach their people, as so many of
our prominent ministers now do?
To
the church at Rome he wrote: "Now I entreat you, brethren, to watch those
who are making factions and laying snares, contrary to the teaching which you
have learned, and turn away from them; for such like ones as they are
not in subjection to our anointed Lord, but to their own appetite; and, by kind
and complimentary words, they deceive the hearts of the
unsuspecting."
And,
alas! how successfully do they do it in this age! Can a Baptist possibly
misapprehend this language? Will our churches refuse to listen to so earnest an
entreaty? Then let them heed the emphatic command of Paul to the church at
Thessalonica: "Now we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, to withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly, and not
according to the instruction which you received from us. But if any one obey
not our word, by this letter, point him out, and do not associate with him, so
that he may be put to shame."
We
ask our brethren if Pedobaptists and Campbellites do teach the doctrine that
Paul taught, and walk according to his teachings? and if it is
"withdrawing from and putting them to shame" to invite them into our
pulpits, to preach, as ministers of Christ, to our people, and associate with
them in "Evangelical Pastors’ Meetings," "Evangelical Alliances,"
and "Young Men’s Christian Associations?" Brother, you may treat this
question lightly at your peril; for Christ has said: "Whosoever shall be
ashamed of me, and of my words in this age, of him also shall the Son of Man be
ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
That
I have not an improper construction upon these Scriptures, the testimony of A.
Barnes and Adam Clark will convince all Pedobaptists upon Paul’s advice to
Timothy (1 Tim. 5:22): "He was not to invest one with the holy office who
was a wicked man, or a heretic; for this would be to sanction his
wickedness and error. If we ordain a man to the office of the
ministry, who is known to be living in sin [disobedience to the commands
of Christ is sin], or to cherish dangerous error, we become the
patrons of the sin, and of the heresy. We lend to it the sanction of our
approbation, and give to it whatever currency it may acquire from the
reputation which we may have," etc.
Now
every thoughtful reader will see the principle is all the same whether we are
personally instrumental in putting a man, whom we know to be living in the sin
of disobedience or who is a heretic, into the ministry, or whether we sanction
and encourage his being in it, we equally indorse his errors and make ourselves
partakers of his sin. It matters not one whit whether we engage him to preach
for us once, or one hundred times, or continually, as our pastor,
we can not divide a principle. If it would be right in us to introduce him into
our pulpit to preach once, it would be just as right for us to employ him to
preach for us always.
Adam
Clark says on v. 22: "To help him forward, or sanction him in it,
is to partake of his sins. Will any one presume to deny that we do sanction a heretic’s
being in the ministry, and "help him forward in it," when we
invite him to preach and attend upon his ministry?
Mr.
Clark says on 2 John 1:10,11: "For if there come any unto you, and
bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house; neither bid him
God-speed." "He that acts toward him as if he considered him a Christian
brother, and sound in the faith, puts it in his power to deceive
others by thus apparently accrediting his ministry. "No sound
Christian should countenance any man as a gospel minister who holds and
preaches erroneous doctrines."
Do
not Pedobaptists and Campbellites hold and preach erroneous and dangerous
doctrines? I can prove it by themselves. The Presbyterians and
Campbellites will affirm that the Methodists do. The Methodists and
Campbellites will agree that the Presbyterians do; and both Presbyterians and
Methodists stoutly declare that the Campbellites do; and all Baptists know that
they all do. But hear Mr. Clark further, and then show what he says to your
Methodist friends, who think you are too strict and bigoted.
"Nor
can any Christian attend the ministry of such teachers without being
criminal in the sight of God. He who attends their ministry is, in effect,
bidding them God-speed, no matter whether such belong to the established
church, or to any congregation of dissenters from it" [Italics
his].
Barnes
quotes and indorses this view, and says: "It is as applicable now as then."
This
is farther than many Landmarkers have generally gone, but I believe it is the
true ground upon which we all ought to stand undeviatingly. Does not our
crowding their places of worship constantly with our families apparently accredit
and sanction their ministry, and encourage them in their work? Let every
Baptist settle this with his own conscience before his God. We must not bid
them God-speed, or we become upholders of their errors and partakers of their
sin.
How
the early churches understood the instructions of the apostles with respect to
those who "taught contrary to the apostles’ doctrine," we learn from
Prof. Curtis’ statement, who examined the history of those times upon this
point, and is undoubted authority. He says:
"In
former ages of the church—that is, from the close of the second century
downwards until heathenism was obliterated—it was generally supposed by almost
all, that Christian fellowship, or communion, consisted chiefly in praying
together. Christians would never unite in saying, ‘Our Father, who
art in heaven;’ would not even pray in the same house of worship, with those
whom they did not consider orthodox Christians. Heathens, unbelievers,
heretics, persons suspended, or excommunicated. . . and members of other
sects, were admitted to hear the Psalmody, and reading of the
Scriptures, and the discourses, but were invariably excluded from the building
before the prayers of the church were offered" (Curtis on Com., p.
80).
This
testimony establishes beyond controversy two facts:
(1).
That any practice looking toward "open communion" at the Lord’s table
received no countenance in those early ages.
(2).
That there certainly could have been no "pulpit communion, no exchange of
"ministerial courtesies,"—as the exchange of pulpits, inter-preaching
between the orthodox ministers of those ages and the teachers of manifest
heresies, even though the latter belonged to orthodox churches—as the false
teachers in Paul’s day did—much less when they belonged to opposing sects.
3.
That the orthodox ministers and churches in those ages certainly held no
"union meetings," did not labor together in public worship, or co-operate
in the preaching of the gospel and promoting the spread of Christianity
generally with those ministers and members who preached, or held, doctrines
contrary to the teachings of Christ, and, therefore, subversive of it. How
could two consistently walk or work together unless they were agreed?
and from the teachings of the apostles, the early Christians understood that
they did, by their act of worshipping, even in prayer together, say to the
world that they were in fellowship with their doctrine and religion.
Who
will say, with the teachings of the apostles and the facts of history before
their eyes, that the apostolic churches, and the orthodox churches of the
earliest ages downwards, were not "Old Landmarkers" of the strictest
sort? Let the candid Christian reader decide between us and those
"liberal" brethren, who say that we are trying to bring in new
customs and ways of our own invention, unsustained by the Word of God, and
unknown to the Baptists of the earliest ages.
Conclusion
I.
It would have been in open violation of Paul’s instruction. for the primitive
churches to have invited all members of other sister churches, to participate
with them in the celebration of the Supper, since all those "false
teachers, ministers of Satan." "enemies of the cross of Christ,"
subverters of the gospel "leaven"—the very characters he commanded
them to "withdraw from," "avoid." "have no company
with." "not to eat," belonged to Baptist churches. There could
have been no intercommunion among Baptist churches in Paul’s day, or
association in preaching the gospel, or in gospel work, with teachers of false
doctrine.
II.
It is as unscriptural and as sinful in this age for us. as for Baptists in that
age, to violate these plain instructions. Verily, those who do so God will
judge.
CHAPTER XIV.
Does the history of the churches of Christ establish the fact, disputed by Affiliationists,
that the ancient Baptists, by whatever name called, refused to
affiliate with, or in any way recognize, Pedobaptist societies as
scriptural churches, or their ministers as gospel ministers?—The
teachings of history. "And I will give power [i.e.,
ability] to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy [preach
the gospel] a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in
sackcloth" (Rev. 11:3).
"And
the woman [church of Christ] fled into the wilderness [obscurity] where she bath
a place prepared by God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred
and sixty days [each day for a year]" (Rev. 12:6).
It
is asserted with the utmost assurance, by Affiliationists, that our policy of
the non-recognition of human and unscriptural societies as churches of Christ,
and of their teachers as ministers of the gospel, and our non-acceptance
of their ordinances as valid, is not sustained by the history of our
denomination, and is, therefore, not an old but a new landmark,
and we, ourselves, are heretics and schismatics.
This
is a serious charge, and if it can be sustained by the Word of Cod and the
facts of history. the most effectual means should be employed to bring to us
the knowledge of the truth, and this failing, Old Landmarkers should be
excluded as incorrigible and dangerous offenders. Let us, then, patiently
inquire—
what
are the teachings of ecclesiastical history
It
will be admitted by the most "liberal" of our brethren that all the
churches of Christ, before the "apostasy," which took place in the
third and fourth centuries, and gave rise to the Greek and Latin Catholic
hierarchies, were what are now called Baptist churches. It must then be granted
that the falling away foretold by Paul (2 Thess. 2:3), was a falling away from the
doctrine and church form established by Christ and His apostles, and which
characterized all the scriptural churches in the first century, and as a
general thing a part of the second—consequently, it was a falling away from
Baptist doctrines, principles, form of church organization and fellowship.
All history unites in testifying that a general defection from ‘the
primitive faith and church order did take place throughout the entire Roman
Empire, East and West, in the third century, and a general withdrawing,
according to the directions given by Paul, of the pure and uncorrupted portions
of the churches that adhered to the faith at first delivered; and these
steadfastly claimed, though often in the minority, and often ruthlessly
excluded by the corrupt majority, to be the scriptural church, and pronounced
the corrupt majority the "apostasy" or apostates from the truth.
These uncorrupted witnesses of Jesus were called "Cathari" at first,
the Pure, and afterwards by the names of their most prominent ministers and
leaders, as Novatians, Donatists; and after they fled to the valleys of the
mountains from the face of their implacable persecutors, where for ages they
were hid as in a "wilderness," they received the general name of
"Waldenses" and Vaudois, which meant the inhabitants of
"valleys" or "valleymen." Robinson says: "From the
Latin ‘vallis,’ came the English ‘valley,’ the French, and Spanish ‘valle,’ the
Italian ‘valdeci,’ the Low Dutch ‘velleye, the Provencal ‘vaux,’ ‘vaudois,’ the
Ecclesiastical ‘vallences,’ ‘valdenses,’ ‘Waldenses.’"
Peter
of Lyons, a rich merchant, embraced the doctrinal sentiments of these
valley-men, and from them he received the name "Waldus," valley-man,
and not, as some have supposed, they from him. While originally it only designated
the inhabitants of certain valleys, yet it ultimately was applied to all those
Christians in all countries who held the faith of these original valley-men.
These persecuted saints who, in the third and fourth centuries, fled into these
valleys of the mountains—places "prepared by God, that they"—i.e.,
these rich valleys—"may nourish her," I believe are the
successors of the apostolic churches, and from them received their
constitution, their baptisms, and ordinances, I can only give here the testimony
of a few distinguished and standard historians.
Bro.
Alexis Muston, therefore, truthfully says: "The Voudois (Waldenses) of the
Alps are, in our view, primitive Christians, or inheritors of the
primitive church, who have been preserved in these valleys from the alterations
successively introduced by the church of Rome into evangelical worship. It was
not they who separated from Catholicism; but Catholicism
which separated from them in modifying the primitive worship." (The
Is. of the Alps, p. 1, quoted in Baptist Succession).
With
him agrees Waddington in his "History of the Church," who,
speaking of the Novatians, whom he calls "Sectaries," says: "And
those rigid principles which had characterized and sanctified the church in the
first century, were abandoned to the profession of schismatic sectaries in the
third" (p. 70).
This
is precisely what is meant by the falling away—i.e., abandoning
the scriptural principles of the gospel of Christ, and adopting a corrupt
policy, order of government, and human traditions. Those scriptural minorities
in all those countries, though overborne and excommunicated by corrupt
majorities, constituted the true and primitive churches of Christ.
Bro.
Allix, in his "History of the Churches of Piedmont," gives this
account: "‘For three hundred years or more, the Bishop of Rome attempted
to subjugate the church of Milan under his jurisdiction; and at last the
interest of Rome grew too potent for the church of Milan, planted by one of
the disciples; insomuch that the bishop [pastor] and people, rather
than own their jurisdiction, retired to the valleys of Lucerne and Angrogna,
and thence were called Vallenses, Waldenses, or "the people of the
valleys" (Encyclopedia Rel. Knowl., p. 1148).
Cramp
says: "We may safely infer the Novatian churches were what are now called
Baptist churches, adhering to the apostolic and primitive practice," (p.
59).
These
puritan churches were known as Donatists in North Africa, and they were
designated as Cathari and Paulicians by the Council of Nice, A.D. 325.
These
despised, oppressed, and persecuted Cathari, Novatians, and Waldenses of the
third and fourth and following centuries, were our historical ancestors, and
not the dominant and corrupt hierarchies at Rome and Constantinople, which
called themselves "Catholics."
Now
these pure and primitive churches did not in any way recognize other
denominations than their own, as scriptural churches, and, therefore, they did
not acknowledge their ministers as having any authority to preach or administer
the ordinances; nor did they receive their immersions as valid, but invariably
baptized all who came over to them, and from this fact they became known by the
general name of Anabaptists (Rebaptizers).
Cardinal
Hosius, president of the Council of Trent (A.D. 1550), declared that the
Anabaptists had for 1,200 years past suffered generally, and the most cruel
sorts of punishments. "The Anabaptists are a pernicious sect, of which
kind the Waldensian brethren seem also to have been. Nor is this heresy a
modern thing, it existed in the time of Austin" (Rus. Reply to Wail, p.
20).
This
concedes that, as Rebaptizers, we had a separate church existence in the fourth
century, and were most cruelly persecuted. We claim these suffering Rebaptizers
as our historical ancestors, and not those who bathed their hands in blood.
Whom do you claim, dear reader?
Zwingle,
the Swiss Presbyterian, said (A.D. 1534): "The institution of Anabaptism
is no novelty, but for thirteen hundred years has caused great
disturbance in the church," [i.e., the apostate part
of it].
This
concedes to us an organized existence as Rebaptizers in the days of Novatian,
and even before; and it is a fact that fifty years before Novatian’s separation
from the church at Rome, the withdrawal of the Old Landmarkers from the
churches that had become corrupt had commenced. Says Robinson: "They call
Novatian the author of the heresy of Puritanism; arid yet they know that
Tertullian had quitted the church near fifty years before for the same
reason; and Privatus, who was an old man in the time of Novatian,
had, with several more, repeatedly remonstrated against the alterations taking
place, and, as they could get no redress, had dissented and formed separate
congregations" (Ecel. Res., p. 127).
Sir
Isaac Newton, the great astronomer, but still greater student of the Scriptures
and ecclesiastical history, declared to Whiston: "The modern Baptists,
formerly called Anabaptists, are the only people that never symbolized with
the papacy" (See Life of Whiston).
Mosheim’s
testimony is to the point, both as to the origin of our name and our great
antiquity: "The true origin of that sect which acquired the name of
Anabaptists, by their administering anew the rite of baptism to those who came
over to their communion . . . is hid in the remote depths of antiquity, and is,
therefore, extremely difficult to be ascertained" (Vol. 4, p. 427).
[The
reader is referred back to Chapter V, for the testimony of Bro. Ypeig and Prof.
Dermout].
That
the prime reason the Anabaptists would not recognize the ordinances of the
Catholic and other sects, was that they did not admit them to be churches, and
consequently utterly without any authority to baptize or to preach, no
intelligent man will doubt.
Bro.
John Owen, who was born A.D. 1616, "a divine of such eminence as to
eclipse all the regal honors of his ancient house," says: "The
Donatists rebaptized those who came to their societies, because
they professed themselves to believe that all administration of ordinances,
not in their assemblies, was, null, and that they were
to be looked on as no such thing. Our Anabaptists do the same thing"
(Works, vol. XIII, p. 184).
Our
"liberal" brethren are extravagant in their praises of the reformers
Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, and Knox, and they speak of them as evangelical
ministers; and of their societies, now called Protestants, as evangelical
churches; and it is with these "churches," and these evangelical
ministers, they have so great a desire to affiliate, and in every way
recognize, and seem to prefer them to their own brethren, especially in their
own brethren are Landmarkers. But not so did our fathers—the hated Anabaptists
of the days of the Reformation. Let the reader mark well the testimony of a
Presbyterian, who lived contemporary with Calvin, and succeeded him, and wrote
a history of the Reformation, and knew whereof he testified, and then decide
who are the "Old Landmarkers" of this age—Affiliationists, or those
strict Baptists they denounce as schismatics.
Henry
Bullinger, the successor of Calvin, who wrote in the sixteenth century, says:
"‘The Anabaptists think themselves to be the only true church of Christ,
and acceptable to God; and teach that they, who by baptism are received
into their churches, ought not to have communion [fellowship] with
[those called] evangelical, or any other whatsoever: for that our—[i.e.,
evangelical Protestant, or reformed] churches are not true churches,
any more than the churches of the Papists."
And
he bears this testimony to the purity of these Anabaptists: "Let others say
what they will of the dippers: we see in them nothing but what is excellent;
and hear from them nothing else but that we should not swear or do wrong to any
one; that every one ought to live godly and holy lives; we see no wickedness in
them."
Professor
J. S. Reynolds, D.D., of the University of South Carolina, prepared, in 1848,
an elaborate paper upon the practice of Baptists in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, the conclusion I copy. There was not a man in the South
whose opinion was worthy of more consideration.
"The
conclusion is irresistible, that they did not consider even immersion valid,
when it was the act of an unimmersed administrator. The principle of action,
doubtless, was, that there could be no valid baptism unless the administrator
was authorized to baptize by a properly constituted church. Hence, in a
vindication of the Baptists of London, published in 1615, the ground is taken,
that all baptism, received either in the church of Rome or England, is invalid;
because received in a false church and from Antichristian Ministers’ (Crosby,
vol. 1, p. 273). They refused to sanction the acts of any administrator, who
derived his authority from churches which perverted the ordinance of baptism.
This is firm Baptist ground, and the position is impregnable."
Wall
testifies that there was a body of Baptists in England as early as A.D. 1587,
who would have no religious intercourse with those teachers who perverted the
faith of the gospel. He says: "Many of them hold it necessary, as I said,
to renounce communion with all Christians that are not of their way.
Many of them are so peremptory in this, that if they be in the chamber of a
sick man, and any Pedobaptist minister or other, come in to pray with him, they
will go out of the room. And if they be invited to the funeral of any
Pedobaptist, they will go to the house and accompany the corpse with the rest
of the people to the door; but there they retreat—they call it the Steeple
House. They seem to judge thus: Those that are not baptized are no Christians
[this is Wall’s misrepresentation, for always and ever, we have held that a man
must be a Christian before he is baptized], and none are baptized but
themselves [this is so]. So that they make not only baptism itself, but also
the time, or age, or way of receiving it a fundamental, [to a church or church
membership, we do]" (Wall’s History, chapter VIII, section
7, part II).
Wall,
like multitudes of Pedobaptists, we fear, was but too willing to attribute
wrong motives to these English Baptists for not witnessing the religious
ceremonies of these church and state ministers. Those ministers did not pray
with the sick, but read prayers to them, and for this mummery they
had no fellowship. They did not visit their Steeple Houses, because they did
not believe God was worshipped in them, but His holy name and service profaned
by the priests, by their senseless and popish forms and ceremonies; for Christ
had said, "In vain do they worship me who teach for
doctrines the commandments of men." Baptists of that day thought they
would be regarded as countenancing, in some sense, the priests of the church of
England should they attend their administrations. And if we will only consider
the influence of acts closely, we shall be forced to conclude that they acted consistently.
That
our historical ancestors did not affiliate with Catholics, who, for twelve
hundred years, endeavored to exterminate them with fire and sword, no one will
claim. That they could not, if they had desired, affiliate with the early
Protestants, Bro. Winkler has shown in a ringing article in the Alabama
Baptist: "They came into contact with the Reformers everywhere. And
they were reviled and persecuted by them all—by Lutherans, and Episcopalians,
and Puritans, and Presbyterians. Even the Romanists did not denounce them so
bitterly as did Melancthon and Luther, Calvin and Zwingle, and Knox, Cranmer,
and Ridley and Latimer. When Bishop Hall sneered at them as ‘sectaries,
instructed by guides fit for them, cobblers, tailors, felt—makers, and such like
trash,’ he gave expression to the Protestant feeling of his own and of previous
ages toward the Baptists. There was no sect among which these outraged and
long-suffering believers could find refuge. They had to meet apart,
baptize apart, commune apart. Their independent church organization was
necessitated by the spirit of the age. In all the world ‘none were so poor as
to do them reverence.’"
J.
Newton Brown, of Philadelphia, for many years editorial secretary of the
American Baptist Publishing Society, in an historical essay, says of the policy
of the Baptists, with respect to the Catholics and all corrupt churches:
"They held that the Catholics had so departed from the original
constitution of the church, in this respect, as to have forfeited their claim
to that honor; and hence invariably baptized all who joined them from the
Catholic churches. Hence, they are the first in history who are called Anabaptists,
that is, rebaptizers; although, of course, they denied the
propriety of the appellation, as they believed the baptism administered by a
corrupt church to be null and void."
So
we say today, and, therefore, should no more invite the ministers of corrupt
"churches"—human societies—into our pulpits to preach for us, than we
would papistical ministers.
The
Donatists baptized all persons coming from other professing [Christian]
communities. This conduct Augustine [Catholic] disapproved, and observes:
"You [Donatists] say they are baptized in an impure church, by heretics"
(Orchard’s History, p. 95).
These
authorities indicate the faith and practice of the Baptists for the first ten
centuries. In the year 1120, we find a "Treatise Concerning
Antichrist," etc., among the writings of the Waldenses. In defining
Antichrist, they say: "It is not any particular person ordained to any
degree, or office, or ministry, ‘but a system of falsehood,’ [as a false
‘church,’ or ecclesiastical system, etc.], opposing itself to the truth,
covering itself with a show of beauty and piety, yet very unsuitable to
the church of Christ, as by names and offices, the Scriptures and the
sacraments, and various other things may appear. The system of iniquity thus
completed with its ministers, great and small, [as we now find in
the Romish, Episcopal, and Methodist societies], supported by
those who are induced to follow it with an evil heart and blindfold—this
is the congregation, which, taken together, composes what is called ‘Antichrist
or Babylon,’ etc.
"Christ
never had an enemy like this; so able to pervert the way of truth into falsehood,
insomuch that the true church, with her children, is trodden under foot."
One
of the marks of an Antichristian system, or Antichrist, these Waldensian
Baptists declare to be— "He teaches to baptize children into the faith,
and attributes to this [baptism] the work of regeneration, thus confounding the
work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, with the external rite of
baptism."
Do
not all Pedobaptist sects do this, as well as the mother church, of which they
are branches, or the daughters?
The
Romish church says that "baptism is necessary to salvation.
The
Greek, or Eastern church, which finally separated from the Roman, or Western
church, about 1054, maintained that whoever is baptized by "immersion,
is regenerated, cleansed, and justified."
The
Swiss church says that, by baptism, we are "received into the covenant
and family, and so into the inheritance of the sons of God."
The
Bohemian church says that, in baptism, the Lord "washeth away sin, begetteth
a man again, and bestoweth salvation."
The
Confession of Augsburg says, "baptism is necessary for salvation."
The
Confession of Saxony says, "by this dipping the sins be washed away."
The
Episcopal Church of England says, by baptism we are "made members of
Christ and children of God."
The
Westminster Assembly say, in their confession, baptism "is a seal of
grace, of our engrafting into Christ— of regeneration,
adoption, and life eternal."
The
Confession of Helvetia says that, by baptism, the Lord "doth regenerate
us and cleanse us from our sins."
The
Confession of France says that, by baptism, "we are engrafted into
Christ’s body."
The
Methodist church, through Mr. Wesley, says, "by baptism, we who
are by nature the children of wrath, are made the children of God."
The
Campbellites teach that regeneration and immersion are synonymous terms; and
that actual remission of sins, conferred in the act, is hut too notorious.
Now,
how do these Baptists think it became them to treat every such Antichristian
sect. Hear them: "And since it hath pleased God to make known these things
to us by his servants, believing it to be his revealed will, according to the
Holy Scriptures, and admonished thereto by the command of the Lord, we do, both
inwardly and outwardly, depart from Antichrist."
Had
these Baptists affiliated with Papists, by calling them "brethren,"
and recognizing their priests as Christian ministers, by inviting them into
their pulpits, or "stands," to preach for them, would they have
appeared to the world to have "outwardly" departed from
them as the ministers of an Antichristian society?
What
the descendants of these Waldenses considered as "outwardly"
departing from Antichrist, we learn even after Luther, and Calvin, and Henry
VIII, had set up their divisions or kingdoms, by referring back to the
testimony of Bullinger, (p. 173). The descendants of those very Protestants who
joined with the Catholics, in the attempt to exterminate our churches from the
earth, as too vile and pernicious to exist, today authoritatively demand that
we shall recognize their societies as scriptural churches; their doctrine and
ministers as evangelical; and their ordinances as valid and scriptural as our
own. I say they do not reason to convince us; they do not courteously request
it; but they imperiously, arrogantly, and dictatorially demand it of us.
We
quote but a paragraph from a work on "Exclusivism," written by Albert
Barnes, the great Presbyterian, and author of Barnes’ Notes, which
so many Baptists delight in:
"We
claim and demand of the Baptists that they shall not merely recognize
the ministry of other denominations, but their membership also—[i.e.,
infants, seekers, sinners and all]; that while, if they prefer it, they may
continue the practice of immersion in baptism, as a part of their Christian
liberty, they shall concede the same liberty to others—[i.e.,
to practice adult and infant sprinkling and pouring for
baptism]; and while they expect that their acts of baptism shall be
recognized by others as valid, they shall not offer an affront to the
Christian world by rebaptizing all who enter their communion, or by excluding
from their communion all who have not been subjected to the rite of
immersion. And we claim and demand of the Baptist Churches that they shall recognize
the members of other churches [every sect in Christendom that claims to be a
church] as members of the church of Christ. We do not ask this as a boon, we
claim it as a right" (pp. 66, 67).
Can
any Baptist read this, and doubt for one moment that Bro. Barnes, and all
Presbyterians who indorse him, would, by imprisonment, fines, and flames,
attempt to compel us to recognize their societies and human traditions, as
Calvin and Luther, Zwingle and Knox, did in the sixteenth centuries and their
ancestors—the Catholics—did for twelve hundred years before? In order to
propitiate the opposition of the Protestants of today, and to become popular
with them and the world they influence, our affiliating brethren are
endeavoring, "by kind and complimentary words, deceiving the hearts of the
unsuspecting" (Rom. 16:18), and to influence them to grant this claim,
and yield this arrogant and intolerant "demand" of
Bro. Barnes, who speaks for all the sects of the age, and for the Evangelical
Alliance. Brethren, will you—can you yield it? Liberal Anti-Landmark Baptists
say you ought, and must, or they will make friends with your foes to persecute
you. "Old Landmark Baptists" say the claim is preposterous, and the
demand opposed, both to the teachings of the Scriptures and spirit of
Christianity—is the very spirit of Antichrist, and we will resist-it unto blood
if it is necessary.
Reader,
with whom do you stand? and which of these two classes of Baptists do you think
occupies the ground held by our fathers from the third to the sixteenth
century?
I
think that even Bro. Jeter and his "Pike" man will admit, that there
was very little affiliation or open communion of any sort practiced in those
ages. Those saintly Reformers, the ancestors of modern Protestants, who burnt,
and drowned, and imprisoned without mercy our fathers, were not quite so
anxious to exchange pulpits, and hold union meetings with Baptists as their
children now are. And why? They are the same, and Baptists hold the same
principles today as then. What can the reader think of the historical
information or candor of the man, who will assert that Baptists recognized
those Protestant societies as churches, and their preachers as ministers of the
gospel of Christ, any more than they did those of the Catholic church and her
priests?
CHAPTER XV.
How the "Fathers"
of New England Baptists, regarded Pedobaptist societies and their
ministers, from A.D. 1638 until 1776—not as
churches or brethren, but enemies and persecutors.
"Thus
saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where
is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls"
(Jer 6:16).
"My
people have forgotten me; they have burned incense to vanity, and
they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths,
to walk in paths in a way not cast up" (Jer. 18:15).
Having
shown in the last chapter that our fathers, from the first to the sixteenth
century, in obedience to the divine injunction, withdrew from those who
departed from the teachings of Christ, and thus preserved pure churches and a
pure faith, I now propose very briefly, to show that the Baptists of America,
from the planting of the first church in Newport, Rhode Island, A.D. 1638,
until A.D. 1776, were in faith and practice "Old Landmarkers."
1.
what was the practice of new england baptists?
The
Puritans who landed from the Mayflower, A.D. 1620, did not come hither with the
intent of establishing here a government where the oppressed of all nations
would have absolute
"freedom
to worship god."
but
where their own particular creed would be protected and secured against
disturbances from all other opposing religious faiths. Therefore, when they
framed their laws, they put their creed and the sword into the bands of the
magistrates, and made it their highest duty to see that all men, who would
enjoy the protection of their laws, should, on peril of estate and life, accept
the creed. This was freely acknowledged by them:
"And
because they foresaw that this wilderness might be looked upon as a place of
liberty, and, therefore, might in time be troubled with erroneous spirits;
therefore, they did put one article into the confession of faith, on purpose,
about the duty and power of the magistrate in matters of religion" (Morton’s
New Eng. Mem., p. 145-6).
Says
Bro. Samuel Mather: "The reforming churches, flying from Rome, carried,
some of them more, some of them less, all of them something of Rome with them,
especially in that spirit of imposition and persecution, which
has too much cleaved unto them all." (Apology, Appendix, p. 149).
(1.)
My first position is, that the Baptists of New England, during
this period, could not have affiliated with Pedobaptists had they
desired to have done so.
Of
all "erroneous spirits" the Puritans regarded the Anabaptists, as
they stigmatized Baptists, as the most pernicious and dangerous to the state,
and against them they enacted the most cruel laws. I copy the first one they
passed against them:
"Forasmuch
as experience hath plentifully and often proved that since the first rising of
the Anabaptists, about one hundred years since [a gross, willful, or ignorant
misrepresentation], they have been the incendiaries of the Commonwealth, and
the infectors of persons in matters of religion, and the troubles of churches
in all places where they have been, and that they who have held the baptizing
of infants unlawful, have usually held other errors, or heresies, together
therewith, though they have [as other heretics used to do] concealed the same
till they spied out a fit advantage and opportunity to vent them, by way of
question or scruple; and, whereas, divers of this kind have, since our coming
into New England, appeared amongst ourselves, some whereof [as others before
them] denied the ordinance of magistracy, and lawfulness of making war; and
others, the lawfulness of magistracy, and their inspection into any breach of
the first table; which opinions, if they should be carried out by us, are like
to be increased amongst us, and so, must necessarily bring guilt upon us,
infection and trouble to the churches, and hazard to the whole Commonwealth; it
is ordered and agreed that if any person, or persons, within this jurisdiction,
shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about
secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely
depart the congregation at the ministration of the ordinance, or
shall deny the ordinance of magistracy, or their lawful right and authority to
make war, or to punish the outward breaches of the first table, and shall
appear to Court willfully and obstinately to continue therein, after due time
and means of conviction, every person, or persons, shall be sentenced to
banishment" (Mass. Records, quoted by Backus, vol. 1, p.
126).
The
pages of this book would not suffice to detail all that Baptists suffered in
New England from fines, imprisonment, bloody whippings, and banishment from
their homes and possessions. A few cases must indicate all:
In
1644, one Painter, a poor man, turned Baptist, and refused to have his child
baptized, and when arraigned for it before the Court, told them that it was, in
his opinion, an antichristian ordinance. For this he was tied up and whipped.
Governor Winthrop declared he was whipped for "reproaching the Lord’s
ordinance" (Related in Backus, vol. 1, p. 127).
John
Smith, for gathering a church at Weymouth, "contrary to the orders,"
was’ fined twenty pounds ($100) and committed during pleasure of Court.
Richard
Sylvester, for going with Smith, was disfranchised and fined forty shillings.
Ambrose
Morton, for calling their covenant a human invention, and that their ministers
did dethrone Christ and set up themselves, was fined ten pounds ($50).
Thomas
Makepeace, because of his novel disposition, was informed that we were
weary of him unless he reformed.
John
Spur and John Smith were bound in forty pounds to pay twenty pounds the first
day of next Court, 1640.
Their
crime was the avowal "that only baptism [i.e., a
profession of faith] was the door into the visible church"
(Backus).
July
19, 1651, Messrs. John Clark, pastor of the Baptist Church at Newport, O.
Holmes, and Crandel, members of the same, upon the request of William Witter,
of Lynn, arrived there, he being a brother of the church, who, by reason of his
advanced age, could not undertake so great a journey as to visit the church
(Newport). He lived about two miles out of town. The next day, being Sabbath,
Mr. Clark concluded to preach in his house. In the midst of the sermon two
constables appeared, and arrested them, and carried them away to an ale
house first, and then proposed to carry them to the meeting. Mr. Clark
replied: "Then we shall be constrained to declare ourselves, that we can
not hold communion with them," i.e., even by
appearing in their religious assemblies. "We shall declare our dissent
from you both by words and gesture." The constables persisted. Says Mr.
Clark: "At my first stepping over the threshold, I unveiled myself,
civilly saluted them, and turned into the seat I was appointed to, put on my
hat again and sat down, opened my book, and so fell to
reading."
It
will be seen that he was not invited up into the pulpit. or even called upon to
close by prayer!
At
the close of the sermon Mr. Clark arose and courteously asked permission to
state why he was there, and why he put on his hat to declare his dissent:
"I
could not judge that you were gathered together and walk according to the
visible order of our Lord."
Some
thoughtless Baptists will think this act of Bro. Clark unchristian and
discourteous, but he believed that he, in common with all, favored, and by act
approved, of the worship he attended; and he knew that he was forbidden, in any
way, to bid an unscriptural worship or teacher of error "God-speed,"
and so, by "gesture," he declared his dissent. Do we, as Baptists,
declare our dissent from the teachings and ministrations of Pedobaptists and
Campbellites when we attend upon their preaching with our families, month after
month, and thus aid, by our presence and personal influence, to increase their
congregations, and swell their collections to pay their preachers to oppose our
faith, and build up societies in our communities to destroy our own churches?
There are many Baptists in the South who give annually far more to support
Pedobaptist preachers than their own, because they take their families three
times a month to such meetings, where the collection is never missed, and only
once to their own. There are many places where they would cease preaching
altogether for want of congregations and support were it not for the attendance
and contributions of Baptists. It is a great thing to be consistent
Baptists—like John Clark, Holmes, and those early Baptists of New England were.
Who dare, before God, to charge them with inconstancy or inconsistency?
They
were committed to prison. Mr. John Spur, then a member of the Baptist church at
Newport, was present and relates: "Mr. Cotton, in his sermon, immediately
before the Court gave their sentence against Mr. Clark, Holmes, and Crandel,
affirmed, that denying infant baptism would overthrow all, and this was a
capital offense; and therefore they were soul-murderers."
They
were fined, Mr. Clark twenty pounds, Holmes thirty pounds, and Crandel five
pounds, and to remain in prison until their fines be either paid or security
given, or else to be "well whipped." Friends, without Mr. Clark’s
knowledge, paid his fine. When Mr. Holmes was brought forth to receive his
stripes, he desired of the magistrates permission to speak, which was refused
him, and they (Flint and Norvel) said to the executioner: "Fellow, do
thine office."
"He,
having removed so much of his garments as would hinder the effect of the
scourge, and having fastened him to the post, (This was planted on Boston
Commons—the soil of liberty!) seized a three-corded whip, and laid on
the blows in a most unmerciful manner. Stroke followed stroke as rapidly as was
consistent with effective execution, each blow leaving its crimson furrow, or
its long blue wale on the sufferer’s quivering flesh. The only pause which
occurred was when the executioner ceased for a moment in order to spit in his
hands, so as to take a firmer hold of the handle of the whip to render the
strokes more severe. This he did three times" (Banvard).
Ninety
stripes! The blood flowed down, filled, and overflowed his shoes and bathed the
ground. For weeks after he could only rest upon his knees and elbows. So
lacerated was his body, he could not suffer it to touch the bed.
When
released from the post, his brother Spur took him by the hand, and with a
joyful countenance, said, "Praised be the Lord!" and walked with him
to the prison. For this grievous offense he was arrested and fined by the
Pedobaptist Court ‘forty shillings, or to be whipped."
John
Hazel, another of Mr. Holmes’ brethren, above three-score, and infirm, had
traveled nearly fifty miles to see his beloved brother, also gave him his hand,
and said, "Blessed be God." He was likewise arrested, thrown into
prison, and fined forty shillings, or to receive ten strokes with a
three-corded whip, equal to thirty stripes.
This
was the fellowship Protestants had for Baptists in that age.
How
Baptists regarded Pedobaptists may be learned from Bro. John Clark’s charge to
his church. Says C. E. Barrow, of Newport, Rhode Island: "He also charges
the people to steer clear of both Scylla and Charybdis,—of the opinion
of those, on the one hand, who destroyed the purity and spirituality of the church
by uniting it with the civil power, and by introducing into it unregenerate
material by infant baptism; and of the opinion of those, on the other hand, who
denied that there were any visible churches. He would have them avoid both
extremes,—not turn to the left side in a visible way of worship, indeed, but
such as was neither appointed by Christ, nor yet practiced by those who first
trusted in him; nor to the right in no visible way of worship or order at
all, either pretending . . . that the church is now in the wilderness, or that
the time of its recovery is not yet," etc. (Semi-centennial Discourse,
p. 22).
Thus
John Clark warned his people against the false order and worship of
Pedobaptists on the one hand, and the no order and anarchy of Roger
Williams and his party—the Seekers—on the other.
Those
who would pursue the sickening details of Baptist suffering at the hands of
Pedobaptists for the next centuries, I refer to the History of Baptists,
by Backus, two volumes.
The
only instance of affiliation I find for one hundred years after, was the case
of a "liberal" Baptist, who invited Bro. P. Robbins to preach to his
people. This he did January 6th, 1742, and for this act Mr. Robbins was
promptly tried and excluded from his Consociation as a disorderly person.
One
hundred and twenty-seven years after this, we find the Baptists in New England
still fined and imprisoned, and the objects of the most disgraceful
indignities.
This
is related by Backus: "For two young ministers were called to preach in
Pepperell, near forty miles north-westward of Boston, to whom six persons
offered themselves as candidates for baptism. Therefore, on June 26th they met
in a field by a river side, where prayers were made, and a sermon begun, when
the chief officers of the town, with many followers, came and interrupted their
worship . . . A dog was carried into the river and plunged in, in evident
contempt of our sentiments. A gentleman of the town then invited the Baptists
to go and hold their meetings at his house, which was near another river. They
accepted it, and so went through with their worship—at the close of which a man
was hired, with a bowl of liquor, to go into the river and dip another two or
three times over, when also two or three dogs more were plunged; after
which three officers of the town came into the house where the Baptist
ministers were, and advised them to immediately depart out of that town for
their own safety" (Backus, vol. 2, p. 221).
They
left, agreeing to meet the candidates at a distant place of water, where the
baptism did take place. This was near Boston, in the year 1778; and it is
worthy of note that the first meeting house Baptists built in Boston was nailed
up, and they forbidden to worship in it.
If
there can be any doubt in the mind of anyone how the "fathers" of New
England Baptists regarded the Puritan Pedobaptists of their day (1770), I copy
this from Backus. These Puritans declared to the Court that—
"Some
[Baptists] have had the affrontery to say that the standing ministry
[Congregationalists] is corrupt; ministers themselves unconverted; the churches
impure and unholy, admitting unconverted and unsanctified persons into their
communion" (Vol. 2, p. 158).
Can
any one believe that Baptists would believe this, which they most
undoubtedly did, and then, before the world, by affiliating acts recognize
these unconverted ministers, and these impure and unholy sects as scriptural
churches, and in every way equal to their own? They certainly did not do it.
And are not these charges as true today with respect to all Pedobaptist
societies as they were then? And if we walk in the "paths our fathers
trod," what ought to be our testimony?
The
Warren Association, which last year voted to exclude the church in Newport,
Rhode Island, for its open communion practices, or failure to discipline its
pastor and those members who practiced this disorder, is the oldest Association
in New England. It was organized in 1767. Three years after, such were the
intolerable oppressions of the "standing order," in selling out their
lands and homes to pay the tax to support the hireling ministers of the
Puritans, that the Association resolved to appeal at once to the King and
Council, and appointed a committee to collect grievances. That committee of
leading ministers published the following in the Boston Post, August
20th, 1770, and I publish it— 1, because it will give the Baptists of this age
some idea of what our fathers suffered at the hands of those whom we are
now taught to call "evangelical brethren," and
"evangelical churches," and "evangelical
ministers," and what we would suffer today had our old persecutors only
the power; and, 2, how our brethren regarded them, not as "Christian
brethren" certainly—which they were not — but enemies and persecutors.
"To
the Baptists in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, who are, or have been,
oppressed in any way on a religious account, it would be needless to tell you
that you have long felt the effects of the laws by which the religion of the
government in which you live is established. Your purses have felt the burden
of ministerial rates; and, when these would not satisfy your enemies,
your property has been taken from you and sold for less than half its
value. These things you can not forget. You will, therefore, readily hear and
attend when you are desired to collect your cases of suffering, and have them
well attested; such as the taxes you have paid to build meeting-houses, to
settle ministers and support them [i.e., for their enemies], with all the time,
money, and labor you have lost in waiting on courts, feeing lawyers,"
etc., etc. (Backus, vol. 2, p. 155).
I
add but one more instance of persecution which took place twenty years after
the Declaration of Independence:
"Mr.
Nathan Underwood [Pedobaptist minister of Harwich] and his collector seized six
men, who were Baptists, on the 1st day of December, 1795, and carried them as
far as Yarmouth, where one of them was taken so ill being old and infirm
before, that he saw no way to save his life but to pay the tax and cost [all
Baptists were taxed to pay the salaries of Pedobaptist ministers still!]; which
he did and the other five were carried to the prison at Barnstable, where they
also paid the money rather than to lie in the cold all winter. . . . Their
collector went to the house of one of the Baptists when he was not at home,
January 8th, 1796, and seized a cow for a tax to said minister; but his wife
and daughter came out and took hold of the cow, and his wife promised to pay
the money, if her husband would not do it, and they let the cow go, and she
went to Mr. Underwood the next day and paid the tax and costs, and took his
receipt therefor. Yet four days after, the woman and two daughters, one of whom
was not there when the cow was taken, were seized and carried before the
authorities, and fined seven dollars for talking to the collector and
his aide, and, taking hold of the cow while they had her in possession, so they
had to let her go" (Backus, vol. 2, p. 551).
This
and scores of such like exactions and oppressions took place in New England, in
the year 1796.
I
close this century of bitter sufferings with the letter that the Warren
Association sent to the Philadelphia Association, only six years before the
Declaration of Independence:
Letter
from the warren association, Massachusetts.
‘The
laws of this province were never intended to exempt the Baptists from paying
toward building and repairing Presbyterian meeting-houses, and making up
Presbyterian ministers’ salaries; for, besides other insufficiencies, they are
all limited, both as to extent and duration. The first law extended only five
miles round each Baptist meeting-house; those without this circle had no
relief, neither had they within; for, though it exempted their polls, it left
their estates to the mercy of harpies, and their estates went to wreck. The
Baptists sought a better law, and, with great difficulty and waste of time and
money, obtained it, but this was not universal. It extended not to any parish
until a Presbyterian meeting-house should be built and a Presbyterian minister
settled there; in consequence of which the Baptists have never been freed from
the first and great expenses of their parishes, expenses equal to the current
expense of ten or twelve years. This is the present case of the people of Ashfield,
which is a Baptist settlement. There were but five families of other
denominations in the place when the Baptist Church was constituted; but those
five, and a few more, had lately built a Presbyterian meeting-house there, and
settled an orthodox minister, as they called him; which last cost them
"The
Baptists waited on the Assembly five times this year for relief, but were not
heard, under pretense they did no business there. At last the Baptists got
together, about a score of the members, at Cambridge, and made their complaints
known; but in general they were treated very superciliously. One of them spoke
to this effect:
"‘The
General Assembly have a right to do what they did, and, if you don’t like it,
you may quit the place!’
"But,
alas, they must leave their all behind! These Presbyterians are not only
supercilious in power, but mean and cruel in mastery. When they came together
to mangle the estates of the Baptists, they diverted themselves with tears and
lamentations for the oppressed. One of them, whose name is Welk, stood up to
preach a mock sermon on the occasion; and, among other things, used words to
this effect:
"‘The
Baptists, for refusing to pay an orthodox minister, shall
be cut in pound pieces, and boiled for their fat to grease the
devil’s carriage,’" etc.
And
yet, in the face of these facts, a Puritan poetess, with the blood of Painter
and Holmes flowing before her eyes, and the midwinter prisons filled with
Baptists, and the tracks of others leading into the bleak wilderness, into
which Christian men were driven by the Puritans, could say:
"Aye, call it holy
ground,
The place where first they trod;
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God!"
Conclusion.
Let
the most prejudiced Anti-Landmark Baptist—the moat "liberal" Baptist
on the continent—if a Christian man, with the facts of this chapter before him,
decide whether the Baptists of New England, from 1638 to 1796, regarded or
treated Pedobaptist organizations as Evangelical churches, and their
bloodthirsty and cormorant preachers as ministers of the gospel of love and
peace. Turn back to Chapter XV and learn their decision.
Baptists
of that age were what landmark Baptists are in this.
CHAPTER XVI.
Were the fathers of Virginia Baptists "Old Landmarkers?"
—Did they, like too many of their descendants, receive,
as valid, the immersions of Pedobaptists, and recognize them as
evangelical churches?
"For
the leaders of this people cause them to err" (Isa. 9:16).
It
is for the "Landmarks" of the fathers of Virginia
Baptists—those men who planted the first churches upon the soil o the Old
Dominion—that I inquire, and not for the opinions of their children, who
"have stumbled from the ancient paths, to walk in a way the Lord certainly
hath not cast up."
As
I said of the first Baptists of New England, I can say of our Virginia fathers,
they could not have affiliated with the state church—the Episcopalians—if they
would, and they would not if they could: 1. Because they did not regard it a
church of Christ; and, 2. They were unrelentingly oppressed and persecuted by
it, from the planting of the first Baptist Church in 1714, until the final
overthrow of the Episcopalians in 1798.
No
one has ever intimated that there was the least recognition of this
"church" or its ministry by Baptists, by any act, ministerial or
ecclesiastical, during this period or since. This much is settled,
Presbyterians stood side by side with the Baptists in influencing the state to
divorce itself from the Episcopal church, and from this very fact a kindly
sympathy originated by a common oppression, and a common struggle for freedom
sprang up, which disposed our brethren more to affiliation in Virginia than in
New England or any other States, and the influence remains until this day. That
many Associations have invited Pedobaptist ministers to seats in their
Associations in the last fifty years, and that very man y churches under the
misleading influence of their late teachers, have received, and do now receive,
the immersions of Campbellites and Pedobaptists as valid, we well know, but this
was not the practice of the "fathers" of Virginia
Baptists.
1.
The ministers who organized all the first Baptist Churches in Virginia, came
either from New England, or were members of the Philadelphia Baptist
Association, whose position will shortly be noticed. These preachers were
Shubal Stearnes, Daniel Marshall, who came from New England, and David Thomas,
John Garrard, John Corbley, J. Marks, P. P. Vanhorn, Miller and John Gano; and
we must believe that they impressed the churches they planted with their own
personal convictions, which were those of the Baptists of those sections whence
they came. Then some of these churches belonged to the Philadelphia
Association, and all the first Associations in Virginia, were in
correspondence with it, and must have been influenced by its views.
I
have Semple’s History of Virginia Baptists before me, and from it I
gather the following facts. Speaking about affairs in the Roanoke Association
A.D. 1789, the historian says: "About this time, H. Pattillo, a
Presbyterian preacher of distinction, had preached several times in favor of
Infant Baptism, in which he had degraded the Baptists in the most scurrilous
manner. The Association, in order to rebut his calumny, appointed
John Williams to answer him on a certain day; which day they determined should
be a day of fasting and prayer. Accordingly Mr. Williams fulfilled the
appointment to the general satisfaction of the Baptists and their friends, and
to the annoyance of their enemies (p. 234).
There
was little affiliation at this time, for Baptists regarded Presbyterians as the
enemies of the cross of Christ.
A.D.
1794, I find this in history of New River Association: "It appears that
the Baptist interest prevails more than that of any other religious society,
there being only two or three Presbyterian congregations in the district, and
but few Methodist classes [it appears they do not presume to call either
churches]. Between these and the Baptists a good understanding subsisted;
insomuch that a considerable party [which has yearly increased] were of opinion
in the Association, that they ought to invite the Presbyterian and Methodist
ministers to sit with them in their Association as counselors; but
not to vote. This subject underwent lengthy investigation, and finally was
decided against inviting" (p. 262).
The
reasons given would preclude the idea that they could affiliate ministerially
or ecclesiastically, viz.— "1. Because it might tend to confusion. 2.
Because it would probably rather interrupt than promote friendship—seeing,
in most cases, as it respects the intercourse between man and man, too much
familiarity often ends in strife. We should be more likely to continue in peace
with a neighbor, whom we treated with the distant respect due a neighbor, than
if we were to introduce him to our private domestic concerns" (pp. 268-9).
Not
a word is intimated about these people being "brethren in Christ," or
"evangelical churches" —not a word of it— while the plain, square
truth is withheld which should have been spoken.
A.D.
1792, I find this concerning Baptist interests on the eastern shore: "The
established church here, as well as in most other places in Virginia, declined
rapidly after the rise of the Baptists. Of late they have other opponents that
are much more successful. For many years past the Methodists have been a very
increasing people on the eastern shore. Whether their prosperity is only
temporary until the set time to favor Zion shall arrive; or whether, for some
cause, God is disposed to permit his people to be led into captivity,
and to become subservient to the neighboring nations, we can not
determine" (p. 283).
This
language leaves us in no doubt but that they regarded Methodists, in common
with the other Pedobaptist organizations of that day, as the antitypical
nations that harassed and attempted to corrupt and lead into their false
religions the Jews, God’s chosen and separated people of old. This is "Old
Landmark" doctrine.
But
a case came up before the Ketocton Association, A.D. 1791, which determined the
position the Baptists of that day occupied.
One
Mr. Hutchinson came from Georgia as a Baptist minister, and held meetings in
London, and baptized many converts. It was ascertained that he had been
received, by some church in Georgia, upon his Methodist immersion. This brought
the question before the Association, and it decided that he was unbaptized, and
advised against any church receiving those he had immersed. The result was, he
and his converts submitted to a proper baptism. They reasoned thus:
"1.
If such baptism was sanctioned, every thing like ordination might be dispensed
with. But that ordination was not only expedient but an institution of the
Bible, and, therefore, indispensable. 2. That such proceedings, if allowed,
might go to great lengths, and ultimately produce confusion."
Whatever
laxity prevailed in after years, I have shown in what light the fathers of
Virginia Baptists, without exception, regarded and treated Pedobaptists and
their immersions.
Bro.
Jeter received his loose Baptist ideas from the Baptists who constituted the
Portsmouth Association, and who came from England, and belonged to the General
Baptists. Semple says: "Their manner of gathering churches was very
loose indeed; or, at least, was very adverse to the method now
prevalent among Baptists in Virginia. They required no experience of grace or
account of their conversion. But they baptized all who asked it, and professed
to believe in the doctrine of baptism by immersion."
These
arc the kind of baptisms which Bro. Jeter holds and teaches are scriptural and
valid today. He indorses a Campbellite immersion as valid, which is just like
the above, for "no experience of grace, or account of conversion" is
required by the Campbellites. It is this destructive looseness, and perversion
of the ordinances, and subversion of the gospel, that Old Landmarkers are
opposing, and from the dire effects of which we are trying to save the churches
of this age.
Whether
we are traveling in the "old paths" in this respect, let ‘the candid
reader judge. It was not until the preachers of Virginia and the United States,
desirous of popularity, commenced to "burn incense to vanity,"
that they caused themselves to stumble in their ways from the ancient
paths, and to walk in a way not cast up.
CHAPTER XVII.
What were the Landmarks set by the "fathers" of the Philadelphia
Association, the oldest in America—Decisions concerning alien
immersion—The testimony of the venerable Bro. Spencer H.
Cone—Conclusion of the argument.
"Remove
not the ancient landmarks which thy ‘fathers’ have set"
(Prov. 22:28).
"Some
remove the old landmarks" (Job 24:2).
The
Philadelphia Association was organized, A.D. 1707, and is, therefore, the
oldest upon the American continent. Its territory originally embraced all the
Middle States and some churches in Virginia. Her correspondence reached to
every association on the continent, and from her, as a mother body, advice was
widely sought. It was by missionaries sent out from her and from New England,
that the first churches in Virginia and North Carolina were formed. Her
doctrinal sentiments and denominational policy, were stamped upon the entire
denomination in America. In determining her general policy, with respect to
Pedobaptist societies, and the views and practices of her Ancients, we must
conclusively decide the truth or falsity of the charge made against us by our
liberal brethren—viz., that we are attempting to bring in a heresy, and a new
departure, in opposing the reception of alien immersion, and the recognition of
Pedobaptist societies as evangelical churches. The reader will see who are
laboring to establish, and who are trying to "remove, the ancient
landmarks which the fathers have set."
It
would seem strange indeed to us for the most liberal of our would-be
"undenorninational" brethren, to claim that it could be even probable
for the Baptists of 1700, to seek, or to countenance, affiliations and
inter-religious communion with Pedobaptist sects, which sought by law to force
all men, irrespective of regeneration, into their bodies, and united themselves
to the state. and used it as an engine of oppression against them, eating up their
substance by taxes levied to support a venal ministry, who consigned them to
midwinter prisons; who whipped them, without mercy at the post, and drove them
from their own hearth-stones into the wilderness among the wild beasts of
winter, because they refused to accept their doctrines and sprinkle their
infants to insure their salvation. The great fact stands out in bold relief
upon the pages of their history, that they did not regard these sects as
churches of Christ, or their ministers as ministers of Christ, and scripturally
authorized to preach and administer the ordinances of the church; and,
therefore, they regarded their ordinances—even immersion at their hands—as null
and void. This fact can not be truthfully denied. From the
minutes of this Association, covering the first century of its existence, the
question touching the validity of immersions by unbaptized and unauthorized
administrators—i.e., by men who had no ordinations; since
Pedobaptist sects could not ordain, not being churches—came up before the body six
times, and was unanimously voted down.
When
discussed in 1788, and negatived, these reasons, among others, were given:
"First,
because a person—that has not been baptized must be disqualified to administer
baptism to others, and especially if he be unordained.
"Second,
because to admit such baptism as valid, would make void the ordinances of
Christ; throw contempt on His authority, and tend to confusion—for if baptism
be not necessary for an administrator of it, neither can it be for church
communion, which is an inferior act; and if such baptism be valid, then
ordination is unnecessary, contrary to Acts 14:23; 1 Timothy 4:14; Titus 1:5;
and our Confession of Faith, Chapter 27."
While
indorsing these arguments as solid, I would rather emphasize the more
conclusive one, that as those human societies are not scriptural churches, they
have no power to authorize a man to preach— i.e., ordain a
minister—or to administer the ordinances, and consequently all their
ecclesiastical acts and ordinances are null and void; for
if we recognize their ordinances as valid, or their preachers
as gospel ministers, we thereby recognize their societies as true
churches of Christ. The Baptists of America from 1707-1807, did not regard
Pedobaptist societies as scriptural churches, or their ministers as
baptized or ordained.
I
conclude the discussion of the question of "old" Baptist usage, with
a letter from Bro. Spencer Cone, for many years the pastor of the First Baptist
Church, New York City. His statements of facts will be received, and his
opinion, as a sound Bap. tist, should certainly be regarded:
"Dear
Brethren:
"The
question you ask was presented to me in July by Brother J. Tripp, Jr., of your
church. I replied that, in my opinion, valid baptism could only be administered
by a duly authorized minister; and stated my impression also that the ‘regular
Baptist Churches of England and the United States’ had long held the same
sentiments. I wrote in the midst of numerous calls, and without dreaming that
the hasty line was to appear in print, but make no complaint. My Baptist
sentiments are public property, for in things pertaining to faith and practice
I have no secrets.
"First,
then, what has been the sentiment of ‘regular Baptist Churches’ in England and
the United States upon this subject? The ministers and messengers of more than
one hundred baptized congregations of England and Wales (denying Arminianism)
met in London, July 3-
"The
Philadelphia Association was formed in 1708, and adopted, with alteration, the
London Confession of 1689; so that in this country it has gone by the name of
the ‘Philadelphia Confession of Faith;’ and since that period most of the
Associations in the Middle States have been formed upon the same platform. The
New York Association, organized in 1791, has always held the views I advocate.
In 1821, the particular point before us was discussed and settled, in answer to
a ‘query’ from one of the churches similar to that contained in your letter.
Mr. Parkinson was appointed to write a circular letter on baptism, in which he
maintained the immersion of professing believers, by a baptized minister, as
essential to gospel baptism.’
"After
the adoption of this circular, a resolution was passed, stating that although
they considered the query sufficiently answered in the circular, nevertheless
they record the opinion of the Association, that Baptist Churches had better
never receive persons, either as members, or even as transient communicants
upon such baptism—viz., by unimmersed administrators. Many reasons are embodied
in the resolution to sustain the opinion given, as ‘the disunion,
inconvenience, uneasiness, etc., which have always arisen in churches receiving
such members.’ But the basis of their opinion is thus set down in plain
words—‘Pedobaptist administrators, as far as we can see, are unknown in the
Holy Scriptures.’ And that is just as far as I can see, and no farther.
"The
First Baptist Church in this city, of which I am pastor, was founded in 1745,
and as the Bible has not changed, she still adheres to her original confession
of faith. The article on baptism closes thus: ‘That nothing is a scriptural
administration of baptism, but a total immersion of the subject in water in the
name of the Holy Trinity, by a man duly authorized to administer gospel
ordinances’ (Matthew 28:19, 20; Acts 2:40-42). The action of this church for
one hundred years has been to reject as invalid baptism administered by an
‘unimmersed administrator.’ During my residence in Maryland and Virginia, the
Baltimore, Columbia, and Ketocton Associations (which I attended for eight or
ten years, and was personally acquainted with every minister belonging to them)
held the same sentiment. The subject was called up in the Associations while I
was pastor of the Alexandria Baptist Church, D.C.—thus: a Mr. Plummer, from
down East, a Free-will Baptist or ‘Christian,’ as he called himself, immersed a
number of persons in Virginia, and formed a Baptist Church. He baptized in the
name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and yet denied the divinity of the Son. In
a year or two he departed from our borders — his disciples were scattered. Some
of them were really converted, and wished to unite with some Baptist Church in
the vicinity. The church and pastor in Alexandria being satisfied with the
Christian experience and deportment of two of them, I baptized them into the
name of our God, Father, Son, and Spirit—coequal and coeternal—and we no more
considered their baptism by Plummer as Christian, than we should if they had
been dipped by a Mohammedan into the name of his prophet. These Associations,
then, held that valid baptism must be administered, not only by an immersed
minister, but also one in good standing in our denomination.
"In
the early part of my ministry I was intimately acquainted with Gano, Baldwin,
Holcombe, Staughton, Williams, Richards, Fristoe, Mercer and many others, now
gone to glory; and I never heard one of them drop a hint, that baptism by a
Pedobaptist minister opened the door into a regular Baptist Church.
Indispensable engagements compel me to close. That there are now many pastors
and churches opposed to my views, I know—painfully know—but all this does not
convince me that our fathers were wrong in this matter. I must be made
over again before I count that to be valid baptism’ when neither the
administrator nor those who ordained him, believed immersion of believers any
part of their commission, and never submitted to it themselves in obedience to
the command of the King in Zion. Affectionately, your brother in gospel bonds,
S.H.
CONE.
NEW
YORK, September 30, 1845.
I
once more call upon the candid reader to decide if I have made out my
case—viz., that "our fathers," as a body, and as a general thing,
were not Old Landmarkers in their views and practice; and if the recognition of
Pedobaptists, as evangelical and valid, is not a new thing, and a departure
from the "old paths?" Reader, will you take the old, or
the new way that men and not God has cast up?
Conclusions.
I
claim that I have demonstrated, by the plain teachings of the Scriptures and
the history of our denominational ancestors, the following facts—viz.:
1.
It is a fact that the churches of the New Testament, covering the entire apostolic
age, were instructed to hold the doctrines, and observe the policy now
denominated "Old Landmarkism." The Christians of the first century,
then, were "Old Landmarkers."
2.
It is a fact that all those churches, by whatever name called, which were the
recognized witnesses of the truth and the preservers of the gospel during all
the subsequent ages until the Reformation, were strictly "Old
Landmark" Baptists, in faith and practice, and were called Anabaptists.
3.
It is a fact that the genuine Baptists, from the rise of Protestantism onward,
for centuries following, were "Old Landmarkers" in the strictest
acceptation of the term, according to the testimony of Bullinger, Mosheim and
Owen.
4.
It is a fact that the Baptists of England and Wales, from the time churches
were planted in those countries until a late day, were Anabaptists who refused
in any way to recognize the Pedobaptist persecuting sects of that day, as
churches of Christ, and were, therefore, "Old Landmarkers."
5.
It is a fact that the first Baptist Church planted in America at Newport. Rhode
Island, in 1638: and its pastors, Clark and Holmes, were "Old
Landmarkers," and for this were imprisoned, and the latter cruelly whipped
upon Boston Common.
6.
It is a fact that the Baptist Churches of America, from 1707-1807, according to
the published minutes of the Philadelphia Association, were "Old
Landmarkers."
7.
It is a fact, according to the testimony of Bro. Spencer H. Cone, that from the
earliest planting of Baptist Churches in New York, until 1845, the general
sentiment and practice of the churches and all the leading ministers was
strictly Old Landmark; and, that only in the latter part of his ministry did a
looser sentiment and practice commence to prevail through the influence of
those ministers, who loved the praise of men more than that of God—which pained
the heart of Bro. Cone. The voice of that venerable man. though he sleeps in
Jesus, should be heard today.
8.
It is a fact that the venerable Oncken, and all the churches he has planted in Germany,
and Prussia, and Russia, comprising tens of thousands of Baptists, are Old
Landmark to the core, unless Bro. Oncken and his people have radically changed
since I conversed with him, during his last visit to this country.
9.
It is a fact that the oldest churches and Associations in Mississippi were Old
Landmark, and never affiliated, and do not until this day, with human
societies, or their ministers, or accept their ordinances.
10.
It is a fact that the oldest and most successful Baptist minis-ten in
Tennessee, as the venerable James Whitsett,1 and George Young, deceased, and
Joseph H. Borum, now living, for forty years a pastor in West Tennessee, never
affiliated with Pedobaptists or Campbellites, and they testify that affiliation
is a new practice, and the forerunner of open communion.
11.
It is a fact that the attempt of the few influential and. would-be popular
ministers, of the early past and of this present time, to carry the
denomination into affiliations and alliances of various kinds with
Pedobaptists, and to influence it to recognize their societies as evangelical
churches, by accepting their immersions, and their preachers as evangelical
ministers, by ministerial associations with them, has caused all the strifes,
angry discussions and alienations that have afflicted us as a people in this
and other states. And finally—
12.
It is a sad fact that in Christ’s last revelation through John, of what would take
place toward the close of the present gospel dispensation, and previous to His
second advent. He foretold that laxity of views and practices, general
indifferentism and lukewarmness, a state which He denominated as "neither
cold nor hot," would characterize a large number in His churches; and
these, He declared, unless they repented and turned from their loose ways, He
would spew out of His mouth: but the faithful and zealous few would be approved
and presented as the "Bride," without spot, before the Father.
It
is my deepest conviction that "this day is this Scripture being fulfilled
in our ears and before our eyes!" Reader, where do you stand? Where would
you stand—among the faithful few, or the most popular among the
lukewarm many?
1
(The grandfather of Bro. Win. Whitsett, of the Louisville Theological
Seminary, who died at an advanced age, left an able paper with me upon this
question, which he prepared the last year of his life. His eighth objection is:
“We object to receive the baptism of Pedobaptists, because we think it a
dangerous innovation. We have no recollection that the history of the Baptists
furnishes an example of the kind, and we are well assured that the common sense
and piety of the Baptists were as strong one hundred years ago as they are now.
This question we have before us must be a new-comer. We hope it will not be
very obtrusive [in this he mistook the ministers of this age] . . . We say
again, we think this is a dangerous innovation” (South Bapt. Rev., vol.
5, p. 388).
CHAPTER XVIII.
The inconsistencies of, and evils abetted by, Baptists who practice inter-denominational
affiliations.
Axiom
I.
A
straight line can not cross itself though projected indefinitely.
Axiom
II.
Truth
is never inconsistent with itself, and is never the abettor of error.
Consistency
is a jewel.—Old Adage.
The
practice of affiliating with unbaptized and unordained men of the various human
societies of this age as scriptural ministers, and with those societies which
"are but an organized muster against the lordship of Christ" (Bro.
Bright, New York) as evangelical churches, involve its advocates in many and
glaring inconsistencies, and makes them the abettors of many and pernicious
evils. A few of these only have I space to point out.
Inconsistencies
of Affiliation.
1.
The "liberal" Baptists of today are at a loss for language with which
to eulogize the martyr Baptists of the ages past for their steadfast opposition
to doctrines and practices they called antichristian, and yet they seem at the
same loss to condemn and degrade their own brethren, of this age, for opposing
the self-same doctrines and the self-same practices, put forth by the self-same
sects, which those martyrs called antichristian! They certainly "can not
love the one and bate the other, or bold to the one and despise the other"
(See Chapters XIV and XV).
2.
Should a Baptist Church so far depart from the faith as to discard
immersion and adopt affusion for baptism, and infants and unregenerate sinners
for proper subjects, and accept a hierarchical or aristocratic form of church
government, and a ministerial prelacy, every orderly Baptist Church in the land
would disfellowship it as, in any sense, a church—would refuse to recognize its
minister as evangelical, or receive his ministrations; but let this
unscriptural body join a Methodist conference, or a Presbyterian presbytery, and,
presto, it is an "evangelical church," and its minister
is "evangelical," in the estimation of our liberals, and invited into
their pulpits and to participate in their "union meetings." This is
the consistency they wish us to admire!
3.
Should one of our most highly esteemed ministers renounce our faith, and
embrace and advocate fundamental and dangerous errors, he would be promptly
expelled from our church, and debarred our pulpits; but let him join himself to
a Pedobaptist or Campbellite society, and, with our liberal brethren, he is at
once "evangelical;" and, to illustrate Christian charity and its
Thread liberality," is lovingly invited into their pulpits, and treated as
a ministerial equal. For one error he would be expelled from the pulpit and the
house; but let him go and take unto himself seven ethers worse than the first,
and, lo! he returns to find it swept and garnished for his reception!
4.
The most liberal of our liberal brethren, by their words, when
called upon to answer, will freely admit that Pedobaptist and Campbellite
societies are not scriptural churches, and therefore, not evangelical, and yet,
before the public, by their acts—uniting with them in "union
meetings," and joining their "alliances’ of various kinds—they
declare that they are evangelical churches of Christ, and indorse and recommend
them to the world as such, and thousands are led to join them by Baptists
indorsing them as churches.
5.
The most liberal of the would-be "undenorninational" brethren will
frankly declare, if asked, that no organization, save a scriptural church, can
administer Christian baptism, or authorize a man to preach, and, in this, they
say truly; yet, by their affiliations, they do say, and they know they are
understood to declare, that Pedobaptist and Campbellite preachers are truly
baptized and ordained ministers of scriptural churches, and in all respects
equal to themselves.
When
do they wish us to understand that they tell the truth? When they speak,
or when they act?
If
Baptist preachers are scriptural ministers. Pedobaptists certainly are not, and
vice versa, since two things unlike each other cannot be like the
same thing—scriptural.
6.
Bro. N. L Rice, the great Presbyterian leader of his day, declared if immersion
only is baptism, then we Pedobaptists are all unbaptized, and our societies are
not churches in any sense, nor are our preachers baptized, or ordained, or
authorized to preach. This is unquestionably true. Now the most
"liberal" of our brethren, Bros. Burrows and Jeter, will assert as
stoutly as the stoutest Landmarker, that immersion alone is Christian baptism.
But yet, in the face of these logical facts, they will indorse
the immersions and ordinations of Pedobaptist societies as valid, and even
indorse those societies as "evangelical churches." Land-markers are
abused for not indorsing their course as consistent.
7.
The "liberals" among Baptists, by their words, and by
frank admissions, will say that Pedobaptist and Campbellite organizations are
not scriptural churches, and therefore, that their ministers are both
unbaptized and unordained, which is the truth; and yet, when immersed
Pedobaptist preachers come to us, our "liberals" will receive them,
and continue them as ministers, without either baptism or ordination;
or, as in the recent case of Mr. Foote, Campbellite, ordain without
baptism. To accept the baptisms of a society is to indorse that society as a
scriptural church, since no organization but a scriptural church can baptize.
8.
If a Baptist Church should elect a Pedobaptist or Campbellite preacher to
occupy its pulpit for one year, and pay him a salary for his
services, as she ought if she employs him, all Baptists, and all men, would say
that the act would be strangely inconsistent. When Mr. Chambliss, of Richmond,
declared his unwillingness to defend, not to advocate, close
communion, his church promptly accepted his resignation, and all Baptist
Churches approved their course; and only one man, Bro. Jeter, deemed it
consistent to continue him as pastor; but, if it is consistent to receive the
services of such a preacher once or twice a year, it is equally so to receive
his ministrations fifty-two times. A principle cannot be divided. Even the most
obstinate of open communionists (The New York Independent admits this to
be unanswerable) accept this argument as valid when applied to
interdenominational communion, viz.: If Methodists and Presbyterians can
commune together occasionally, they can always, and,
therefore, can all unite in one church.
9.
Our "liberal" brethren are wont to say that it is only the matter of
the mere act of baptism—"close baptism"—that separates them from all
other sects which they call "evangelical churches," and, upon these
grounds, it is so. To be consistent with themselves they should invite all who
have been immersed to their tables—the Greek Catholics, who observe no other
act, all immersed Catholics and Protestants, all Campbellites, Mormons, etc.,
etc. Thus, as I have ever maintained, the anti-landmark position swings wide,
if not wide open, the doors of the Lord’s Supper. This glaring
inconsistency is now being charged with effect upon the "liberal"
Baptists of the North by the New York Independent. We do not say that it
is close baptism alone that keeps other denominations from our tables.
10.
The position of these affiliating Baptists is so manifestly weak, that
it imperils the whole line of our denominational defenses. The fact is, scores
of worthy brethren have openly avowed it, and hundreds of others, who have not,
now feel all the logical absurdity of closing the table against those to whom
we open our pulpits, and openly indorse as members of evangelical churches. I
am free to say that I am forced to admit the consistency of Bros. Jeffery,
Thomas, Reeves, and Pentecost in advocating the offering of all our
church privileges, and tokens of church recognition, to Pedobaptists, or
withholding all. They felt and declared that they were logically compelled to
be Old Landmarkers or Open Communionists. I am free to say
that, could I be convinced that Pedobaptist and Campbellite societies are
evangelical churches, and could conscientiously invite their ministers into my
pulpit, and granting the general practice of inviting members of all
sister churches to the table is scriptural, I would, with the next dip of my
pen, proclaim myself an open communionist. A man who cannot feel the
irresistible force of this conclusion cannot be made to feel the force of
logic. All evangelical churches are scriptural, and, therefore, sister
churches; and, when our liberals invite sister churches to their tables, they,
in fact, invite all they call evangelical, and they feel this, and,
consequently, are falling into the practice of inviting no one, and this is
throwing the table open to all—for none are precluded—all who wish can come.
Though
not a prophet, yet my personal conviction is that, fifty years from this
writing, the Baptists of America will be either Old Landmarkers or Open
Communists.
Some
two years a go, Elder W. A. Jarrell, of Illinois a Landmark Baptist,
proposed to discuss the communion question with Bro. Jeffery, of New York. Bro.
Jeffery objected because he was a Landmarker, and occupied consistent and
impregnable ground. I quote extracts from two letters:
September 11,
1875.
"It
would be of advantage to me to discuss the question with a man who will defend
the propriety of ministerial and missionary cooperation with Pedobaptists; and
then I would charge upon them the inconsistency, and drive them, and the
denomination, to choose between Landmarkism and Open Communion. They recognize
and act upon the propriety of exchange with Pedobaptists in preaching,
prayer-meetings, and general work. This fact enables me to take advantage
of their inconsistency. Your position deprives me ‘of the argumentum
and absurdum.’
The
question among us is not: Shall we extend recognition in Christian privilege to
Pedobaptists? but it is, rather, Shall we forbid participation simply in
communion with persons whom we admit to all other privileges of work and
worship?"
11.
It has long been noticed that our charitable and liberal brethren exhibit
vastly more of their "courtesy" and fellowship towards the unbaptized
teachers of acknowledged heresies—men who bitterly and constantly oppose
Baptist influence—than they do towards their own brethren, who occupy the
position and advocate the doctrine and policy of our historical ancestors in
the martyr ages of Christianity. In nine cases out of ten, if there were
Landmark Baptist preachers and a Pedobaptist minister present, the liberal
minister will pass by his own brethren, and invite the unbaptized preacher and
public opposer of Baptists into his pulpit, or call upon him to close with
prayer. Is this consistent?
The
Evils Abetted by Anti-Landmarkers
1.
It is the duty of Baptist Churches to throw their whole proper weight,
as divine institutions, in favor of the authority of Christ, and the correct
and proper observance of His laws and ordinances. But this is impossible, if we
associate ourselves on an equality with those religious societies not called
into existence by the authority of Christ, but in contravention of His will,
whose belief, practice, and influence are erroneous. Such associations most
effectually paralyze our own influence for the truth by indorsing manifest
error. This great evil is abetted by affiliating ministers and churches.
2.
If Pedobaptist and Campbellite societies are not scriptural churches, and if
they do teach fundamental and dangerous errors, and every Baptist will admit
these facts, then it is a fact, that by associating with them as churches, and
recognizing their ordinations and immersions as valid, and, by pen or tongue,
calling them "evangelical churches" and "evangelical
ministers" before the world, we do, by all our influence, indorse their false
claims, sanction their pernicious errors, and aid them, to the extent of our
influence, in deceiving the multitude to unite with them as churches. And
whenever we admit them to be evangelical, we impliedly admit that there is no
real necessity for Baptist Churches—we are, in fact, not churches at all, but
sectaries, and are guilty of dividing the body of Christ.
3.
If Pedobaptists "churches" are "an organized muster against the
lordship of Jesus Christ," as was asserted by Bro. Bright before the New
York State Baptist Ministers Conference, which I have shown our fathers have
ever believed and acted upon, then, by ministerial and ecclesiastical
affiliations with them, we do accredit them as the true ministers and churches
of Christ, and bid them "Godspeed," and become partakers of their
sin.
Since
writing the above my eye has fallen upon the following:
At
a recent installation of a Baptist minister in Massachusetts, two Baptist
ministers, and five Pedobaptist ministers took part in the proceedings"
(Christian at Work).
Pedobaptist
ministers in the North are sometimes invited to assist in ordaining Baptist
ministers, and why not, as well as to install? In one case no more than
another do we accredit them as scriptural ministers.
4.
By indorsing human societies, as Protestants and Campbellites admit
theirs to be— i.e., originated and set up by men —
we say that men may invent and set up evangelical churches equal in all
respects to the divine institution which Christ set up, and we degrade the
authority of Christ to that of wicked men, and teach the world to give equal
respect to man’s work as to that of Christ.
It
is a sad fact, seen and deplored by the venerable Oncken when in this country,
that Baptists, by their practical endorsement of Pedobaptist societies as
evangelical churches, are very largely responsible for the success and
prosperity of those organizations in this country. Said Oncken to the writer:
"The
Baptists of America have done and are now doing more to give success and spread
to Pedobaptist sects than those sects could do for themselves without Baptist
assistance. You Baptists here are like crutches under the armpits of these
societies, upholding them and saying, by all the influence of your acts, these
be the true churches of Christ— ‘evangelical churches.’ If Baptists would only
put forth the whole weight of their united influence against Pedobaptism, it
could not live through the century in America, where it is unsupported by the
State."
And
after a pause: "And I believe God will not be left without a body of witnesses
in this land who will bear a faithful testimony against the whole family of the
vile woman of the apocalypse."
5.
Our liberal brethren disobey—and teach others to do so—the plain commands of
the Holy Spirit concerning the attitude they should occupy toward the teachers
of manifest and acknowledged errors and false doctrine, which was "to avoid
them" —to have no company with them, that they may be
ashamed."
Will
the reader turn back and read Chapters XII and XIII.
1 He
said that he, and the Baptists of Germany, never called Pedobaptist ministers
evangelical, nor their societies churches, nor their members brethren.
CHAPTER XIX.
Last Words To My Brethren.
"A
false system has for accomplice whoever spares it by silence" (Vinet.)
I
have now, clearly as possible, in the limited space allotted to this work,
placed before you the principles, polity, and practices which characterized our
historical ancestors, and something of the terrible sufferings it cost them to
maintain them at the hands of Pagans, Papists, and Protestants, from the days
of the apostles until now. I wish, in conclusion, to urge a few questions upon
your prayerful consideration:
1.
Will you now decide, by the evidence submitted, if the scores of thousands of
Baptists in America, especially in the South, in England and Germany, who now
hold and witness for the principles and polity developed in the preceding
chapters, have left the "old paths" and are walking in "a new
way, and a way not cast up" by the Master?
Or,
whether those Baptists who recognize those very organizations, which persecuted
our fathers, as evangelical churches. and accredit their preachers as
evangelical ministers, by associating with them upon perfect ministerial
equality, and receive their immersions as valid baptisms, and affiliate with
them in all things, and extend to them every token of ministerial and
ecclesiastical fellowship—the Lord’s Supper excepted—are traveling
"In
The Ways Our Fathers Trod?"
This
is the practical question of this age. It is vital to the best interests of
American Baptists that it should be correctly answered. The world demands its
settlement. To assist in determining this question this little book has been
written. My conclusions are before you.
In
the thirty odd years past, during which I have discussed and urged upon
Baptists the adoption and practice of these views. I have not heard of one man,
however, bitterly opposed, who did not acknowledge that these conclusions are
logically irresistible, if my premises are granted. May I beg of
you, who read these lines, to decide, before you lay down this book, whether
the plain unvarnished teachings of the apostles, and the practice of our
denominational ancestors, from the fourth to the eighteenth centuries, do not
sustain my premises beyond a reasonable doubt? Turn back, if necessary, and
re-read Chapter XIV, and not only note what our fathers claim, but what
Catholics and Protestants, with united voice, testify they held and practiced
in the face of the dungeon and the stake. Are you not compelled by facts to
admit that—
1.
They did not acknowledge Catholic or Protestant societies to be evangelical
churches, but proclaimed them alike to be anti-Christian bodies, and their
ordinances null and void?
2.
That they did not accredit the ministers of the Protestant sects any more than
those of Catholics, by any act as gospel ministers, nor did they associate with
them in preaching the gospel or in any Christian work.
If
this is not your conclusion, you may as well close the book, for further words
of mine will be useless. But these historical facts admitted, let me press upon
your fraternal consideration other important questions:
2.
Were not our martyr fathers approved of God for bearing the steadfast and
unmistakable witness they did for the divine constitution, the doctrine and
ordinances of the church of Christ, and against the human societies that
opposed, and the corruptions that subverted them in their day? You can not
doubt it. John saw their souls under the altar and white robes given unto them,
and heard the promise of their future vindication and coming glory.
3.
Can you doubt that it is as much your duty and mine to steadfastly hold,
faithfully teach, and as cheerfully suffer, if needs be, for these same
principles, and to as boldly oppose these self-same sects and their false
teachings and practices in this day, as it was their duty in that age? My
brother, do not lightly pass this, but decide—upon your knees, with your Bible,
your conscience, and your God.
"Must I be
carried to the skies,
On flowery beds of ease;
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed thro’ bloody seas?
Are there no foes for me to fight?
Must I not stem the flood?"
4.
Have you ever stopped to think why it is that not one in a thousand to-day, who
bears the name, suffer the least opposition or discomfort of any sort for being
a Baptist? It was never so before. Why is it that thousands of our
ministers finish a life ministry, and sill their advocacy of Baptist
principles—or preaching the gospel, if you prefer it—never costs them one word
of reproach from the teachers of error, the hatred or ill will of a living man?
So that living friends even solace their grief, by inscribing on the tombstone
of such—
"None knew him but
to love him,
Or heard him, but to praise."
Was
the boast of that eminent doctor of divinity to his praise, who said in a
recent speech: "If I have offended man, woman, or child with my denominationalism
in a pastorate of twenty years, I have never heard of it?"
That
minister exchanged pulpits with Unitarians, and invited Universalists even unto
his own. If the position of Bros. Jeter and Burrows is correct, that we do not
thereby recognize their ordinations or themselves as evangelical ministers, but
only as gentlemen, thus lowering the pulpit—which should be the throne of God’s
truth on earth—to the level of the parlor, that minister’s course can not be
condemned.
Thousands
of Baptist ministers can truthfully repeat his boast, after professing to
preach the gospel five, ten, and fifteen years; and other thousands are
preaching today with no higher ambition than to build up large churches, and to
gain an enviable reputation for being "undenominational preachers;"
men of "broad" "liberal," "Catholic" views.
Have
you ever seriously asked yourself if these men can be pleasing the Master? I
turn to His Word and it reads: "Woe unto you when all men speak well of
you; for so did their fathers to the false prophets."
Has
this passage no application in our day? Is it true, as some preachers
tell us, that the days of persecution are ended? Has the offense of the cross
indeed ceased? How am I to understand these declarations of my Savior: "Ye
shall be hated of all men for my sake: but he that endureth" (Matthew
10:22). "The disciple is not above his master; if they have called the
master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his
household?" "Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth: I
came not to send peace, but a sword." "For I am come to set a man at
variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: and a man’s foes shall be of his own
household." "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before
it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but
because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore
the world hateth you. Remember the word I said unto you, The servant is not
greater than the lord. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you."
(John 15:20). Paul understood the import of this language: "Yea, and
all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."
Do you say all this was spoken of the apostolic age, and is obsolete and
utterly meaningless in this; and that the Testament would be as complete to us
if these and all similar passages were eliminated? Is it indeed so? has Beelzebub
become a faithful ally of Christ—
"And this vile world
a friend to grace,
To help us on to God?"
If
this be so, has it ever occurred to you that we shall lose many and exceedingly
precious promises as well? A few occur to me: "Blessed are they who are
persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Can it be that the blessedness of that kingdom will be the same to those who
have never lived for Christ so as to be persecuted? "Blessed are ye when
men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad; for
great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets who were be
fore you." Is it impossible for us to gain this great reward? Is
it, alas! true, that we, alone, of all the Christians who have lived on the
earth, are denied the distinguished privilege of gaining this "GREAT
REWARD? That we can not suffer peril from false brethren—can not so witness for
Christ as to suffer reproach or even to be spoken about falsely for Jesus’
sake?
If
this be so, then indeed are we, of all Christians, the most unblessed;
for the crowning glories of salvation are alike predicated upon suffering
with and for Christ here. Among a host are these: "If so be that we
suffer with him, that we be glorified together" (Rom. 8:17). Is it
not here implied that those only are glorified together who have
suffered for Christ? "If we suffer for him, we shall also reign
with him" (2 Tim. 2:12).
But
suppose we live on such terms of amity and concord with the enemies of Christ,
and those who oppose His teachings, that they become our friends,
and speak well of us, can we hope to reign with Christ? Grant that we
may possibly be saved "yet so as by fire," have we a promise of reigning
with Christ? The Scriptures impress me that only sufferers, martyrs,
cross-bearers, witnesses of Jesus, and for the Word of God, "have part in
the first resurrection, and live and reign with Christ a thousand
years" (Rev. 20): that only those Christians who "have not defiled
themselves with women"—i.e., affiliated on terms of equality
and friendship with false churches—are accounted as "virgins"
unto Christ, and are numbered with the one hundred and forty and Jour
thousand, and are permitted companionship with Christ (Rev. 14). If one passage
more than another has influence, and now influences my life as a
Christian and a minister, it is those words of Jesus to His faithful servant at
the close of his service: "Well done, good and faithful servant: thou has
been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter
thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Matthew 25:21). What is this world to me
if I have no good hope, through grace, of hearing these words at last from the
lips of my master? How unspeakably fearful, though I have gained the praise of
earth’s millions, and fail to hear the "well done" of Jesus? Oh, what
can the future be to me, though I should have the praise of the angels, and
fail to hear these few words—"well done, good and faithful
servant"—from the lips of my Savior? I know, that He. whose
name is Truth, will never utter them unless I have done well, and been faithful
in the things committed to me. If I have failed to openly hold and
boldly preach His whole truth, for fear of men. I may not hope to hear them,
for He hath said: "For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words,
of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory and
in his Father’s, and of the holy angels."
Let
us not deceive ourselves or be deceived. Satan bears the same hellish hate
towards the Savior and His church, he did the day he nailed Him to the cross of
ignominy, by the wicked hands of his servants.
The
carnal heart is still only enmity to God. The whole world still lieth in the
wicked one, and is as thoroughly opposed to the authority of Christ as of old.
False systems of religion, and false teachers are a thousand times multiplied;
only they assume the character, and demand of us the name of "evangelical churches"
and ministers of Christ. The words of Christ and His apostles are equally for
this as for any former age; and it is tremendously true now as then—that they
"who will live godly shall suffer persecution." There never was,
there is not now, there never will be, till Christ comes, an exception to this
declaration. If you and I are not persecuted, if we are not reviled and spoken
falsely of, for Christ s sake, it is as certainly true as God’s Word that we
are not living godly. We are not persecuted nor reproached because we have
struck an unholy truce with sin, and the spirit of this world, and with
spiritual wickedness, because throned in high places. In every age when the
witnesses of Christ have been faithful to their mission, they have suffered
from His avowed enemies and professed friends.
It
was not only true when the old Pagan dragon held his authority over the
nations, but equally so when its ghost—a counterfeit Christianity—ascended the
throne and wore the purple of the Caesars; and more bitterly true when
Protestantism shed the blood of the saints in the days of the Reformation, and
whenever and wherever it has been able to wield the sword, whether in England
old or England new, on the soil of the Old Dominion or of Georgia. In every age
and in every land, genuine Christianity has been persecuted by its counterfeit,
and shall we by all our influence as Baptists, accredit that counterfeit as
"evangelical" and genuine?
Be
assured, my brother, were we only as faithful in teaching and defending
Christ’s precious truth as our fathers were; if we would no longer sacrifice it
by sinful compromises to secure the peace and obtain the friendship of false
teachers and their followers, we would not long be strangers to their bitter
experiences, and we would realize that the words of Christ, and the teachings
of the apostles, are of real significance in our day; though our blood might
not be shed, yet our names would be defamed, our characters blackened, the
spirit of the evil one attributed to us when preaching most faithfully, as it
was to the first Baptist—for they said, "he hath a devil"—our wives,
and daughters, and sons ostracized from "polite society," and we and
ours would be "accounted the filth of the world and the offscouring of all
things, even in this day."
A
young lady was converted at meetings held at the Baptist Church in Vicksburg,
Mississippi, and had given her name to be baptized, when she was visited by the
Episcopalian rector, and informed if she should so degrade herself as to join
the Baptists, who were of the lower class, she would be no longer invited into
polite society, but would sink to their level.
We
see and feel enough to be convinced that we have entered the Laodicean age of
this dispensation, in which the Master’s knock will soon be heard at the door.
The love, and zeal, and works of the first age have been "left;" the
faithfulness to the order of the house of God, and in trying and
condemning false teachers, and the hatred of the laxity,
and the profane double-dealing of the Nicolaitanes—who, professing
to be followers of Christ, fellowshipped false religions as well—which
characterized the churches of other ages has well-nigh died out, and instead, a
strange indifferentism to gospel doctrine and denominational
principles—to church constitution, to church order, to church discipline, and
to pastoral support, has seized the great mass of the membership—a state
denomination "lukewarm" by the Savior, which is, of all states, the
most abhorrent to him.
But,
added to this, an overweening desire to be considered "respectable,"
and to command the admiration of the world, has taken possession of the
churches. We boast of our numerical strength, our power and our
influence, and the culture of our ministry. Could an uninspired pen so
graphically have described our condition as a denomination as Christ foretold
it?
"And
unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the
Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert
cold or hot. So then, because thou are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I
will spue thee out of my mouth: Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased
with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched,
and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold
tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou
mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear;
and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the
door, and knock: If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to
him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant
to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my
Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches" (Rev. 3:14-22).
Whatever
other brethren may do, will you not, my brother, resolve, here and now,
to join the noble few whom God is raising up to resist this flood-tide of
looseness, lukewarmness, and indifferentism, which is rendering powerless the
protest of the churches of Christ against sin and error?
The
angel, in Revelation 18, is the symbol of a class of ministers who are to come
to the front, at the close of this age, to tell Christians and the world what
Babylon is, and call upon God’s people to come out of her. Hear the voice of God,
cast the fear of men behind you, and become a martyr—a witness for
Jesus.
"Perish ‘policy’ and
cunning,
Perish all that fear the light;
Whether losing, whether winning,
Trust in God, and do the right.
Some will hate thee, some will love thee,
Some will flatter, some will slight;
Cease from man, and look above thee—
Trust in God, and do the right."
"OLD LANDMARKISM"
What Is It?
APPENDIX
A.
A
CORRECTION AND EXPLANATION.
Not
a few of our brethren represent me as teaching that we should preach on baptism
or communion, when we advocate the presentation and enforcement of some one of
our distinctive denominational principles or doctrine in every sermon—i.e., to
make this as a general rule. I do not hold that baptism and communion are the
Alpha nor the Omega of our religion, though Christianity would not long remain
pure were these ordinances perverted, and, therefore, they should have due
prominence. I am certain that, in a ministry of thirty-three years, I have not,
to my church or the same congregation, preached an entire sermon upon the
ordinances oftener than once each year, and no church or congregation can be
properly indoctrinated with less instruction than this. But I do mean that some
one doctrine or characteristic principle of genuine Christianity, in
contradistinction to the prevailing counterfeits of it, should find a place,
and be emphasized in each sermon; and thus, without unnecessarily awakening
sectarian prejudices, popular errors can be corrected, and our distinctive
principles—all of which I believe to be scriptural principles—will be most
effectually inculcated, and the church and congregation will be gradually and
almost insensibly indoctrinated. I can not better explain what I mean than by
illustration:
Suppose
you were preaching upon the duty and importance of searching the Scriptures.
Ask what is the first duty that God enjoins upon His creatures, and suggest: Is
it repentance? is it faith? is it obedience? It can not be. It is to learn who
He is; it is to learn how just His claims are upon us; it is to learn what He
desires us to do, and how He wishes us to do it—in one word, it is to
"search the Scriptures." Say it can not be that God requires any
thing of us until we are able to search His Word and know what He would
have us to do. It does not read—apply to your parents, or to preachers, or to
priests to learn what duty God enjoins upon you. but the command is to you
personally, "Search the Scriptures,"—each one of you for
yourselves—and learn what the will of God is; and, having learned it for
yourself, you must obey it for yourself, moved by love for Him.
In
this connection the pernicious doctrine of .the Papists can be corrected, viz.,
that the common people may not freely read and interpret the Scriptures for
themselves. The highest duty Christ enjoins upon each individual is to search
the Scriptures for himself, and obey its teachings. And no one may presume
to do any religious act until he has himself found it required at his hands by
searching the Word of God, etc. How natural it would be to ask, in this
connection, if it is not the sin of this age, that we seek to learn what
distinguished preachers and popular churches, or our parents or friends believe
or think we should do, rather than to "Search the Scriptures," and do
only what God requires? This one idea, pointed and driven home, will abide
forever in the mind, and prove a most effectual blow to infant baptism. If you
would strike at human creeds, formulated by human societies, and required to be
consulted and held, irrespective of what the Scriptures teach, quote and
enforce that inspired declaration: "God hath magnified his word above
every name"—i.e., authority. What God wills or wishes concerning us
lie has placed in His Word; and when we turn away from it, to seek in creeds,
disciplines, confessions, for man’s requirements, we reject God for man:
"In vain do they worship me who teach for doctrine the commandments of
men."
Supposing
you were urging the duty of repentance, you can say it is not doing penance, or
having it done for you by a priest— as the Catholics falsely teach, and
everywhere translate it in their version—but a personal act, that, like
every other duty of Christianity, each one must do for himself. Explain the
act, and then urge and emphasize that in every case it must precede baptism,
because an essential qualification for baptism. Baptism is said to belong to
repentance—"the baptism of repentance"—because repentance must exist
before baptism, so that baptism can be, as it was appointed to be, an
expression or profession of repentance previously exercised. So that other
expression that ritualists and baptismal regenerationists make so much use
of—"the washing of regeneration." Grant what they claim, that
it refers to baptism, then regeneration of heart must necessarily precede the
washing" or baptism, since the washing belongs to it, and is a profession
of it. By the pressing of these two points, infant baptism and baptismal
regeneration can be effectually crushed.
If
you are urging the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation, you can
emphasize the fact that it is not the mere assent of the intellect, as is
widely taught, nor accepting the testimony of the evangelists concerning
Christ, as we do those of Irving concerning Washington, but it is gladly
receiving the Word, because the message is pleasing to us; relief from our lost
and helpless condition is offered to us in Christ, and we rejoice to accept Him
in the character He is offered to us—the Savior of guilty and lost
sinners—and we trust our whole salvation in His hands. Here you can show how
repentance does and must, in the plan of salvation, precede
saving faith, which is the sinner’s trust in Christ; since Christ only
offers Himself to penitent, not self-righteous, sinners. Not until a
person has seen and felt himself a guilty and lost sinner, and sorrows
for sin after a godly sort, does Christ say "Come unto me." Only
penitent, weary heavy-laden sinners does Christ invite to come. Repentance and
faith are everywhere commanded and required as qualifications for baptism, and
they, like every duty enjoined by Christianity, are personal. As no one,
parent or priest, can repent for you or believe on Christ for you; so no one
can perform the duty of baptism for you—i.e., without your own choice
and volition, or before you have personally repented towards God and exercised
faith in Christ.
Campbellism,
and infant baptism, and ritualism all go down under this stroke. Dare to find
places, often to say with an impressive boldness, that the one of the
infallible tests by which genuine Christianity can be distinguished from some
counterfeits, is its intense individuality—that it knows no proxies, no
sponsors, no attorney-ship—each and every duty required is a personal duty,
an act of personal obedience, which parents nor priests can obey for us.
Now the axe is laid at the roots of the trees, and every tree stands or falls
upon the basis of its own individual, personal obedience.
If
you are preaching the grace of God as the ground of salvation, can you
not find a place to show that it is a sure ground? Because not our
works, but faith in Christ alone that introduces and keeps us in this
grace, therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace, so
that the promise of salvation "might be sure to all the
seed." If there was the least contingency affecting our salvation, it
could not be sure to us. Therefore the apostle says: "By grace are
ye saved, through faith," and that any admixture of works—any overt
act, as baptism—would destroy grace as the sole groundwork of salvation; for if
it is of grace it is no more works, or grace is no more grace; and if of works
in the least, then is not our salvation of grace at all, else works are no
more works; it must rest either upon all grace or upon all works. If
it is of grace alone, then must our salvation be sure, because the lack
of works will not affect it.
Were
you reading the passage, "By deeds of the law there shall no flesh be
justified in his sight," you could, by way of comment, say there is no
definite article in the original, and it should read, by deeds of law—any law,
moral, ceremonial, or ecclesiastical—there shall no flesh be justified. Now if
baptism is the law of pardon, or a sacrament of salvation, as is so generally
taught by Protestants and Campbellites, then this passage is not true; for if
by the law of baptism, remission of sins, justification, and the grace of
regeneration, are secured, then, by the deed—observance of law—all men can be
justified before God!
Should
you be preaching upon the passage—and you could, and should often 1)reach
upon it—"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin;"
or upon that other precious text —"having our hearts sprinkled from an
evil conscience, and our bodies washed in pure water, let us hold fast
the profession of our faith," etc., could you not clearly and irresistibly
show that blood in every case precedes water; that the blood of Jesus
cleanses us from all sin, leaving no sin for the water to wash away;
that the real cleansing of the conscience is by the blood of Christ.
while the washing of our bodies can only be the declaration of it, in symbol?
Refer back to all the types of sin-cleansing, and the blood is ever first
applied, and then the body bathed in water, symbolizing the cleansing. When the
heart of Christ, who was the antitype of all the types, was pierced,
"forthwith came out blood and water." In all the teachings of God’s
Word, where the plan of salvation is referred to or pointed to, even by a type,
it is blood before water.
This,
then, is the infallible test by which genuine Christianity may be tested and
known; it places blood before water; it teaches that we come to the church through
Christ, to the water of its baptism through His blood; while all
human and counterfeit religions reverse this, and teach that we come to Christ
through the church, and to the blood of Christ through the water of baptism.
Urge the heater to decide on which side he stands, and which he places first in
his creed and practice, water before blood or
Blood
Before Water,
and
show that this is the grand and distinguishing issue between Baptists and all
other denominations; and, so far as the doctrines of salvation are concerned,
what makes us Baptists—we put blood before water in every case; while in the
creeds and practice of Campbellites and Pedobaptists, water is put before
blood—the infant and the sinner are brought first to the water in order to
reach the blood that cleanseth from all sin.
These
illustrations may serve as a key to my usual manner, whether I read the
Scriptures or preach the gospel, to drive here and there a nail in a sure
place, and clench it so that it can never be drawn.
Men
who are gray now often tell me of distinct and lasting impressions made, by
these sharp points, twenty and thirty years ago.
"OLD LANDMARKISM"
What Is It?
APPENDIX
B.
PULPIT
RECOGNITION.
Bro.
John W. Broadus, professor of theology in the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary, Louisville, Ky., delivered the following statements to his class,
upon pulpit affiliation, which have been kindly furnished us by Elder S. M.
Province, of Brownsville, Tenn., an old student. There are many thousands of
Southern Baptists who will be delighted to learn the exact position Bro.
Broadus occupies upon this question. If he doubts for a moment how his
invitations are understood, he as well as the reader is referred to the
opinions of Bro. Stuart Robinson, and Hodge, and others, in Chapter XII.
"Illustrating
the adherence to principle which the Apostle Paul showed in refusing to
circumcise Titus, while in the case of Timothy, where no principle was
involved, he allowed the rite to be performed, Bro. Broadus said: ‘A Baptist
preacher may invite a Pedobaptist to preach for him, so long as it is
understood that he does not thereby indorse the latter’s ordination; i.e.,
when no principle is involved.’ I quote from my notes. In reply to the
question of a student, the professor said substantially: ‘If I were to invite a
Pedobaptist to preach in my pulpit, and should afterward learn that he
construed the invitation into a recognition of his claim to be a properly
ordained minister of a New Testament church, I should not only not repeat the
invitation, but I would take pains to tell him why I did not.’"
"Now
Bro. Broadus should know that all do construe his invitation into a recognition
of their claim to be scriptural ministers."
"Bro.
Stuart Robinson says: ‘The idea of inviting one to preach in the character of a
layman seems to me a paradox.’"
"Bro.
Hodge, of Princeton, says: ‘When one minister asks another to exchange pulpits
with him, such invitation is in fact, and is universally regarded as an
acknowledgment of the scriptural ordination of the man receiving the
invitation. No man who believes himself to be a minister can rightfully,
expressly, or by implication, deny the validity of his [own] ordination; and,
therefore, if invited to lecture or speak in the character of a layman, he must
decline.’"
"The
editor of the Texas Christian Advocate, being asked, said: ‘When one
gentleman invites another to his house, receives him into his parlor, and seats
him at his table, he recognizes him on terms of perfect social equality. So,
when one Christian minister invites another to occupy his pulpit, all who
witness the courtesy thus extended, regard it as a proclamation of perfect
ministerial equality. Only Christian ministers are invited into the pulpit.
If, however, the one who gives the invitation is a Jesuit, a hypocrite, who
wishes to make a show of liberality he does not feel, and believes the brother
he thus pretends to honor as a minister is only an unbaptized religious
teacher, without church membership or ecclesiastical authority of any sort, he
should be treated as all hypocrites and pretenders deserve to be
treated.’"
"These
testimonies must settle the question with every honest man. Pedobaptists and
the world universally do, and have a right to regard all such affiliations as a
proclamation that we, the minister, invited to exchange, or to a seat, or to
preach in our pulpits, as a scripturally baptized ordained minister of a
scriptural church."
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"OLD LANDMARKISM"
What Is It?
APPENDIX
C.
OLD
LANDMARKISM IN PHILADELPHIA.
ANOTHER
PROTEST.
Bro.
E. L Magoon invited a Swedenborgian preacher to occupy his pulpit, and in
consequence the following was offered in the Baptist Ministers’ Conference in
Philadelphia:
"Whereas,
The public mind has been charged with knowledge of the fact that the pulpit of
a Baptist Church of this city, has, by invitation and acceptance, been made the
vehicle of publishing grievous and dangerous error; and,
"Whereas.
The silence of a representative body of Baptist ministers may be construed as
an enactment of such proceedings and utterances; therefore,
"Resolved,
That while we rightfully continue to disclaim any assumption of
ecclesiastical authority, yet we feel called upon to express public dissent
from proceedings thus publicly announced, and that, as a conference, we hereby
enter upon record our fraternal protest against employing the appointments of
any Baptist meeting-house to aid in disseminating opinions that we, as
Baptists, believe are contrary to the teaching of the Word of God."
Bros.
Wayland and Catheart opposed the resolution as unnecessary, but Brother J.M.
Pendleton and others favored it. After some discussion it was adopted. It would
seem that there is some Landmarkism even in Philadelphia. What will those do
now who condemned the protest of the St. Louis pastors? We are pleased to see
the pastors of Philadelphia so sound.—Texas Baptist Herald..
I
unite with the Herald in an expression of my gratification at this
evidence of the soundness of the Philadelphia Baptist pastors. I am not
surprised at ‘the opposition of Bro. Wayland to the resolutions, but I am at
Bro. Cathcart’s; because I know him to he a consistent and uncompromising
Baptist, and the course of Bro. Magoon is fundamentally unbaptistic,
inconsistent, and unscriptural.
Paul
expressly says:
"Now
I entreat you, brethren, to watch those who are making factions and laying
snares, contrary to the teachings which you have learned, and turn away from
them.
"Now
we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw from
every brother who walks disorderly, and not according to the instruction which
you have received from us, and if any one obey not our word, by this
letter, point him out, and do not associate with him, so that he may
be put to shame."
And
he charges Timothy not to be a partaker of other men’s sins, and to bid no
false teacher God-speed by an act that may be so construed; since that would
involve one in complicity with his false teachings.
John
says: "For if there come any one unto you, and bring not this doctrine,
receive him not into your house, neither bid him God-speed."
A.
Clark well says: "No sound Christian should countenance any man as a
gospel minister, who holds and preaches erroneous doctrines."
If
John forbade a beloved sister to receive a teacher of false doctrine into her
private house, lest he should contaminate her family with his errors, how much
less should he be allowed to occupy our houses of worship and teach the
children of God?
Where
was the church of which Bro. Magoon is the servant? Did he not consult it?
Had it nothing to say? Or is it like the churches of some other
learned doctors of divinity—a mere cipher—allowed no voice whatever as to who
the pastor may put into the pulpit during his pastorate? There is a class of
ministers—who claim that the pulpit belongs to them, and it is not the business
of the church to question their right to put into it whom they see fit—that it
is their pulpit—and they speak of it as "my pulpit!" They might as
well say "my baptism" and "my supper, as "my pulpit."
The pulpit, like the supper and baptism, belongs solely to the church, and not
at all to the pastor of the church; and when he cannot occupy it, it is the
duty to refer the filling of it to the church. He might as well claim the right
to appoint his successor for all time, as to appoint his substitute for one
Sunday, without consulting the church. A principle cannot be divided.
It
was indeed eminently proper and right for the pastors of Philadelphia to
express their disapprobation of the unscriptural act of Bro. Magoon. But in
this protest the Philadelphia pastors placed themselves squarely on Old
Landmark ground. If it is wrong for any one preacher of acknowledged heresies
to occupy a Baptist pulpit and preach to a Baptist congregation, it certainly
is equally improper and unscriptural for any other preacher of unscriptural and
pernicious doctrines. There is not a Baptist minister in Philadelphia who will
not admit, if called upon, that the doctrine of federal holiness of all
children born of believing parents taught by Presbyterians, and the doctrine of
infant purity taught by Methodists, and the sacramental character and efficacy
of the ordinances taught by all Pedobaptists and Campbellites, are as
unscriptural and pernicious—as "grievous and dangerous errors,"—as
any thing taught by the Swedenborgians; and, if it is improper and wrong to
invite a Swedenborgian to occupy a Baptist pulpit, it is equally so to invite
or permit a Pedobaptist or a Campbellite to do so; and we do say, that if one
such can properly occupy a Baptist pulpit, by invitation, one Sunday, he
can as properly, by election, one year, or always. If Baptists
can scripturally commune at the Lord’s Table with Pedobaptists once, they
can ten thousand times—and always—and, therefore, they can unite and become one
church; and so can and should all denominations that commune together. There is
no avoiding the logic of this conclusion. We extend the hand of Landmark
fellowship, therefore, to every pastor who voted for the above resolutions.
Another
Landmark Established in Philadelphia.
A
Mr. Henry Losch, a regularly ordained Presbyterian minister, recently renounced
Presbyterianism, and was scripturally baptized into one of the Baptist
Churches, which soon invited a number of ministers to assist it in the
examination of Bro. Losch, with reference to ordination. Bro. J. Wheaton Smith,
one of the Presbytery, and a Baptist pastor in Philadelphia, offered the
following resolutions, viz.:
"Whereas,
our brother, Bro. Henry Losch, a regularly ordained Presbyterian minister, has
been brought to believe in the scripturalness of those views which we hold
distinctively as Baptists, attesting the earnestness of this belief by uniting
with a Baptist Church, on profession of his faith in Christ by Christian
baptism; and,
"Whereas,
He has related to this council not only the story of his change, but also of
his Christian experience, his call from God to the ministry, and of his view of
those doctrines which he has held heretofore in common with ourselves;
therefore,
"Resolved,
That we congratulate the Christian brethren from whom he comes, on their
wisdom with their views in ordaining him to their ministry, and that now we
heartily adopt him into ours, commending him to any Baptist Church who may
invite him to be their pastor."
I
have no intimation how many, or the names of the Baptist ministers who, with
Bro. Smith, advocated the above resolutions, but I do not believe that Bro.
Henson supported it or Bro. Cathcart, who openly avowed that he believed that
"Baptist Churches were the only scriptural or evangelical churches on
earth; and if that declaration classed him with High Church Baptists, or
Landmarkers, then he was a Landmark Baptist, and not ashamed for the world to
know it." Grand and noble words from a grand and noble Baptist! It would
seem from the above resolution that Bro. Smith has fully yielded to the
"demand" that Bro. A. Barnes made upon him, and recognizes
Pedobaptist societies as scriptural churches; in all respects equal to Baptist
Churches, for he unquestionably concedes it in the above resolution.
He
admits that the ordination or commission to preach the gospel and administer
church ordinances, which Bro. Losch received from the Presbyterians, was a
valid ordination.
But
every sound Baptist on earth, and every intelligent Bible reader of every
denomination admits that a scriptural church of Christ alone can ordain—i.e.,
commission—a man to preach the gospel and administer church ordinances.
If,
therefore, Mr. Losch’s ordination was scriptural, the Presbyterian church of
America is a scriptural church, and its infant sprinklings, and sprinkling for
baptism; its doctrine of federal holiness and eternal reprobation of the larger
part of the human race; and its provincial form of church government, are all scriptural,
and, therefore, there is but one inevitable conclusion that Bro. Smith
cannot escape, viz.: Baptist organizations are not churches of Christ in any
sense, but an organized muster against the authority of Christ; because
Baptist churches are fundamentally unlike, and radically opposed to, and
subversive of, the Presbyterian church. And it is axiomatically true that
things unlike each other must be and are unlike the same thing—i.e.,
if the Presbyterian organization is a scriptural church, Baptist
organizations, claiming to be churches, certainly are not, because radically
unlike, and subversive of the Presbyterian. The world reasons, if some of our
eminent teachers do not, and every thinking man on the continent would have
concluded with us—that if Mr. Losch was indeed an ordained minister, then the
Presbyterian organization is a scriptural church, then its sprinklings, and
infant baptism, and doctrines are scriptural, and Baptists sin in opposing
them. While we regret that there is a Baptist minister in Philadelphia who
would present such a resolution, we exceedingly rejoice that it was not
indorsed by that presbytery.
I
can but express my astonishment at the position of Bro. Smith, so glaringly
unscriptural as well as inconsistent and absurd! The Scriptures teach, by
precept and example, that baptism must precede ordination to the ministry, and
Baptists have invariably observed this order. I do not think that Bro. Smith
could be influenced to lay his hand upon a candidate for ordination, whom he
knew was unbaptized, and for the very reason that he believes baptism must
precede church membership, and church membership must precede ordination, as unquestionably
as faith in Christ precedes baptism and church membership. But, by his
resolution, he urges upon a Baptist Presbytery to indorse an utter subversion
of this order—i.e., that there can be a scriptural
ordination before baptism.
Bro.
Smith admits that Mr. Losch was an unbaptized man when the Presbyterians
professed to ordain him, and he admits that the Presbyterians, being a society
of unbaptized persons, are not a church of Christ; and, therefore, have no
shadow of authority to ordain a minister, and, therefore, he required Mr. Losch
to he baptized before he would receive him to membership. By his resolution he
proposes to indorse Mr. Losch’s Presbyterian ordination, and thus subvert the
divine order and establish the precedent among Baptists that there can be a
scriptural ordination without baptism—that ordination may scripturally precede
baptism!
And
more—that an organization which is manifestly not a church, can make an officer
for a church of Christ, and even commission an unbaptized man to preach the
gospel and baptize!
We
claim that those ministers who voted to ordain Bro. Losch, placed themselves
squarely by our side on Old Landmark ground—they can not consistently oppose
it, and, to he consistent, they are compelled to advocate and practice
the Landmark policy.
For
if Mr. Losch was an unordained and unbaptized man, he certainly had no right to
claim to be a scriptural minister of the gospel, and assume to administer its
offices; and it was certainly unscriptural and sinful for Baptist ministers to
accredit his false claim by any act whatever.
But,
inviting him into their pulpits to preach or pray for them as a minister, or
receiving his immersions for valid baptisms, would be accrediting him as such,
and the society in which he officiates as a scriptural church.
Furthermore,
if Mr. Losch was not, while a Presbyterian either baptized or ordained, his
baptismal acts, though by immersion, would be as null and void as though
administered by a man who did not profess to belong to a Christian church.
Therefore, those ministers who voted down that resolution, did impliedly
declare that the immersions of an unordained and unbaptized man are null. They
thus put themselves on the record as opposed to alien immersions.
They
cannot, therefore, consistently affiliate with unbaptized and unordained men,
as ministers of the gospel, nor can they indorse any of their official
acts—though the outward form be correct—as scriptural or valid. Thus these two
decisions by the Baptist pastors of Philadelphia indorse all the Old Landmark
principles for which we contend.
Since
writing the above I have received the following article from Bro. J. M.
Pendleton, of Upland, Pennsylvania, which will set the whole matter in a light
before the reader, and must forever settle the question of what Old Landmarkism
is, in the mind of every one who can appreciate argument or consistency.
A
Philadelphia Ordination
By
J. M. Pendleton
"The
Memphis Baptist is the paper in which can be most appropriately chronicled
an account of a recent ordination in Philadelphia, which has caused some little
excitement. The editor of The Baptist will appreciate more highly than
any other editor the decision of the council of ordination. The facts in the
case are these:
"Bro.
Henry Losch, a Presbyterian preacher, having learned the way of the Lord more
perfectly, united with the Memorial Church, and was baptized by the pastor,
Bro. Henson. In due time a council was called to consider the matter of Mr.
Losch’s ordination. It was, fortunately, a large council, confined, so far as I
know, to our city churches, and therefore it was not my privilege to be
present. The council having been organized, Bro. J. Wheaton Smith offered a
resolution virtually recognizing and indorsing the validity of the Presbyterian
ordination already received by the brother. This led to an earnest discussion,
and the vote on the resolution was quite significant—two for it, fifty
against it. Bro. Smith was of course chagrined, and referred in no very
courteous way to the decision as an ‘outrage on a Christian church,’ but the
council was firm. The brother has been ordained—I do not say reordained, but
simply ordained.
"There
has been a flurry of excitement among the Presbyterians, and the editor of
their paper (The Presbyterian) has come cut with a long article on what
he calls ‘New Marvels of Sacramentarianism,’ and pronounces the vote on Bro.
Smith’s resolution as a ‘sign of the survival and revival of ecclesiastical
bigotry.’ By ‘Sacramentarianism’ the editor of course means the impartation of
grace through ordination, which doctrine he ought to know no Baptist believes.
The truth is, there is no more grace imparted in ordination than in baptism,
and baptism is symbolic of grace already received.
"The
excitement of the editor of The Presbyterian was contagious. Hence when
the Philadelphia Central Presbytery met, January
"In
the same discussion, Bro. Poor said that he had been invited, some time ago, by
a Baptist clergyman to preach for him, to which request he replied: ‘How can
you ask me to occupy your pulpit, if the fact that you do not acknowledge our
ordination is correct?’ His friend, in reply, said that he did not acknowledge
the ordination of Presbyterian ministers. Bro. Poor added that, from that day
to this, he had declined to preach in Baptist pulpits. Here we see that another
Presbyterian minister makes a recognition of his ordination indispensable to
his preaching in Baptist pulpits. Surely when the facts are fully understood by
Baptists and Pedobaptists, the interchange of pulpits will cease.
"In
the matter of ordination Presbyterians are quite unreasonable, though they,
perhaps, think otherwise. I will explain what I mean: They consider baptism and
church membership prerequisites to ordination. Very well. Baptists take the
same view. Where, then, is the difference? It is concerning baptism and the
church-membership resulting. Believing Pedobaptists without baptism, and
consequently without scriptural church-membership, it is impossible for
Baptists to recognize the validity of Pedobaptist ordinations. Philadelphia
Presbyterians believe that baptism precedes ordination, but they are unwilling
for Baptists to believe the same thing, unless the latter will also believe
that the sprinkling of an unconscious infant is baptism. This would be as
difficult as to swallow not only a camel, but a caravan of camels. What, then,
is to be done? The antagonism between Baptists and their opponents is so
decided that harmony is impossible, unless one side or the other surrenders.
Compromise is utterly out of the question. Compromise is very well in matters
involving no principle, but where principle is concerned there is no place for
it.
"As
to the few Baptists who are satisfied with Pedobaptist ordinations, I scarcely
know what to say. They must believe that baptism, to say the least, is not
prerequisite to ordination, and how they can believe this defies ordinary
comprehension. They find nothing in the Scriptures nor in the customs of
Baptist Churches to justify such a belief. Manifestly the elders ordained by
Paul and Barnabas in every church were church members, and had, therefore, been
baptized. No man is now ordained in any Baptist Church unless the church calls
for his ordination, and the church can not go beyond its own members in making
a call, for its jurisdiction extends no farther. All its members, however, have
been baptized, and therefore every ordination among Baptists presupposes
baptism and church-membership. How, then, any Baptist can ignore one of the
principles and one of the practices of his denomination, so as to believe that
there can be ordination where there has been no baptism, and consequently no
church-membership, is as strange as the Romish doctrine of Transubstantiation.
The Baptist who recognizes Pedobaptist ordinations must recognize Pedobaptist
sprinkling as baptism, and Pedobaptist organizations as New Testament churches.
He who can do this will find it difficult to say why he is a Baptist. Indeed,
if Pedobaptist ordinations are valid, there is no use for the Baptist
denomination—it has no moral right to exist and the sooner it surrenders its
life the better. Yes, the right of Baptist Churches to exist is involved in the
ordination question which has recently created a little stir in
Philadelphia."
"OLD LANDMARKISM"
What Is It?
APPENDIX
D.
JESSE
MERCER, AN OLD LANDMARKER.
In
1811, nine years before the editor of this paper was born, the great and
good Mercer wrote the Circular Letter of the Georgia Association, in which he
presented "his reasons for regarding the administration of baptism by
Pedobaptists, though in the proper mode, as invalid." The
following is an outline of his argument, which is taken from his Memoirs by
Mallory:
I
present them in proof that the principles and practice so bitterly assailed by
a class of our ministers as something new and unheard of before their advocacy
in The Baptist, are not new, but were considered as the
scriptural landmarks of the churches of Christ before we were born. Bro. Mercer
uses church figuratively for "churches," and by apostolic succession
he means a succession of churches from the days of the apostles.
"I.
The Apostolic Church, continued through all ages to the end of the world, is
the only true gospel church.
"II.
Of this church Christ is the only head, and true source of all ecclesiastical
authority.
"III.
Gospel ministers are servants in the church, are all equal, and have no power
to lord it over the heritage of the Lord."
Having
established these propositions to his own satisfaction, he infers the following
"clear and certain truths."
"I.
That all churches and ministers who originated since the apostles, and not
successively to them, are not in gospel order; and, therefore, can not he
acknowledged as such.
"II.
That all who have been ordained to the work of the ministry without the
knowledge and call of the church, by popes, councils, etc., are the creatures
of those who constituted them, and are not the servants of Christ or His
church, and, therefore, have no right to administer for them.
"III.
That those who set aside the discipline of the gospel and have given law to an
exercised dominion over the church, are usurpers over the place and office of
Christ, are against Him; and, therefore, may not be accepted in their offices.
"IV.
That they who administer contrary to their own or the faith of the gospel can
not administer for God; since without the gospel faith they have nothing to
administer, and without their own He accepts no service; therefore, the
administrations of such are unwarrantable impositions in any way.
"Our
reasons, therefore, for rejecting baptism by immersion, when administered by
Pedobaptist ministers, are—
"I.
That they are connected with ‘churches’ clearly out of the apostolic succession;
and, therefore, clearly out of the apostolic commission.
"II.
That they have derived their authority by ordination from the bishops of Rome,
or from individuals who have taken it upon themselves to give it.
"III.
That they hold a higher rank in the churches than the apostles did, are not
accountable to and of consequence not triable by the church; but are amenable
only to or among themselves.
"IV.
That they all, as we think, administer contrary to the pattern of the gospel;
and some, where occasion requires, will act contrary to their professed faith.
Now, as we know of none implicated in this case but are in some or all of the
above defects, either of which we deem sufficient to disqualify for meet gospel
administration, therefore we hold their administrations invalid."
On
the question of apostolic succession, he adds:
"But
it should be said that the apostolic succession can not be ascertained, and
then it is proper to act without it; we say that the loss of the succession can
never prove it futile, nor justify any one out of it. The Pedobaptists, by
their own histories, admit they are not of it; but we do not, and
shall think ourselves entitled to the claim until the reverse be clearly shown.
And should any think authority derived from the mother of harlots sufficient to
qualify to administer a gospel ordinance, they will be so charitable as not to
condemn us for professing what is derived from Christ. And should any still
more absurdly plead that ordination received from an individual is sufficient,
we leave them to show what is the use of ordination, and why it exists. If any
think an administration will suffice which has no gospel pattern, they will
suffer us to act according to the divine order with impunity. And if it should
be said that faith in the subject is all that is necessary, we beg to require
it where the Scriptures do, that is, everywhere."
"OLD LANDMARKISM"
What Is It?
APPENDIX
E.
WILLIAM
KIFFIN, AN OLD LANDMARKER.
But
there was a consistent Landmarker and a landmark church in London nearly two
hundred years before Mercer wrote that letter; and I have shown that every
Baptist Association in America was Landmark in faith and practice one hundred
years before. I copy the following historical fact from Cramp’s "History
of Baptists:
"The
young man [Wm.. Kiffin] became an independent inquirer, prepared to follow the
leadings of truth regardless of consequences. [This is the true Landmark
spirit—the spirit of God’s true men]. Observing that some excellent ministers
had gone into voluntary banishment, rather than conform to the Church of
England, he was induced to examine the points in dispute between that church
and her opponents. He had been five years a member of the Independent church,
then under the care of Mr. Lathrop, when, with many others, he withdrew, and
joined the Baptist Church, the first in England of the particular Baptist
order, of which Mr. Spilsbury was pastor. Two years after that, in
If
the Baptist ministers of America were only such men as Wm. Kiffin, how long
would Pedobaptist societies be regarded as churches of Christ? How sad to think
that Baptists, by their inconsistent teaching and practice, are doing more than
Pedobaptists themselves to build up pedobaptism!
Bro.
J. M. Pendleton says: "My opinion is, that the number of Baptists in the
United States would he larger by a million today if it had ever been the
understanding that there could be no ministerial affiliation between them and
Pedobaptists. How strange is such affiliation! The exchange of pulpits makes
the impression that these are small matters; and this impression has led many
to become Pedobaptists, who would otherwise have copied the example of Christ,
who said, concerning His personal immersion, ‘Thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness.’"
"OLD LANDMARKISM"
What Is It?
APPENDIX
F.
NOTICE
OF THE OBJECTIONS TO THIS BOOK.
This
little book has elicited a large amount of adverse criticism, and revealed the
fact that the most diverse and grossly unscriptural views of the Baptist Church
Polity exist among our authors and writers—the recognized teachers of our
churches.
The
Religious Herald, and some few other critics, declare that the
fundamental error of this book is its "cold, inexorable, mathematical
logic." It asserts that strict logical methods of reasoning are not
admissible in discussing such questions as are treated in this book, but
"moral and probable reasoning" only. We reply, that since logic has
only to do with forms of thought, and is the science of correct thinking, that
it is rightly applied to the investigation of all subjects, especially to all
moral and religious ones; that this, in my opinion, is the chief merit of the
book. Sir Win. Hamilton, Bowen, and all standard authorities, sustain me in
this. I have demonstrated something, i.e., that Old
Landmark principles and policy are taught and enjoined by the Word of God.
The
Relative Rights of Ministers and Churches.
There
is an irreconcilable diversity of opinions among the teachers of our Israel on
these matters, I will divide them into classes:
1.
This class is composed of those who hold and teach that baptism belongs to the
kingdom, and only introduces the subject into the kingdom, and never into a
local church; and that the subject, to gain admission into a church, must apply
and present certificate of his baptism by some one, and upon this the church
receives him by an unanimous vote!
The
unscripturalness and absurdity of these positions can be shown by these plain facts:
(1)
The kingdom of Christ has no officer save its one King and Lawgiver, who
never baptizes, and hence can not administer an ordinance to any one!
(2)
The kingdom of Christ has no ordinance, and therefore no one ever yet received
baptism as an ordinance of the kingdom.
(3)
The kingdom of Christ is not composed of persons, but of churches, as kingdoms
are of provinces, and therefore no person ever was or can be a member of it and
not of one of Christ’s churches.
(4)
But, if one ordinance belongs to the kingdom, then both do, for what God hath
joined together let not man attempt to sever. The advocates of this theory will
not admit that the Supper belongs to the kingdom.
(5)
But, if the theory be correct, then, when the church excludes a member, she
leaves him in the kingdom, where she found him. Think of it—all her excluded
members are in the kingdom of Christ, and there is no authority on earth to put
them out!
(6)
And more, the churches have no disciplinary jurisdiction over ministers, since
they belong to the kingdom—if they can administer its ordinance, for it is
evident an officer must belong to the government whose laws he executes. If
these are distinct organizations, as these teach, one can not interfere with
the subjects of the other!
(7)
This class also teach that baptism was delivered to the ministry, and not to
the church, and therefore they have a right to administer it to whomsoever they
deem fit, and wheresoever they please; though they think it expedient to take
the voice of a church, when one is convenient, of which they are the sole
judges! They may enter a church, and baptize in its own baptistery, without
consulting it, if they please!
Now
every Bible-reader knows that both ordinances were delivered to the same
organization—not to the kingdom, not to the ministry, but to the churches (1
Cor. 11:2); and the churches are everywhere charged with their guardianship and
scriptural administration, and the ministry are nowhere thus charged.
(8)
And, finally, if it be true that baptized subjects are only in the kingdom
after baptism, and not in a church until they make application with certificate
of or witnesses to their baptism by a scriptural minister, and the church must
receive them by vote, then there is not a Baptist church on this continent, for
no Baptist in America was ever so received! And these advocates themselves are
not church-members! American Baptists, save the few afflicted with this
"crotchet," believe, with their historical ancestors of 1120, that
"by baptism we are initiated into the holy congregation of God’s
people;" and with Paul (1 Cor. 12:13), that in one spirit we are all
baptized into one and the self-same body — a local church, and not the
kingdom.
2.
Another class of teachers claim that both the church and its pastor—though not
a member—jointly decide who may be baptized; and, if the pastor objects, no baptism
can be performed! All can see this puts the veto-power into the hands of the
minister; and he alone, even when not a member, can prevent any
one entering the church of Christ, or receiving its ordinances. This would be
to make the pastor an Autocrat. It is most passing strange that
intelligent Baptists should put forth such theories for Baptist or scriptural
church polity!
The
polity set forth in this book is that the churches of Christ are absolutely
independent bodies; and that to them Christ committed all the ordinances, and
constituted them the sole guardians and administrators of them; and that his
ministers are the servants, not the masters, of the churches, to administer
the ordinances to those whom the churches deem qualified. Let the reader decide
whether this theory is scriptural, or the above contradictory ones.
Touching
the Lord’s Supper
My
position has called forth the most confused and conflicting opposition. As in
seeking the condemnation of the Author of Truth, the witnesses fail to agree
among themselves, and thus virtually destroy their own testimony. Let us see.
The position advocated in the book is—
That the Lord’s Supper is a Church ordinance, symbolizing church
relations among other things, and therefore should in all cases be so observed,
else the ordinance is vitiated and null. Some Baptists oppose
this outright, while the most admit that it is a church ordinance, but seek by
various indirect methods to evade it, to uphold the present unscriptural and
inconsistent practice.
1.
The former hold and teach that the Supper belongs to the kingdom, and therefore
a member in good standing in one regular Baptist Church has the right to
eat with any and all other churches; and that "there is no power in heaven
(?!) or on earth that can withhold it from any member where a church is."
(The language of the Baptist Reflector, Nashville, Tenn.). This
is blasphemy, denying, as it does, that Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Author
and Lord of the ordinance, has a right or power to change it! But this class,
while agreeing that the member of one church has the right to eat with every
other church in the denomination, disagree. Some of these consistently apply
the absurd theory to all other church rights, acts and privileges, as voting,
etc., which the other part repudiate. If the theory is correct, then it is
true that the members of one church have a right to vote on all questions in
all other churches, and thus discipline them, and determine who shall be
pastors, if the non-members can raise an outside majority! Now, all our
readers can see that either of these positions utterly destroys the
independence of Baptist Churches, and denies to them the guardianship of the
ordinance which Christ committed to them (1 Cor. 11:2). This theory is
thoroughly unscriptural, revolutionary and absurd to be tolerated for a moment.
No standard author or scholar, among Baptists, admits that members of one
church have a right to the Supper spread in another.
2.
There is a second class that hold and teach that the Supper is unquestionably a
Church ordinance, and was appointed by Christ to be so observed; and
that it was manifestly so observed universally in the earliest centuries of
Christianity. But this class is divided into three parties: Those who teach
that the churches, though not under any obligation to do so, may contravene the
appointment, and invite visiting brethren of sister churches to occasional
communion, as a matter of courtesy. This is the general opinion,
agreeing with the popular practice of the denomination. It cannot be honestly
denied that a church has as much right to invite all Baptists present to vote
in electing or dismissing a pastor, or discipling a member, as to participate
in the Supper. But our standard teachers agree in saying that it has no right
to do the latter, and that our local churches cannot do it without
self-destruction. These, as well as those of the first class, infer that Paul
and the eight brethren with him communed with the church at Troas while two
things remain to be proved—as they do in proving that infants were baptized in
Lydia’s house— viz., that she ever had any; and, if so, that she brought her
babes along with her! It has never been proved that there was a church at Troas
at the time of Paul’s last visit.
That
the meal spoken of (Acts 20:11) was the Lord’s Supper, and not a common meal.
The
fact is, there was no church at Troas in the first century, if
ever.
3.
Others of this class say that, since it is so clear that the Supper is a Church
ordinance, i.e., an act that must be confined to the
members of the particular church, and that it symbolizes church relations,
therefore those invited must be, in some sense, members, they propose their
theory, viz., that all visiting brethren be regarded as members for the time
being—quo ad hoc—to enjoy this one church privilege but no other, and regarded
as foreigners so soon as the Supper is ended! This theory is entitled to
the credit of originality, for history affords no illustration of
it any more than the Scriptures a warrant. To practice this, would be to
practice a "pious fraud," since no conceivable church relations
exist, or are recognized either by the church or the individuals. It is seeking
to evade the plain law of Christ by a culpable indirection.
4.
The author of this book belongs to the fourth party of this class, who hold and
teach, that, since Christ appointed the Supper to be observed as a Church
ordinance, and to symbolize that all who eat of "the one loaf" are
members of one and the self-same church, therefore it must be observed as such;
which it never is, nor can be, unless limited to the members of each local
church; for, if the thing symbolized does not exist, the symbol is nullified,
and the ordinance vitiated. Therefore, Prof. Curtis, in his able work, "Progress
of Baptist Principles," though evidently desirous of being very kind
toward the prevalent practice, says:
"It
[the Supper] is not only committed to their [the churches] care, but is to be
administered among them as a symbol, among other things, of that fraternity
which they bear to each other as such. It therefore unquestionably indicates
visible Church relations as subsisting among all who by right unite
together in its celebration. Occasional communion by invitation must
follow, therefore, the principles established for the regular celebration of
this ordinance. We may not bend the rule to the exception, but the exception to
the rule." (pp. 303-4).
This means those who wish to commune with any church must become actual members of it. This is my opinion—no more, and no less; and in this opinion it is a satisfaction to know that I stand with the greatest thinkers who have written on this subject, and, better than all, with the Word of God. There are some who insist that the expression of my convictions upon this subject is "the great blunder of my life." It is my conviction that it will not be so considered by the denomination twenty years hence, and I can well afford to wait that long for the verdict it will then delight to render.