PRINCETON, N. J.
BX 7315 .W45 1977 Whitsitt, William Heth, 1841 -1911 .
Origin of the Disciples of Christ ( Camobellites )
ORIGIN
OF THE
DISCIPLES OF CHRIST
(CAMPBELLITES)
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL
BY
WILLIAM H.WHITSITT, D.D., LL.D.
PROFESSOR IN THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
SECOND EDITION.
NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
1888
Copyright, 1888, WILLIAM H. WHITSITT.
Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The purpose to deliver an attack against the Dis- ciples of Christ is expressly disclaimed ; the author's only aim has been to supply a truthful version of an important chapter in American Church History. Numbers of myths have become collected about the name of Mr. Campbell, and about the origin of the people with whom he was connected. Certainly it can be nothing amiss to challenge these myths, to let in upon them the light of sober criticism, and to exhibit the facts as they really exist.
In sending forth a second edition, the author wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the kind favor with which the first edition was received, both by the press and by the public. A number of attacks, it is con- ceded, have been made by the press of the Disciples, but these have been in no respect formidable. They have been marked either by helpless misrepresentation, or by still more helpless denunciation. They require no attention, because the persons who engaged in them have displayed no adequate acquaintance with the subject.
May the favor of the Lord attend this honest effort to serve the cause of historic truth.
306 E. Chestnut Steeet,
Louisville, May 10, 1888.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014
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TABLE OP CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Sandemanians 1
II. "The Ancient Order of Things" 6
III. "The Ancient Gospel" 16
IV. "The Ancient Gospel" Improved 23
V. The Haldaneans 33
TI. Mr. Campbell's Perversion to Sandeman-
ianism (First Stage) 51
VII. Mr. Campbell's Earliest Success as a
Propagandist 62
VIII. Mr. Campbell's Perversion to Sandeman-
ianism (Second Stage) 76
IX. Baptism for the Remission of Sins .... 91
X. Other Items 102
iii
ORIGIN OP THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
CHAPTER I.
THE SANDEMANIANS.
The Disciples of Christ — commonly called Campbellites, from the name of their founder, Mr. Alexander Campbell of Bethany, West Virginia — are an offshoot of the Sandemanian sect of Scotland. This latter sect was established in the early portion of the eighteenth century by Mr. John Glas, a minis- ter of the Established Church of Scotland. Mr. Glas was placed over the parish of Tearing, near Dundee, Forfarshire, in the year 1719. (Narrative of the Rise and Progress of the Controversy about the National Covenants. By Mr. John Glas, late Minister of the Gospel at Tealing. Second edition, Dundee, 1828, p. 159.) The region of country in which his resi- dence was situated seems to have been considerably infested by Dissenters of the type called Cameronians, who made a loud noise against the Kirk of Scotland because she had now departed, in some respects, from the letter of the National Covenants, asserting that
l
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
by this means she had lost the rigrht to be styled a Church of Christ.
In order to meet the objections of these adversaries, Mr. Glas resolved to investigate the whole question of national covenanting in the light of the Scriptures. The issue of these researches was different from any tiling he had anticipated. By means of them he not only withdrew the foundation of strict biblical pre- cept from beneath the feet of the Cameronians, but the supports upon which his own Church was estab- lished were, in his judgment, likewise destroyed. These covenants, whether in their ancient or their modern observance, proceeded all alike upon the sap- position that a connection between Church and State is in accordance with the teachings of the Sacred Word. (Glas's Narrative, pp. 1-25, also p. 139.) On his attaining to the conviction that a union of this nature was not provided for in the New Testament, Mr. Glas became displeased with his own position in the Established Church, as well as with the represen- tations of the Cameronians. He was more than ever confirmed in the resolution 44 to take to himself no other rule but the word of God/'
His reflections upon that Word now speedily made him aware that the rite of communion, as it was observed in his own and other parishes, was not strictly in accordance with the pattern of the apos- tolical churches. Many persons of the weakest pre- tensions to pious living, and many more who made no claims to any special renewal by the Spirit of
THE SAXDEM ASIANS.
3
holiness, were entitled, in virtue of their birthright, to the benefits of a position at the table of the Lord. This posture of circumstances had become unendur- able to him.
Accordingly, on the 13th of July 1725, he sought to relieve his conscience by organizing a conventicle within the boundaries of his parish, composed of those only who he believed had experienced a complete change of heart. (Memoranda of John Glas and Robert Sandeman, collected from MS. notes of the late James Scott, member of the church in Dundee ; in Letters and Discourses of Robert Sandeman, Dun- dee, 1851, p. 118. Compare also Glas's Narrative, pp. 103 and 113.)
When the literalistic tendency of Mr. Glas had resulted in this ecclesiola in ecclesia, it became the means of directing public attention to his proceed- ings. A communion occasion at Strathmartine, on the 6th of August, 1726, served to bring him face to face with the opposition that was gathering head against him. Echoes of the rising strife were also heard in the Presbytery of Dundee, at its session on the 7th of September following. The affair likewise came to discussion, after an informal fashion, in the Synod of Angus and Mearns when it convened in October 1726.
Nothing of consequence was done in the premises until the 17th of October 1727. at which date the Synod of Angus and Mearns laid upon the Pres- bytery of Dundee, to which the parish of Tealing
4
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
belonged, the duty of bringing Mr. Glas to trial at a special session which they should convene for that purpose ; and ordered that these in turn should bring the results of their investigations before the Synod, at its next session at Brechin in April 1728. This mandate was observed ; and after due deliberation was had, the Synod of Angus and Mearns, on the 18th of April 1728, pronounced a sentence of suspension from the ministry against Mr. Glas, for promulgating sentiments hostile to the National Covenants and to the union of Church and State in any form. An appeal was taken to the General Assembly, which convened about a fortnight later, on the 2d of May, which, however, confirmed the action of the Synod. Meanwhile, Mr. Glas having laid himself liable to the charge of contumacy by continuing to preach the obnoxious doctrine after his suspension from office, a sentence of deposition was passed against him by the Synod in October 1728. An appeal being* taken against this new sentence, it was likewise confirmed by decision of the Commission of the Assembly, at a meeting appointed to consider the case, on the 12th of March 1730. (The above facts are taken from Glas's Narrative, as cited on a preceding page.)
The brief outlines which have just been given will avail, in some sort, to bring before the reader a view of the special occasion that induced Mr. Glas to rebel against the Kirk of Scotland, and of the main inci- dents of the process that was thereupon entered against him. His own reflections concerning the
THE SANBEMANIANS.
5
teachings of the Scriptures had brought him to em- brace the position of the English Independents in relation to the question concerning the proper church order, while the action of the constituted authorities had already destroyed his sympathy for the National Establishment.
Though his followers and himself were in the cus- tom of designating themselves, and the churches they subsequently organized, by the name of " Independ- ents " (Glas, Narrative, p. 110 ; also Memoir of Mr. John Glas, prefixed to the Narrative, p. xvii), or sometimes Congregationalists (Memoir of Mr. John Glas, prefixed to Narrative, p. xxvi), yet they made no effort to form relations with the people who in England bear those names. On the contrary, they stood wholly aloof; and, guided by the Scriptures, they resolved to work out from this source, alone and without any assistance, the more minute details of the constitution, life, worship, and discipline of the churches of the New-Testament period. The passion they had acquired for contradicting the usages and the doctrines of the " popular clergy" was so keen that they were soon driven into excesses ; and before they progressed very far there had arisen so large a variety of convictions and usages, that many of the individual bodies differed from each other in regard to a number of particulars, while each single item, though never so insignificant in appearance, was liable to become an occasion of separation.
6
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
CHAPTER II.
"THE ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS."
The tithing of mint anise and cummin, it has been suggested, became the principal concern of Mr. Glas and his followers. The work was begun only a few months after the sentence of deposition from the Kirk of Scotland had been confirmed. Mr. Glas had an uncommon amount of confidence in the capacity of the poorest of the brethren to divine the truth of God from the biblical word, and often boasted that he got hints from them which served to open and ex- plain many things which he had not previously under- stood. During the summer of 1730, while he was absent in the Highlands for the benefit of his health, these humble people raised a scruple in the church over which he now presided in Dundee, regarding the ruling elders, which, as former Presbyterians, they had adopted from the constitution of the Established Church. The pastor was speedily fetched from his summer retreat for the purpose of adjusting the diffi- culty. This enterprise was accomplished by abolish- ing the office of ruling elders, and substituting in their stead a plurality of elders, whose duty it should be both to preach and to teach. (Memoranda of John
" THE ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS." 7
Glas and Robert Sandeman, as found in the Letters and Discourses of Robert Sandeman, pp. 118, 119.) The fashion of employing a plurality of elders is likewise found among the Disciples of America.
To an aged member of the church, also presumably one of the poorest of the people, is due the innovation of weekly communion in the Lord's Supper. The conventicle which Mr. Glas had gathered around him was at first in the habit of monthly celebrating the Lord's Supper. The person referred to suggested the inquiry why they should meet every month for that purpose, and not once or twice in the year, as the churches of the Establishment were in the custom of doing. A debate was held regarding the business, by means of which it was concluded that both of these practices were without example in the New Testament; and thereupon the weekly service was enjoined. (Memoranda of John Glas and Robert Sandeman, in the place above cited, p. 119.) The Disciples also observe this usage.
In the beginning of the movement it was expected that the elders, of whom there were indispensably two or three in every church, should sustain themselves, by their own exertions, in some trade or profession outside of the ministry. This peculiarity has been retained, with considerable tenacity, in some of the Sandemanian churches. (An Account of the Chris- tian Practices of the Church in Barnsbury Grove, Barnsbury, London, 1878, p. 10.) The early Dis- ciples, in their turn, laid much stress upon this point
8
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
(Christian Baptist, edit. 6, p. 91, pp. 28, 29, 43, 37, 46) ; but of late they are becoming less strenuous regarding it.
Seeing that he was now fairly launched upon a career of literalism, Mr. Glas would soon perceive that it was impossible to find in the New-Testament writings any documents like the Longer and Shorter Catechisms of the Kirk of Scotland. Accordingly, in the year 1736, he published a pamphlet under the title of " The Usefulness of Catechisms Considered," and takes the occasion to discourage the employment of them by his followers. The Confession of Faith, in its turn, was abolished. Besides the fact that there was directly no Divine command enjoining its exist- ence, the Westminster Confession had been, in some sort, the occasion of his displacement from the parish at Tealing.
The attention of the party was soon directed to the love-feast which prevailed in the early Christian Church ; and, with the courage of their convictions, this observance was also added as an indispensable mark of a genuine Church of Christ. Their success- ors in England are quite as stringent as were the Sandemanians of the eighteenth century in requiring the presence of each and every member on these occa- sions. (Barnsbury Grove, as above, p. 10.) Mr. Campbell, the founder of the Disciples, seriously con- sidered this matter ; but, while he allowed that the custom was of biblical authority, and might be " found useful when the ancient order of things is restored "
" THE ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS.1* 9
(Christian Baptist, edit. 6, pp. 283, 284), he yet lacked a sufficient amount of courage to enjoin the observ- ance of it. On the other hand, he was fully as clear as the Sandemanians in his denunciations of church catechisms, creeds and confessions of faith.
The Sandemanians were easily able to discover that the kiss of charity was several times enjoined in the apostolical letters, and hence this observance was fre- quently found among them. Mr. Campbell's courage and devotion to the distinct commands of the word of God failed him entirely at this point. (Christian Baptist, edit. 6, 224. Compare also Richardson, vol. ii. p. 129, where Mr. Campbell had an opportunity to resist this observance in a small church at Pittsburg, which professed Sandemanian views.)
The conditions were almost the same in the case of feet-washing. This practice was also regarded by numbers of the Sandemanians as an important mark of a true Church of Christ. It is still observed by them (Barnsbury Grove, p. 8), but they do not now appear to consider it of the same binding necessity as formerly. Mr. Campbell rejected it entirely (Christian Baptist, pp. 222, 223), as a church observ- ance, though he was not averse that it should be * performed as an expression of private hospitality.
The Sandemanians early became convinced that it was an article of capital concern, that their adherents should abstain from eating blood. In this connec- tion they insisted upon the letter of the passage at Acts xv. 20, 28, 29. No distinct allusion, on the part
10
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
of the Disciples, to the binding force of this apostoli- cal prohibition, can be remembered.
The Sandemanians laid unusual stress upon the intercessory prayer of our Lord, in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel according to John ; holding that it inculcates the necessity of absolute unanimity, on the part of the various members, in every transaction by an individual church. In order to obtain this in- dispensable unanimity, the parties who may entertain such objections as they are unable to surrender are incontinently expelled from the communion. (Barns- bury Grove, p. 14.) The Disciples likewise insist with earnestness upon the passage in question ; but they understand that it refers to the organic union of all who profess and call themselves Christians, on the basis of the plea which themselves have a charge to urge upon the attention of the religious public.
A modified type of communism prevailed, and is still professed, among the Sandemanians. (Richard- son, vol. i. p. 71.) The personal estate of a com- municant could be retained by him after entering the fraternity, but always with the understanding that it was subject to the demands of the necessitous, espe- cially those of them who chanced to be of the house- hold of faith. Accordingly it was expected that their brethren should not lay up any further treasures on earth than such as they were possessed of at the time of their reception. (Andrew Fuller, Strictures on Sandemanianism, Letter IX.) In order to prevent this from taking place, the surplus above their actual
" THE ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS." 11
necessities in the way of subsistence was to be con- tributed to the " Fellowship," which is the name they derived from Acts ii. 42, for the collection for the poor. (Barnsbury Grove, pp. 6, 7, also pp. 8, 9 ; cf. Letters and Discourses of R. Sandeman, p. 42.) The Disciples, on the contrary, have never pressed the principle of communism to the same extent ; but they have adopted the nomenclature of the Sandemanians in the matter of the weekly collection (Christian ^ Baptist, edit. 6, pp. 209, 166, 359) which is ordinarily designated as " the Fellowship " in their literature. (See also Christian Baptist, pp. 389, 391, 408, 413, for other instances of the employment of this term in the writings of Sandemanian churches.)
The custom of mutual exhortation, as a regular part of religious worship, was in vogue among many of the Sandemanian fraternities. They justified this proceeding by a literal interpretation of 1 Cor. xiv. 31. It was often assigned a place in the observances of the Sabbath day ; but the church of Barnsbury Grove, London, has now removed it to the Wednes- day-evening meeting. (Barnsbury Grove, p. 7.)
The business of exhortation was likewise attendee to in the first church that was organized by the Dis- ciples in America, as also in the kindred Sandeman- ian church under the charge of Walter Scott in Pittsburgh, Penn. ; but so many evils grew out of it, that after a series of years Mr. Campbell became v impatient of it, and succeeded in persuading his fol- lowers to surrender their liberty in this regard.
12
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
(Richardson, Memoirs of A. Campbell, vol. ii. pp. 125-129.)
A portion of the Sandemanian fraternity were so strict in their literalism, that, because there is no di- rect injunction commanding the observance of family prayer, and because there is a Divine command to enter into the closet and pray in secret, they would inveigh against this practice as savoring of a tendency to proselytism. (Christian Baptist, edit. 2, Buffalo, Va., 1827, p. 76.) Others of the party discouraged the habit of family prayer, on the ground that it is " unlawful, provided any part of the family be unbelievers, seeing it is holding communion with them." {Braidwood's Letters, as cited by Andrew Fuller in his Strictures on Sandemanianism, Letter IX.)
In his earlier years Mr. Campbell was influenced by this latter view of the subject, and at one time seriously proposed to his father the inquiry " whether family prayer is proper in a family composed in part of unbelievers." (Richardson, vol. i. p. 449.) Un- like the Sandemanians, however, who could find " no precept or precedent for family worship " in the bibli- cal writings (Fuller, Strictures on Sandemanianism, Letter IX.), Mr. Campbell was fortunate enough to discover a justification of the practice in the patri- archal dispensation, which he denominated "the family worship institution " (Christian System, Beth- any, Va., 1840, pp. 128-133) ; and, notwithstanding the youthful scruples referred to above, he appears
" THE ANCIENT ORDER OF THINGS." 13
to have performed the duty with a commendable degree of diligence and spirit.
The same people who could not reconcile it to their views to pray or to enjoy any kind of religious observ- ance in the family circle with those who were not in communion with them at the Lord's Supper, yet had no scruples against accompanying respectable persons of whatever creed, or of no creed at all, to the theatre, or against joining with them in the dance or other social amusements which are commonly condemned by the more serious portion of the religious com- munity. (Barnsbury Grove, p. 9 ; compare Fuller's Strictures on Sandemanianism, Letter II. ; and Letter of John Glas to Edward Gorril, in Letters and Dis- courses of R. S., p. 88.)
Mr. Campbell was not guilty of this kind of extrav- agance ; but the sentiment of the Sandemanians in the matter of theatres, dancing, and other diversions, appears to have survived in the Mormon community, who, as will be suggested later on, are connected, ' through the Disciples, with the Sandemanian stock.
It would be natural to expect that those who were unwilling to engage in family prayer where unbeliev- ing members might belong to the household, should also be forward to propose objections to the presence of any but communicants at the public services of the Church. A portion of the Sandemanian Churches acceded to the demand of their peculiar logic in this particular, and were solicitous to exclude from their public worship all who might not belong to their own
14
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
community. (Christian Baptist, edit. 6, p. 389 ; also a Letter from the Elders of the Church in Dundee to the Elders of the Church in Edinburgh, as found in the Letters and Discourses of Robert Sandeman, Dundee, 1851, pp. 116, 117.)
Mr. Campbell, in his turn, was much taken with this peculiarity of the Sandemanians. His biographer is our authority for the statement that the first church he organized — at Brush Run in Pennsylvania — did not recognize as duly prepared to partake in religious services any persons except such as had professed to put on Christ in baptism ; or, in other words, those who chanced to be members of that special organi- zation. Later in life he was persuaded to recede from this extrem position ; but he appears to haye always regrette his course in that regard, longing in vain for th exclusive attitude of his youthful time. (Richardson, vol. i. p. 454.)
The Sandemanians made a deal of noise over the point that the first day of the week is not properly a Sabbath, at least holding that it is not a duty incumbent upon Christian people to observe it in the same fashion as the Sabbath was observed by the Jewish nation under the Old-Testament economy. They regarded the Christian Sabbath as merely designed for the celebration of divine ordinances (Barnsbury Grove, p. 4), and did not conceive that they were engaged to sanctify the day according to the strict usage of the Scottish Kirk. When the con- cerns of public worship had been duly cared for, the
" THE ANCIEXT ORDER OF THINGS." 15
balance of the day might be passed in such pleasures as would scarcely comport with the claim that it was anyway more holy than other days. (Andrew Fuller, Strictures on Sandemanianism, Letter IX.)
The Disciples likewise decline to regard the first day of the week as a Sabbath, or even to call it by ' that name. The fourth command of the Decalogue, they hold, is applicable to the seventh day, but it does not refer to Sunday. On this account they have now and then been charged with the crime of paying no respect to the Fourth Commandment. Claims of that nature, however, are commonly based upon a mis- conception. The public worship which the Disciples, like the Sandemanians. consider it their duty to ob- serve on the Lord's Day, occupies about as many hours of time and service as customarily are passed in that way by those who are willing to consider the day as a Sabbath. The only matter worth}* of attention in this connection is, that the party are in the habit of proposing the same distinction regarding this subject that was urged, before their time, by the Sandeman- ians. (Richardson, vol. i. pp. 432-435.)
16
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
CHAPTER III.
'; THE ANCIENT GOSPEL."
The: main strength and care of the Sandernanian parn*. during the first twenty-five years of its exist- ence, were exerted in the direction of the constitution, life and worship of the Church. In the development of these it may be suspected, without any grave lack of charity, that they were influenced, to some extent, by a desire to antagonize the usages of the Kirk of Scotland. The points brought forward in the pre- ceding section will suggest, in several instances, the operation of a spirit of contradiction. For example, the scruple against the propriety of family prayer may have had some kind of reference to the circumstance that this was, at the moment, an almost universal custom of the Scottish country. The tenet against the sanctification of the Sabbath was likewise very offensive to the majority of religious people in Scot- land. Historical records are believed to indicate that the custom of observing the Lord's Supper every Sun- day had a degree of reference to the circumstance that the Kirk folk commonly celebrated the sacra- ment but once or twice in the year.
In brief, the Sandemanians were almost always and
" THE ANCIENT GOSPEL."
17
everywhere in the opposition. This spirit of oppo- sition displayed itself when, in due course of time, they found it desirable to give a portion of their at- tention to the doctrines which their Church should maintain. The influence of the Methodist movement was by that time beginning to be recognized in Scot- land. While the Calvinistic theologians felt impelled to resist the views of Mr. Wesley at various points in the department of soteriology, it is none the less true, that, through the influence of Whitefield, these had gained some degree of currency in the land of Knox. Methodist influences were very much extended in the party of Seceders, who went away from the Estab- lished Church in 1732, only a few years after the expulsion of Mr. Glas.
Mr. James Hervey, a member of Wesley's "godly club " at Oxford, who subsequently adhered to the predestinarian views of Whitefield, in the year 1755 had published a work under the title of " Dialogues between Theron and Aspasio," that were received with much popularity. The views that were there . set forth regarding the nature of justifying faith and the process of salvation were pretty strongly tinctured with Methodist sentiment, but they were not on that account any the less welcome to wide circles of his readers in Scotland.
Two years later a son-in-law of Mr. Glas's — Mr. </ Robert Sandeman, who likewise had a sort of mission to contend against the "popular preachers" and " popular doctrines " — came forward with a review
18
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
of the performance of Mr. Hervey, entitled " Letters on Theron and Aspasio." In this production he strictly combats the notion advanced by Hervey, that saving faith embraces in its contents any " real persuasion that the blessed Jesus has shed his blood for me, or has fulfilled all righteousness in my stead ; " and also the position that any " appropriation of Christ is essential to faith." (Sandeman, Letters on Theron and Aspasio, New York, 1838, p. 4.) What he sev- eral times christens as "the ancient gospel" (p. 117, p. 297, p. 412 ; Epistolary Correspondence, p. 25, p. 83), recognizes as " involved in the contents of justi- fying faith nothing else than simply believing the record, or crediting the testimony of God." (Letters, as above, p. 21.) In order to believe the record, Mr. Sandeman wholly discredits the notion that there is a necessity for the operation of the Spirit (pp. 29, 30). He suggests that the Spirit "who breathes in the Scriptures never speaks a word to any man beside what he publicly speaks there ; " and he " will not bear to hear the living and powerful Word of God, on any pretence or under color of any distinction whatsoever, called a dead letter."
In the " Letters on Theron and Aspasio," though his tone is extremely bitter and arrogant, he is never- theless more moderate than he exhibits himself in some of his subsequent productions. The "Episto- lary Correspondence between S. P(ike) and R. San- deman) " transcends all the previous limits which he had assigned to his passion. There he claims that
" THE ANCIENT GOSPEL."
19
faith is " the bare belief of the bare truth," and that it does not even imply so much as a hearty persuasion. In this bare belief he was also at pains to specify that the mind of the subject is not active, but passive ; for, if the mind were active in the matter of crediting the testimony of Christ, this would be the same as to allow that we are justified by an act of the human mind.
Mr. Sandeman, who invented the phrase " ancient gospel," is likewise believed to be the inventor of the very common Disciple phrase, " the good confes- sion," which several times occurs in the " Letters on Theron and Aspasio " (p. 487). In another part of the same work he gives himself the pains to explain what are the contents of this confession : " There is but one genuine truth that can save men. To illus- trate this matter, let it be remembered that the saving truth which the apostles believed was, TJiat Jesus is the Christ. The apostles had one uniform fixed sense to these words ; and the whole New Testament is writ to ascertain to us in what sense they understood them." (Letters etc., p. 258.)
Nearly all of these peculiarities come to sight in the theology of the Disciples. Their gospel is com- monly denominated "the ancient gospel." In the "Christian Baptist," of which he was the editor, may be found a series of ten different essays from the hand of Mr. Campbell, under that title. The " popu- lar doctrine" and the "popular preachers" are as liberally denounced, and commonly with the same
20 THE DISCIPLES OE CHRIST.
cant expressions, in the pages of that periodical, as in any of the writings of the Sandemanians.
Mr. Campbell is also as clear as his teacher was, that the root and substance of religion is found in knowledge, exclusive of approbation : M evidence alone produces faith, or testimony is all that is ne- cessary to faith." (Christian Baptist, edit. 6, p. 58.) In his u Dialogue between Timothy and Austin," he is believed to come near to the position of Sandeman, that the Spirit never speaks a word to any man besides what he publicly speaks in the Scriptures. "Walter Scott, one of his leading assistants, was also a diligent disciple of Sandeman's. In that character he affirms that 44 the body of Christ is increased by the belief of the bare truth that Jesus is the Son of God and our Saviour." (Christian Baptist, edit. 6, p. 21.)
The distinction which Mr. Sandeman acquired by means of his labors in the department of Christian doctrine was so great, that in a brief season he began to outshine Mr. Glas, who was the founder of the sect. In England and other countries where his writings were circulated, they produced a somewhat violent controversy, in which the name of Glas was but seldom heard. By degrees, therefore, it befell that the adherents of the fraternity came to be known as Sandemanians almost everywhere outside of the limits of Scotland; and even there the cus- tomary designation has come to be Glasites or San- demanians, a circumstance which shows that the
" THE ANCIENT GOSPEL:'
21
impression produced by Sandeman was profound and enduring.
It is not important to the purpose in hand, to lay before the reader any detailed account of the literary opponents who entered the lists against the princi- ples that were advanced by Mr. Sandeman. The names of a few of the most prominent will be suffi- cient to show that he was not neglected. Mr. John "Wesley was among the first to come forward with a brief essay, which he published anonymously as 44 A Sufficient Answer to the Author of the Letters on Theron and Aspasio." Mr. W. Cudworth, a Dissenting minister of prominence in London, first entered into a private correspondence with Sande- man (Letters and Discourses of R. Sandeman, p. 37), and afterwards published a couple of volumes against him. The earliest of these, printed in the year 1760, at London, was entitled 44 A Defence of Theron and Aspasio against the Objections contained in a Late Treatise, entitled Letters on Theron and Aspasio." The next year appeared " The Polyglot, or Hope of Eternal Life according to the Various Sentiments of the Present Day."
In America, the Rev. Joseph Bellamy, D.D., took part in the conflict with a work entitled, " Theron, Paulinus, and Aspasio ; or, Letters and Dialogues on the Nature of Love to God, Faith in Christ, and Assurance of a Title to Eternal Life," 1758, 1759 ; as also in the year 1762, with 44 An Essay on the Nature and Glory of the Gospel; designed as a Supplement to the Letters and Dialogues."
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THE DISCIPLES OF C II It I ST.
Mr. Isaac Backus likewise gave attention to the issues involved, in a volume published at Boston in 1767, under the title, " True Faith will produce Good Works. A Discourse wherein are opened the Nature of Faith, and its Powerful Influence on the Heart and Life : together with the Contrary Nature and Effects of Unbelief : and Answers to Various Objection^. To which are prefixed, A Brief View of the Present State of the Protestant World, with some Remarks on the Writings of Mr. Sandeman."
Some years afterwards, Mr. Andrew Fuller of England was drawn into the controversy by means of an attack upon his position, in the second edition of a work by Mr. Archibald M'Lean of Edinburgh, entitled "The Commission of Christ." In this trea- tise, Mr. M'Lean having set forth some objections to the views of Fuller, the latter replied in an appendix to his book called "The Gospel Worthy of All Accep- tation." The answer of Mr. M'Lean appeared under the title of " A Reply to Mr. Fuller's Appendix to his Book on the Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation." This performance on the part of M'Lean subsequently called forth Fuller's " Strictures on Sandemanianism," which is, perhaps, the most satisfactory treatment of the whole subject that has yet been published on either side of the question.
"THE ANCIENT GOSPEL" IMPROVED. 23
CHAPTER IV.
"THE ANCIENT GOSPEL " IMPROVED.
The churches that were under the direction of Sandeman and Glas were making slight progress in different portions of Scotland, when in the year 1761 the faithful were considerably elated by the accession of the Rev. Robert Cannichael, a Seceder minister of the Anti-Burgher type, who presided over a church of that faith at Cupar in Angus. (Letters and Dis- courses of Robert Sandeman, p. 44, p. 93; cf. also Memoir of Archibald M'Lean, by William Jones, p. xxiii. This memoir is printed in front of the first volume of McLean's collected works, published at Elgin, Scotland, 1847.)
Cannichael was forthwith assigned to duty in the ranks of the sect to which he had attached his fortunes, and placed in charge of a church in Glasgow. Here it appears that he enjoyed a degree of success ; at any rate, he is supposed to have been the means of perverting from his loyalty to the Scot- tish Kirk, Mr. Archibald M'Lean, who entered the fraternity of the Sandemanian Independents in the year 1762. (Memoir of M'Lean, pp. xxii and xxiii.)
24 THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
The satisfaction of the Sandemanians with their Anti-Burgher convert was of brief duration. The hand of Mr. Glas was found to be very heavy. Upon the occasion of a case of discipline in which Glas interfered (Letters and Discourses, p. 83), Carmichael became disgusted with his situation, and laid down the charge of the Independent Church in Glasgow. (Letters and Discourses, p. 44, note.) Archibald M'Lean, apparently a protege of Carmi- chael's, also retired from the sect on the same occa- sion. (Memoir, p. xxiii.)
After this pair of friends had fallen into a condi- tion of separation from the Sandemanians, it was not singular that they should have qualms of conscience touching some of the tenets that were maintained by that fraternity. In this instance criticism was v levelled against the doctrine of infant-baptism, which Mr. Glas had retained as a prominent item of the " ancient order of things." (Memoir, p. xxiii.) As a natural consequence, both of them in due season renounced the practice of infant-baptism.
Carmichael speedily removed from Glasgow to Edinburgh, where he seems to have had charge of an Independent Church that had likely seceded from the community over which Mr. Robert Sandeman was then presiding in that city; it is believed to have been composed of people who took the part of Carmichael in the controversy that he had waged with Glas and Sandeman in Glasgow. They were only seven in number, but they invited Carmichael
11 THE ANCIENT GOSPEL" IMPROVED. 25
from Glasgow to be their pastor. (Memoirs of M'Lean, p. xxiii.)
As he was on the point of setting out for Edin- burgh, Mr. M'Lean promised his old pastor that he would compose a letter, in which should be laid down in full his views on the subject of baptism. When this document was completed, it was dated on the 2d of July, 1764. Mr. Carmichael obtained it by due course of mail ; but as he was now comfort- ably established in Edinburgh, over a church that was still in doctrinal agreement with Mr. Sandeman, he was uncertain what might be the result in case he should suddenly profess his conversion to the views of those who opposed infant-baptism. It was more than possible that his adherents would refuse to give attention to his reasons ; they might even dismiss him on the spot, and return to the commu- nity from which they had but recently taken their leave. Consequently Mr. Carmichael, who is sus- pected to have been devoid of any thing like stabil- ity of character, still persisted in the practice of baptizing infants. (Memoirs of M'Lean, pp. xxiii and xxiv.)
After the lapse of a twelvemonth, however, Car- michael had succeeded in convincing five of his seven parishioners of the unlawfulness of infant-baptism, and of the propriety of immersion as the act of bap- tism. Apparently by their vote or consent, he was despatched to London for the purpose of obtaining immersion at the hands of some of the Baptist minis-
26
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
tens of England. He was immersed at the baptistery in the Barbican, by Dr. John Gill, on the 9th of October 1T65. On his return to Edinburgh, he in his turn immersed the five persons who had con- sorted with him, and two pjliprs ; thus laying the foundations of the Sandemar;^ 1 «irch of the im- mersion observance, who c u it>p ignated by the name of 4* Scotch , ourses, p. 44, note.) xxiv.) The Sandemanians of -the ^:Mge of Carmi- ance, under the lead of Sandeman ana Ha* onpq- in the custom of expressing their disgust against this unwelcome conduct on the part of a portion of their adherents, by denouncing the same as Anabaptists. (Letters and Discourses of Robert Sandeman, Dundee, 1851, p. 48, note.)
After a few weeks, M'Lean drew nigh from Glas- gow, and caused himself to be immersed. In the month of July 1767, he went to London for the purpose of trying his fortunes as a printer (Memoirs, p. xix) : but failing to meet with such a degree of encouragement as he desired, he accepted a position in Edinburgh which brought him into immediate contact with Carmichael and the immersed Sande- manians of that place. He entered Edinburgh in December 1767 : in June 1768, he was raised from his station as a private member, to the dignity of fellow-elder with Carmichael. (Memoirs, pp. xxiv, xxi, xxv.) Although there were only nine mem- bers in the community (Benedict, ed. 2, p. 355), Sandemanian literalism was very strenuous to re-
"TIIE ANCIENT GOSPEL" IMPROVED. 27
quire that they should maintain a plurality of elders.
It was only a brief season before Carmichael found it convenient to quit the immersed Sandemanians, and to return to th^ Sandemanians of the aspersion observance; »« ~ ir 1773, he was presiding over such^ig ciocumen ?gb> (Memoir of Mr. William on the 2d of Julv 'vas perhaps the same church
it by due cou^ ^andeman left behind when he came - in the year 1764. (Biography of San- deman, prefixed to his Discourses, Dundee, 1857, p. xi.) The founder of the so-called " Scotch Baptists 99 was, therefore, one of the first to leave the church which he had established; it is suspected that his convictions were either not very strong or not very sincere. By the defection of Carmichael, Mr. M'Lean was immediately recognized as the undisputed leader of the immersed Sandemanians.
M'Lean had not been long installed in his position at Edinburgh before his mind was persuaded that it would be a feasible enterprise to make some improve- ments upon " the ancient gospel," as invented by the philosophy of Mr. Sandeman. The latter gentleman appeared to consider that he was set to oppose every prominent tenet that had come to be advocated by the Seceders or by others, who, within the limits of Scotland or elsewhere, had in any way been influ- enced by the progress of the Wesleyan revival. While the Westminster Confession had inculcated the doc- trine of assurance of faith, it had been studious to
28
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
avoid including that grace in the contents of saving faith. On the contrary, it expressly provides (chap, xviii. sec. 3) that " this infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true be- liever may wait long, and conflict with many difficul- ties, before he be partaker of it ; yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto."
The Seceders and many others, including some of the more zealous pastors within the Established Church, had now begun to reckon a fixed assurance of one's personal acceptance as belonging among the invariable elements of saving faith. Sandeman nat- urally took umbrage against this innovation on the part of the " popular preachers ; " and, in keeping with his character and position, he was soon found at the opposite extreme, not only denying that assurance is of the essence of saving faith, but also affirming that the Christian could never attain to any better estate in this world than an assurance of the possibility of his personal salvation. He understands the " ancient gospel " to be that " divine truth which affords hope to the vilest transgressor, that he may be justified, that he may escape the curse." (Letter on Theron and Aspasio, N.Y., 1838, p. 290 ; cf. M'Lean's Com- mission of Jesus Christ, Edinburgh, 1786, p. 96, foot- note.) Sandeman likewise adds (p. 295) that " the simple belief of the gospel " (which, according to him,
"THE ANCIENT GOSPEL" IMPROVED. 29
is all that faith implies or embraces) "leaves a man, even in the full assurance of faith, or when the truth is most present to his thoughts, entirely at the mercy of God for salvation, and leads him to the greatest reverence for, and submission to, the Divine sove- reignty, without having any claim upon God whatso- ever, or finding any reason why God should regard him more than those who perish."
Mr. M'Lean was not well content with this comfort- less view of his master's. Accordingly, in the work on the " Commission of Jesus Christ," already men- tioned, while he continues to accept Sandeman's con- ceit about the nature of evangelical faith (p. 80), he demurs to the conclusion that " the bare belief of the bare truth" will do nothing more than Sandeman affirmed for the benefit of the individual subject, and assumes the ground that this bare belief is just as capable of conveying the immediate assurance of sal- vation as was the saving faith advocated by the most ardent Seceder. (Commission, as above, pp. 90-98.)
The hyper-Calvinist opinions of Sandeman were likewise no longer acceptable to M'Lean, seeing that they were employed not as ordinarily to confirm the assurance of the faithful, but on the contrary to pre- vent them from cherishing any stronger faith than that which affirms a possibility that the most devout and correct of them may be justified. That was, indeed, a distressing prospect which others besides M'Lean — persons who stood much nearer to the master — were pained to accept.
30
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
From considerations of this kind the leader of the immersed wing of the Sandemanian fraternity appears to have conceived a certain distaste for the extreme views regarding the Calvinistic system of truth, which prevailed in the opposing camp. He was, therefore, able to content himself with a somewhat moderate position in relation to questions of that nature.
Professing to hold in good esteem the bare belief by means of which Sandeman had relegated the ori- gin of personal religion to the sphere of the intellect, excluding any right operations of the emotions or of the will, he was nevertheless, as a matter of fact, unable to obtain a very high degree of confidence in the efficacy of an agent that was so attenuated. The assurance which this mere belief might be compe- tent to bestow was cried up, indeed, as the best arti- cle in that line which was then offered to the favor of the "professing world;" but flaming commenda- tions of this kind had long since become familiar, and they were generally estimated at their proper value.
In order, therefore, to improve his emasculated faith, — " to make assurance double sure, and take a bond of fate," — M'Lean resolved to provide this mere intellectual exercise with a buttress that was designed to support its weakness and secure its existence. This buttress consisted of an addition to the design of baptism, which necessarily had escaped the attention of the party which continued in the practice of infant-baptism. What mere belief could
"THE ANCIENT GOSPEL" IMPROVED. 31
not do, in that it was weak, it was hoped might be performed by the immersion of believers in water. Accordingly Mr. M'Lean advances the peculiar the- ory of baptism for the remission of sins. (Commis- sion of Jesus Christ, Edinburgh, 1786, pp. 129-137). Baptism was clearly asserted to be necessary to sal- vation (pp. 131, 132) ; not in the way of baptismal regeneration, however, but in the way of effecting the remission of sins after the act of mere belief.
Another feature of Mr. M 'Lean's teaching on the subject of baptism is found in the fact that he insisted that it should be performed, not "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," as is the custom of the balance of the Christian world, but on the contrary " into the name, etc." (Commission, * as above, pp. 110-114). He likewise maintains in the same connection (p. 113), that "the Holy Spirit was not given, in a way peculiar to the gospel dis- pensation, during John's baptism, nor till Christ was glorified."
Each of the peculiarities above described has been reproduced by the Disciples (or Campbellites) in America. They reject infant-baptism ; they practise immersion exclusively for baptism ; they hold the necessity of baptism for the remission of sins, urging * the very same passages of Scripture, and in the same way, as Archibald M'Lean, in support of that notion ; they insist upon the propriety of baptizing " into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; " and they declare that the kingdom of heaven was not com-
32
THE DISCIPLES OF CHBIST.
pletely set up until the Day of Pentecost. If the above were not matters of common fame, it would be in order to produce citations from their literature in each case ; but, as nobody will think or care to call in question the fact that these things are now cus- tomary in the ranks of the Disciples, it may not be necessary to bring forward any such special proofs of the statements here advanced.
THE UALDANEANS.
33
CHAPTER V.
THE HALDAXEAXS.
The tide of religious revival flowed so strongly in Scotland, that at length, just before the close of the eighteenth century, it reached the ranks of the laity also. These now began to experience an amount of confidence and zeal which was sufficient to induce them to go forward in Christian labor, and in some instances even to assume the functions, and to invade the prerogatives, of the regular clergy. The most prominent in this somewhat notable movement were the brothers Robert and James Alexander Haldane. They were of gentle birth and breeding. Robert, who was the elder, had in possession an estate which, ac- cording to the standard then prevalent in Scotland, was regarded as highly, respectable.
On the 6th of May 1797, nearly two and twenty years after the establishment of the first society of " Scotch Baptists " or immersed Sandemanians, the tongue of James Alexander Haldane was loosed. He delivered his maiden discourse to a company of colliers at the village of Gilmerton, in the vicinity of Edinburgh. His social position, combined with his previous experience of life, and his remarkable
34
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
abilities in the line of popular preaching, imparted a high degree of interest and importance to this event. (Memoirs of Robert and James Alexander Haldane, by Alexander Haldane, Esq., New York, 1853, pp. 140, 141.)
James Alexander Haldane followed the sea in his earlier years, where he had attained the dignity of captain in the merchant marine, and only a short while previously had resigned command of the ship " Melville Castle," that was engaged in the East-India service. (Memoirs, as above, p. 74.) After his in- troduction to the work of lay-preaching at Gilmerton, Mr. Haldane was seized with an unwonted degree of religious fervor and pious solicitude. A little more than two months from that date, on the 12th of July, he set forward on a missionary journey to the High- lands of Scotland, which was rewarded with so large a share of encouragement and success, that, before it was concluded on the 7th of November 1797, his name and his enterprise were the occasion of general remark.
Events now fell out with much rapidity in the progress of the revival. Instead of remaining quietly in the bosom of the Kirk, where was ample room for them, and many gave their sympathy, the Haldane brothers were soon taking steps which looked in the direction of a secession from that institution. On the 11th of January, 1798, was formed by them and such of their friends as would allow their names to be used in that relation, a " Society for Propagating the
THE HALDANEANS.
35
Gospel at Home." (Memoirs, pp. 178, 179.) A single year was space enough, after this step had been per- formed, for the movement to develop into a church organization. In January 1799, the first Haldanean society was constituted at Edinburgh, and on the 3d of February they publicly ordained James A. Haldane to be their pastor. (Memoirs, p. 217.)
The public are familiar with the marvels that were accomplished by the promoters of this enterprise in the period between the years 1797 and 1808, as like- wise with the lamentable declension which then set in and almost in a day destroyed its usefulness and promise.
The causes of that unhappy catastrophe are pretty clearly suggested in the biography of the Haldanes already cited ; by the aid of the light which is there supplied, it is possible to trace the operation of these causes from stage to stage in the downward course. At the very beginning of the undertaking, James A. Haldane chanced to be on an intimate footing with a certain Dr. Charles Stuart of Dunearn (Memoirs, p. 140). This gentleman was likewise of noble blood, of excellent learning, many attractive social qualities, and of the queerest kind of a head. He had begun life as a minister in the Established Kirk. After his accession to the parish of Cramond, near Edinburgh, he was united in marriage to a daughter of the venerable John Erskine, the leader of the evangelical wing in that institution (Memoirs, pp. 125, 126) ; but he was not appointed to pursue his
36
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
career in peace and usefulness. The biographer of the Halclanes (p. 141) declares that "in his thirst for general information and the society of good men, Dr. Stuart had gone from the Divinity Hall in Edin- burgh, to some of the Dissenting Academies in London, and there imbibed notions unfavorable to the union between Church and State." Whatever may be the fact regarding his visits to London, the notions which he entertained and propagated on that topic were to be had much nearer home ; they were the leading article of the Independents, or Sande- manians, and might be read any day in the " Testi- mony of the King of Martyrs," the principal work of Mr. John Glas. It was published in Edinburgh, just under the nose of Dr. Stuart, and was kept on sale in most of the booksellers' shops of the country.
More than this, Dr. Stuart had acquired convictions against the propriety of the practice of infant-bap- tism and against the mode of baptism by aspersion ; and at the moment when he conceived his perhaps interested admiration for James A. Haldane, he was duly numbered in the lists of the " Scotch Baptists," or Sandemanians of the immersion observance (Mem- oirs, p. 141, p. 338, and pp. 511, 512) ; and was a member of Archibald M'Lean's Church (Memoirs of William Braidwood, p. 36, note).
When James A. Haldane preached his first ser- mon in the evening of the 6th of May 1797, this ardent and excellent " Scotch Baptist " was present to
THE BALD AN E AN S.
37
applaud the effort. He seems almost upon the spot to have conceived the ambition to make a proselyte * of his friend. He declared that to see him a Baptist would be the consummation of his earthly felicity. He "took much pains to inculcate Baptist views upon Haldane ; attended his ministry, listened to his preaching with rapt admiration, and called on him two or three times in every week to discuss the topics which were delivered from the pulpit." No art or blandishment of the determined and skilful prose lytizer was neglected. It is with justice that the biographer admits (p. 141), " There is no doubt that Dr. Stuart's influence on Mr. James Haldane was considerable, as it was also on several other eminent men." In sad truth this excellent, wrong-headed gentleman was the evil genius of the Haldanes and of their cause. Had they at the outset possessed a sufficient amount of insight and foresight to have bestowed upon him a firm and enduring repulse, they might have escaped the shipwreck which shortly stranded themselves and their movement on the shallows of Sandemanian literalism.
We are given to understand that there were " sev- eral other eminent men " over whom Dr. Stuart ex- erted a degree of injurious influence. Notable among these was Mr. Greville Ewing, one of the leading < co-adjutors of the Haldanes. Already before the year 1795 there were possibly some relations of inti- macy between Stuart and Ewing, for in that year we find the latter advocating the practice of "mutual
38
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
exhortation " from the pulpit of Lady Glenorchy's chapel in Edinburgh, where he was assistant to the Rev. Dr. Jones. (Facts and Documents respecting the Connections which have subsisted between Robert Haldane, Esq., and Greville Ewing. By Greville Ewing. Glasgow 1809, pp. 127, 128, note.) Mr. Ewing likewise declares elsewhere in the same work (p. 8), that the origin of his dissatisfaction with the Church of Scotland, of which he was a minister, " was the exercise of a power by church courts over minis- ters and congregations, which restrained the former from preaching wherever they had an opportunity, and the latter from adopting any plan for mutual edification and comfort,'' — a kind of scruple which, in the latter instance, has a decided odor of Dr. Stuart and the Sandemanians.
In the year 1796, a twelvemonth before the project of the Haldanes was mooted, the celebrated " Mis- sionary Magazine " was commenced " under the aus- pices of Dr. Stuart, with Mr. Ewing as editor." (Memoirs, p. 141.) A connection of this kind, in which an active and prominent minister of the Kirk allowed himself to become, in a certain sort, the spokesman, if not the creature, of a leading character among the " Scotch Baptists," could not fail to excite remark and to give offence. It was, therefore, in no way singular that Mr. Ewing's position in the Estab- lishment should every day become more untenable. (Memoirs, p. 179.) In the progress of time and in- struction, his conversion to the practices and tenets
THE IIALDANEANS.
39
of the immersed Sandemanians might have become as complete and extensive as that of the brothers Haldane subsequently was, if the relation with Stuart had not been early broken off by changes which will be mentioned in their place farther on. The " Mis- sionary Magazine " was not infrequently supplied with articles which suggested that the editor was making fair advances in the doctrines of the proprie- tor. (Memoirs, p. 214.)
When it is brought to mind that this same "Missionary Magazine," "under the auspices of Dr. Stuart," and whose editor was, after a fashion, his disciple, became from the beginning the official organ of the Haldanean enterprise, it will be ap- parent how large a hold the immersed wing of the Sandemanian sect had acquired upon the fortunes and the future of a promising cause. To some minds it may seem a fair conclusion that it was never possi- ble for the new church to have attained permanent success. Too many elements, which could signify no other fate than early disaster, were present at its inception. None of the least of these may be per- ceived in the circumstance that when, in the month of December 1798, the project of founding a church was broached, Mr. Ewing, "as being most familiar with such matters, was requested to draw up a plan for its government." (Memoirs, p. 214.)
For a season after the inauguration of the earliest church, in January 1799, the best wishes of the Hal- danes were fulfilled ; but it was a sadly brief season.
40
THE DISCIPLES OE CHRIST.
The storms which they had not the wisdom and experience to forecast speedily began to gather about their heads. As soon as Mr. Ewing had seceded from the Church of Scotland, he placed himself at the service of Robert Haldane to be employed in for- warding the plans that gentleman had in mind. Mr. Haldane had made arrangements to send a class of students to Gosport, England, where they might remain for a time under the care of the well-known Dr. Bogue, as a means of preparing them for the work of the ministry. But it was given to Mr. Ewing to persuade his friend that it would be wiser to commit these students to his own care, since there were somewhat decided objections against Dr. Bogue in Scotland, and perhaps elsewhere, on the score of his liberal politics. On the 2d of January 1799,
* Greville Ewing opened his seminary of theology in Edinburgh. The number of pupils at first was twenty-four, derived from various denominations, except the Congregationalists or Sandemanians ; but before the course was ended, one of their number affirms that they all found themselves decided and intelligent Congregationalists. (Memoirs, p. 228.) This was a marked degree of success. Few men are
✓ to be found who had a surer command of the arts of proselytizing than Mr. Ewing.
Yet there were reasons why Robert Haldane should not be highly elated by the triumphs of his subordinate. Mr. Ewing was much addicted to the writings of Glas and Sandeman ; but at this particu-
THE HALDANEANS.
41
lar period of his career Mr. Haldane was less favorably inclined towards those theologians than he sub- sequently came to be, through the unhappy influence of Dr. Stuart upon the mind of James A. Haldane. Accordingly, when Ewing put the books that have been referred to in the hands of the students (Facts and Documents, as above, p. 79, cf. p. 82), Mr. Haldane considered he was entitled to interpose, which step he took immediately, while Ewing and the students were still in the city of Edinburgh. (Facts and Documents, pp. 134, 135.) This must have been the beginning of the troubles which for so many years wasted the strength and spirits of the two men, and ultimately brought calamities on the cause they had engaged to promote.
When his attention was first directed to the danger that existed in Edinburgh, Robert Haldane assumed a wise position. If he had but pressed forward vigorously in the sentiments which he then entertained, he might have rescued his interests from ruin. He was opposed even to the notions of Church order inculcated by Glas and Sandeman, as well as to their " ancient gospel " (Facts and Documents, pp. 134, 135) ; but on this side of the subject his sentiments later underwent an unhappy modification (Facts and Documents, p. 81), and he embraced with decision, and in some cases with passion, a great many items of the desolating scheme of the Sandemanians.
There was a curious play of cross purposes in this
42
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
business. After the unpleasantness which occurred at Edinburgh, Mr. Ewing seemed to consider it the main concern of his existence to find a place in every question which should be on the opposite side from that which Robert Haldane was led to assume. Therefore, at the moment when Haldane in his turn began to dabble considerably in the " ancient order of things," Ewing was beginning to insist on occupy- ing the old ground. Yet, notwithstanding all the counsel which he had brought himself to accept from Glas and Sandeman in the details of Church order, Robert Haldane could never prevail upon himself to v receive as true what they had inculcated regarding the nature of saving faith. Observing this pecul- iarity, Ewing, always in the opposition, became more and more attached to the Sandemanian notion that faith is nothing else than bare belief.
According to the legally formulated terms of an arrangement that had been fixed upon already before he was given charge of the students, Ewing removed to Glasgow at Whitsunday 1799, to take the pastoral oversight of a church which he was expected to organize in the Circus, a large building there which Robert Haldane had recently purchased for three thousand pounds, and fitted up for the purpose of religious worship. The seminary was also removed with him. Confidence between the two men being now to a large extent destroyed, it was the earnest desire of Ewing to become entirely independent of Mr. Haldane (Facts and Documents, p. 24), by
THE HALDANEANS.
43
securing the Circus building for himself and for the people who should join his society. He hoped to effect this purpose by inducing Haldane to make over the house to his people in the way of a gift ; but the latter was not in the least disposed to accede to that proposal. Ewing persisted for a number of years, always becoming more and more imbittered and unreasonable, until at last both parties appeared before the public in volumes of abusive charges di- rected against each other. But the difference is believed to have started from nothing else than a contrariety of opinions regarding the merits of the Sandemanians. Except for this issue the two might have passed their whole lives without a word of conflict.
Not in the least willing to respect the wishes of Haldane, Mr. Ewing, after Iris removal to the West, still kept the writings of Glas and Sandeman prom- inently before his students. Robert Haldane was much chafed by that usage. When James A. Haldane went to Dumfries in the summer of the year 1801, being now at a distance from Edinburgh and from his brother, he wrote Ewing a letter which' had possibly been suggested before he left home, warning him against the retention of these books in the seminary, and complaining of his enthusiastic manner of speaking of those frigid and bitter theo- logians. (Memoirs, pp. 321, 322.) This resource, which was perhaps immediately suspected, did not in the least avail: Ewing kept on his way. At last,
44
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
in the year 1802, hopeless of his ability to reduce him to terms by any other means, Robert Haldane incontinently removed the seminary from Glasgow back to Edinburgh, and placed it in other hands. (Memoirs, pp. 299, 300.) When the institution was. opened in the latter place, Mr. Haldane not only forbade the books of Glas and Sandeman in the library, but laid upon the students an express pro- hibition against reading them anywhere else. (Facts and Documents, p. 82.)
But the time was far past for such precautions. Sandeman ian principles were already too deeply es- tablished in the minds of his people, to admit of their successful eviction by that or by any other method. Dr. Stuart, especially, was whispering them into the ear of James A. Haldane in two or three private interviews every week ; and Robert Haldane himself appears after a few years, through the influence of his brother, to perform the r61e of an exceedingly tenacious stickler for some of the most fantastic fea- tures of the " ancient order of things." (Facts and Documents, pp. 93-95 ; Memoirs, pp. 322-327.) In this regard he outstripped Mr. Ewing by many de- grees, and sometimes sorely harassed the consciences of his adherents; but in regard to the nature of faith, Ewing was much in the lead of both the brothers.
When, in the summer of the year 1800, Mr. Ewing at length, on the occasion of a temporary truce with Haldane (Facts and Documents, pp. 58-64), got the
THE II A LI) A X EA X 8.
45
consent of his mind to organize a church among the people who attended upon his ministry at Glasgow, he issued a handbill for the instruction of his con- gregation and of the public, entitled " Regulations of the Church, Jamaica Street," in which were included two items of the "ancient order;" namely, the mutual exhortation of the members of the Church, and the weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper. With re- gard to the former of these, however, the document seems to indicate that it was to be held not on Sun- day, but upon some other day of the week. It is also strict to insist upon what must have been a highly necessary provision : " that no personal re- marks, or injurious reports respecting character, were to be allowed in the Church." (Facts and Documents, pp. 64, 65.)
The custom of " mutual exhortation," the absence of which from the Scottish Kirk had given him an amount of uneasiness, had likewise been duly intro- duced by Mr. Ewing into the constitution of the Edinburgh society in December 1798. (Address by James A. Haldane to the Church of Christ, Leith Walk, Edinburgh. Edinburgh 1808, p. 11. This address is bound up at the back of Mr. Haldane's volume entitled "A View of the Social Worship and Ordinances of the First Christians," Edinburgh 1806.) But the Church in Edinburgh gave no prac- tical heed to that portion of their ecclesiastical chart until a later period, when the practice was inaugu- rated with a degree of success that was disgusting
46
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
even to such a stanch advocate of M primitive Chris- tianity''as Dr. Stuart himself. (Memoirs, p. 840.) On the other hand, the custom of weekly communion was not introduced by Mr. Ewing, at the outset, into the constitution which he had drawn up for the use of the Edinburgh society, since it was for several years the habit of that body to celebrate the Lord's Supper only once in the month. (Facts and Docu- ments, p. 129.) When, however, the improved ex- ample of the Glasgow Church became known to the disciples in Edinburgh, they likewise soon began to break the loaf every Sunday.
But the Haldanes were not prepared to stop at this point. James Haldane. being constantly in receipt of new light from Dr. Stuart and other Sandemanian sources, could not abide that his brilliancy should be concealed under a bushel. Accordingly, in the year 1805, he sent forth the first edition of his
View of the Social Worship and Ordinances," the second edition of which has just been cited above. There it is evident that he had made decided prog- ress in the lore of the Sandemanians. Their dialect is in very fine flow upon his pen. He stands forth like a man for the "express precept or approved precedent,*' about which Thomas Campbell was to speak with so much pathos a few years later in the wilds of Pennsylvania. There should be no creed nor confession of faith but the Scriptures. Here was the first distinct demand for a presbytery with a plurality of elders, that had been openly uttered
THE IIALDANEANS.
47
in the Haldanean connection. The collection that was always customary at the Lord's Supper now became designated as "the fellowship," after the best approved Sandemanian fashion.
But what gave Mr. Ewing particular offence was the circumstance that " mutual exhortation," which he had confined to Wednesday evening, was raised by Haldane to the dignity of a divine ordinance, and assigned to a place among the regular Sunday ob- servances of the congregation. Thereupon he began to draw back, and went so far the other way, that, in the end, he was seriously accused of entirely desert- ing his darling innovation. (Facts and Documents, pp. 126-129.) Matters finally got to such a pass that apparently almost the only principle upon which the two parties were heartily at one related to the J rejection of creeds. Though they were daily plead- ing for a union on the Bible, by some kind of means they were daily receding farther from each other, while each faction was accusing the other of a passion for change.
Unhappily for all concerned, Robert Haldane was too much impressed by a sense of the correctness and importance of the Sandemanian notions that had been propounded in his brother's recent publication. James had not expected or desired to produce any immediate results beyond "inciting his brethren in Christ to study the Scriptures on this and every other subject, and to appeal only to the law and to the testimony." (Preface, p. vii.) But shortly after the
48
TUE DISCIPLES OF CUBIST.
book left the press in June 1805, Robert Haldane and Mr. Ballantyne were on a visit to England; and, stopping on their way at Newcastle, they remained for some time practising the views of social worship that were developed in it. (Memoirs, p. 324.) Their conduct in this regard gave much offence. (Memoirs, p. 327.) Ballantyne and Haldane, while not exclud- ing those who were not of their own party, publicly exhorted one another in the forenoons, and mutually dispensed the Lord's Supper, without directing their remarks in the least to the audience who had as- sembled for worship, while in the afternoons and evenings they preached to the multitudes as usual. (Facts and Documents, p. 248.)
No person was bold enough to express the dissat- isfaction which many felt against the conduct of the Haldanes, until the year 1807, when Ballantyne issued a " Treatise on the Elder's Office," in which the posi- tion of James Haldane and the Sandemanians was duly enforced regarding the necessity of a plurality of these functionaries to the existence of a gospel Church. There is rarely any thing sadder to witness than the spectacle of Robert Haldane, unquestionably a splendid mind and spirit, leading the way in the puerile figures of the dance which John Glas had in- structed his own followers. Mr. Haldane became, in an offensive sense, responsible for the work of Bal- lantyne (Facts and Documents, pp. 97, 98), doing every thing that lay in his power to give it counte- nance and circulation.
THE HALDANEANS.
49
In answer to the challenge which he conceived had by this means been laid npon his own wing of the party, Mr. Ewing forthwith prepared and published an u Attempt towards a Statement of the Doctrine of Scripture on some disputed points respecting the Constitution, Government, Worship, and Discipline of the Church of Christ," Glasgow 1808. The breach between the factions was now first made public : it had long been incurable. The party of Ewing, which, perhaps, was numerically the smaller, became hence- forth practically isolated ; but their sentiments on the subjects of faith, infant-baptism, the mode of baptism, the duty of weekly communion and of mutual exhor- tation, placed them in closer sympathy and relations with the Sandemanians of the aspersion observance. On the other hand, the Haldanes were now be- come, in a measure, reckless. In order that the Edinburgh Church might conform to the apostolic model in the matter of a plurality of elders, Robert was speedily ordained to occupy a place by the side of James Alexander in that function. (Memoirs, p. 341.)
Possibly it was not without reference to the cir- cumstance that Mr. Ewing was leaning far to the side of the Sandemanian Independents, that James Haldane now began to turn towards the "Scotch Baptists." The patient labors of Charles Stuart were about to be crowned with success. This con- summation was promoted by the action of Mr. John Campbell, a beloved associate of the Haldanes, who
50
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
had gone over to the " Scotch Baptist " fraternity as early as the year 1803, since which time he had been pastor of a church at Kingsland, near London. (Memoirs, p. 297.) In a letter to this gentleman under date of Feb. 19, 1808, Haldane expresses strong scruples regarding the propriety of infant- baptism. (Memoirs, p. 325.) The 21st of April, 1808, was the date of another communication which announced that he had been immersed. (Memoirs, p. 325.) In a few months Robert also followed his brother in these changes.
This action did not result in any kind of organic union between the Haldaneans and the party that was led by Mr. Archibald McLean, but it was not many weeks until it had produced a hopeless dis- ruption of the Edinburgh Church and of the entire Haldanean body. The enterprise which started forth with so much promise was brought to hopeless desolation. There has been scarcely anywhere in modern Church history a more lame and impotent conclusion.
The Sandemanians had ruined the cause and Church of the Haldanes.
MB. CAMPBELL'S PEBVEBSIOX. 51
CHAPTER VI.
mr. Campbell's perversion to saitoemanianisbl (First Stage.')
It was not easy to follow in detail the process of Air. Campbell's perversion to Sandemanian views, until the publication of his biography by Professor Robert Richardson, an early disciple and for many years a bosom friend of the most prominent advo- cate of Sandemanianism in America. Though we are indebted to his " Memoirs of Alexander Camp- bell," Philadelphia 1868, for a considerable amount and variety of information regarding the early years of his master, there are still certain points of inquiry where he unhappily leaves us in the lurch. But the occasions for complaint are less numerous than the reasons for gratitude. The account which is here given is based almost entirely upon the representa- tions made by Professor Richardson.
Alexander Campbell was born near Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, on the 12th of September, 1788. (Memoirs, as above, vol. i. p. 19.) His father, Thomas Campbell, was a Seceder minister of the * Anti-Burgher branch (vol. i. p. 25), and lived in
52
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
quite humble circumstances. After suffering the ills of a probationer's existence for about ten years, his patience was at length rewarded by the pastoral charge of a new church at Ahorey, near Armagh (vol. i. pp. 29, 30). With the hope of eking out an insufficient salary, the young pastor took a farm near the village of Rich Hill, where he fixed his residence (vol. i. p. 30). The farm proving a failure, he went back to his early occupation of teaching school (vol. i. p. 47), removing for this purpose into the village. As his family increased in number, the individual advantages of the several children were in a corresponding degree curtailed. Alexander got what education he might at hap-hazard (vol. i. pp. 31-35, 48) ; but for several years, owing to the loss of most of his studious inclinations, his powers went to waste. At length his attention was directed to the importance of cultivation, and he set about the business of self-education (vol. i. p. 76), but with no unusual amount of success. Most of the time was passed in the capacity of an assistant in his father's school at Rich Hill, or in the performance of similar labors at the school of one of his uncles at Newry (vol. i. p. 88).
The circumstances of the family became at length so much straitened that they began to turn their eyes to the United States for " deliverance " (vol. i. pp. 80, 81, 86). The father preceded the balance of the household, setting sail from Londonderry on the 8th of April, 1807 (vol. i. p. 81). In the course of time
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION.
53
he was enabled to provide means for their passage ; and they took ship to follow him, on the 1st of October, 1808 (vol. i. p. 95). The funds for this purpose were likely procured by means of public contributions obtained from the different Presby- terian Churches of Western Pennsylvania. (Debate on Campbellism, between Alexander Campbell and Obadiah Jennings, Pittsburg 1832, pp. 246, 24T; compare Richardson, vol. i. pp. 306, 307.)
Six days after their embarkation, the family were wrecked on the island of Islay on the coast of Scot- land. Mrs. Campbell, his mother, being unwilling to intrust herself to the hazards of an ocean voyage in the winter season of the year, and Alexander being naturally desirous to repair in some measure the defects of his early education, it was arranged that they should pass the time until the approaching spring should open upon them, at Glasgow, where he might employ his leisure in attending the university. Meanwhile Thomas Campbell was actively engaged at his home in Washington County, Penn., in trying to relieve their distresses, and, in due time, to procure their transfer to the country of his adoption.
Already in their home at Rich Hill, Ireland, they had become familiar with the Scottish Independents. A somewhat flourishing Church of the Glasites, or Sandemanians of the aspersion observance, existed there (vol. i. pp. 60, 82). Professor Richardson admits (vol. i. p. 59) that " the Independents exerted a most important influence upon the religious views
54
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
of both Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander ; " but this influence did not become apparent during the period of their residence at Rich Hill. The former, it is true, had much pleasure in attending the religious services of the Sandemanian Church; but he was all the while in the full odor of Seceder orthodoxy, aod it is not likely that he would ever have forsaken his own people but for the somewhat extraordinary experiences that he was now called to encounter. Even the membership he held in the Haldanean "Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home " (vol. i. p. 73) does not necessarily signify any lack of devotion to his lifelong connections in the Presbyterian body. Many persons in various por- tions of the country had yielded to the eloquent and impassioned solicitations of James A. Haldane so far as to permit themselves to be enrolled in that organi- zation, who had no thought or wish to be known as followers of the Haldanes.
The only perceptible influence exerted by the Sandemanians of Rich Hill upon the Presbyterian pastor of the place may be observed in the fact that he is reported to have made an overture either before the Presbytery of Market Hill or the Synod of Ire- v land, " in favor of a more frequent celebration of the Lord's Supper " (vol. i. p. 69) ; but it is not stated that he was bold enough to advocate a weekly observ- ance. For the rest, he must have been at this time almost unaffected by the ordinary Sandemanian con- siderations in favor of the " mutual exhortation " of
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION. 55
church-members, or of the various other preposterous imitations of Christ that were peculiar to the people in question. In brief, Alexander is believed to have been the leader in the unhappy progress that was later made by both father and son in the direction of the Independents.
When they were wrecked on the island of Islay, one of the most influential persons with whom Alex- ander became acquainted was Mr. George Fulton, who, in addition to his duties as pedagogue for the community, also stood at the head of a Sunday school, — probably one of those which James A. Haldane and his co-laborer John Campbell had established during their famous visit to Greenock and other com- munities in the West of Scotland for that purpose, in the year 1797 (vol. i. p. 159). He was at pains to visit the Sunday school of Mr. Fulton (vol. i. p. 108), — an act which must have won the favorable regards of that excellent person, for, when Alexander left the place for his sojourn in Glasgow, he was the bearer of a letter of introduction from Fulton to Mr. Greville Ewing (vol. i. p. 114).
His arrival in Glasgow occurred on the afternoon of the 3d of November 1808. Although he had been thoughtful enough to procure letters of introduction to several persons in the city (vol. i. pp. 114, 115), it somehow befell that the letter to Mr. Ewing was the first which he was minded to present (vol. i. p. 128). It secured him a night's lodging, and per- haps a large amount of well-deserved sympathy.
56
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
The next morning, having been informed that he was of the Seceder persuasion, Mr. Ewing gave him a note to the Rev. John Mitchel (vol. i. p. 128), who, it is believed, was one of the two ministers of that order in Glasgow, Mr. Moutre being the other. (Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, by Alexander Campbell, of Bethany, Va., Cincinnati 1861, p. 117.) Mr. Mitchel was attentive enough to render him some degree of assistance in finding lodgings, per- haps in the house of one of his Seceder parishioners. (Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, vol. i. p. 128.)
But by some means Alexander seems to have al- ready acquired a kind of distaste for the Seceders. The lodging which Mr. Mitchel had procured for the family was speedily concluded to be incommodious, and must needs be replaced by another of Mr. E wing's selection, which was likely in the home of one of the members of his own church (vol. i. p. 130). This may appear to be a trivial circumstance ; but when we are reminded what an important effect the influence of Ewing produced upon the fortunes of the Campbell family, no transaction that fell out between them can wisely be overlooked. From this time Mr. Ewing was the chief counsellor of the household, and his praises were on the tongue of every member of it (vol. i. pp. 148, 149).
He was always ready to employ his good offices in their service. Through his courtesy Alexander was carried about and introduced to each of the professors of the university (vol. i. p. 130). It was
MB. CAMPBELL'S PEBVEBSION.
57
likewise, perhaps, by his assistance, that Alexander was enabled to make up those classes in the rudi- mentary branches which he taught in private for the purpose of improving the narrow finances of the family (vol. i. p. 139), and by means of which it must have been rendered nearly impossible that he should make any solid progress in his own studies ; a serious misfortune in view of the fact, that, by reason of the sad necessities of the situation, his early edu- cation had been left incomplete. At every point the toils of the excellent and plausible Ewing encircled the ingenuous and inexperienced boy. He was fre- quently invited to the house of Ewing in order to take dinner or tea (vol. i. p. 149) ; before the winter was past, the disciple of Glas found himself on a decid- edly intimate footing with the son of the Irish Sececler pastor (vol. i. pp. 148, 149). Alexander had obtained a great impression of the learning and piety of his new friend (vol. i. p. 187), and was soon as pliable under Ewing's manipulations as clay in the hands of the potter. Professor Richardson truly says (vol. i. p. 148), that his " stay at Glasgow was destined to work an entire change in the views and feelings of Alexander in respect to the existing denominations, and to disengage his sympathies entirely from the Seceder denomination, and every other form of Pres- byterianism." He is likewise correct in the admis- sion that " the change seems to have been occasioned chiefly through his intimacy with Greville Ewing." Moreover, Ewing was esteemed "a very fine lecturer,
58
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
and very popular both as a man and as a preacher, as was also Mr. Warcllaw, who frequently officiated." With Mr. Moutre, the pastor of the Seceder Church where his mother and the family attended worship, Alexander would naturally have small sympathy; and before the close of the winter his private note- books exhibited various evidences of his impatience (vol. i. p. 187).
It is not necessary to set down in further detail the features of this old and vulgar story, which has been enacted a thousand times before and since in many parts of the earth. It will be sufficient to call atten- tion to the conclusion of it as recorded by the biogra- pher of Mr. Campbell. Professor Richardson relates, that Alexander "became gradually more and more favorable to the principles of Congregationalism entertained by Mr. Ewing, which secured an entire emancipation from the control of domineering Synods and General Assemblies, and which seemed to him much more accordant with primitive usage. At the same time, he did not feel himself at liberty rashly to abandon the cherished religious sentiments of his youth, and the Seceder Church to which his father and the family belonged, and in which he thought it his duty to be a regular communicant.
He was in this unsettled state of mind as the semi-annual communion season of the Seceders ap- proached, and his doubts in regard to the character of such religious establishments occasioned him no little anxiety of mind concerning the proper course
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION.
59
for him to pursue. His conscientious misgivings as to the propriety of sanctioning any longer, by parti- cipation, a religious system which he disapproved ; and, on the other hand, his sincere desire to comply with all his religious obligations, — created a serious conflict in his mind, from which he found it impossi- ble to escape. At the time of preparation, however, he concluded that he would be in the way of his duty, at least, and that he would go to the elders and get a metallic token, which every one who wished to communicate had to obtain, and that he would use it or not, afterward, as was sometimes done. The elders asked for his credentials as a member of the Secession Church ; and he informed them that his membership was in the Church in Ireland, and that he had no letter. They replied that in that case it would be necessary for him to appear before the Session and to be examined. He accordingly appeared before them, and, being ex- amined, received the token. The hour at which the Lord's Supper was to take place found him still undecided ; and, as there were about eight hundred communicants, and some eight or nine tables to be served in succession, he concluded to wait until the last table, in hopes of being able to overcome his scruples. Failing in this, however, and unable any longer to recognize the Seceder Church as the Church of Christ, he threw his token upon the plate handed round, and, when the elements were passed along the table, declined to partake with the rest.
60
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
It was at this moment that the struggle in his mind was completed ; and the ring of the token falling upon the plate, announced the instant at which he renounced Presbyterianisni forever, — the leaden voucher becoming thus a token, not of communion, but of separation." (Richardson, Memoirs of Alex- ander Campbell, vol. i. pp. 189, 190.)
In brief words, the conquest of Greville Ewing and of his particular type of Sandemanianism was then first firmly established. Though he had entered Scotland comparatively innocent of these vagaries, Alexander turned away from the country at the end of three hundred days (vol. i. p. 194), in a state of more or less abject slavery to them. With this view his own statement, made some years later in the pages of the paper which he edited in Virginia, is in agreement, where in speaking of the confirmed dis- gust he felt against the " popular schemes " he adds, " which I confess I principally imbibed when a student at the University of Glasgow.'" (C.B., edit. 6, p. 72.)
Let the fact be likewise considered, that Alexan- der entered Glasgow on the 3d of November, 1808, which left a period of not quite seven full months since the time when James A. Haldane had given such dire offence to Ewing and Wardlaw and the men of that faction, by submitting to the rite of immersion without waiting for their initiative. The circles in which he was received were by conse- v quence very full of opposition to the course of the Haldanes in drawing near to the immersed wing of
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION.
61
the Sandemanian fraternity. It is likely that Mr. Ewing and the church over which he presided had already taken the remarkable step by which they " refused to have visible communion with those who adhered to the Haldanes " (vol. i. p. 181). Alex- ander was, therefore, in no situation to hear the Haldane side of the controversy, and in no state of mind to do the Haldanes justice in case he had been permitted to hear it.
Accordingly it is perfectly natural that he should be inclined to favor the cause of the Sandemanians of the aspersion observance ; and there is no good reason why Professor Richardson should find it somewhat singular, that during his residence in Glas- gow none of the questions connected with infant- baptism and immersion engaged Mr. Campbell's attention in the least (vol. i. pp. 186, 187). Ewing and his co-adjutor Wardlaw were both of them at the moment vehemently exercising themselves in opposition to immersion and to the baptism of adults only (vol. i. p. 187). Alexander could have heard scarcely any thing else than arguments in favor of infant-baptism and aspersion, at such times as he was admitted to a place at their tables. These disquisitions would naturally fall in with his pre- vious convictions regarding those topics. He had not yet enjoyed an occasion to become intimately acquainted with the immersion wing of the Sande- manian body.
62
THE DISCIPLES OF CUBIST.
CHAPTER VTL
me. Campbell's eaeliest success as a propagandist.
Peofessoe Richardson has, unhappily, left in a state of incompleteness that portion of his volumes which relates to the perversion to Sandemanian views of Thomas Campbell, the father of Alexander. It is very natural that he should be inclined to do as much honor as possible to the father of his hero ; but in accomplishing this purpose he is suspected to have been, in some degree, unfaithful to the facts of history.
His readers must present their acknowledgments to the excellent author for the care he has often exhibited in permitting his characters to address the public in their own persons. Alexander Campbell seems to have been one of that kind of men who ✓ rarely ever lose a letter, whether the same were re- ceived or sent by him. Much of his early epistolary correspondence was strictly copied down in note- books that he kept for the purpose of preserving documents that were of any sort of interest. A libe- ral share of the letters which passed between himself and his father, Thomas Campbell, have been repro-
MR. CAMPBELL AS A PROPAGANDIST. 63
duced in the pages of the biographer ; but, singularly enough, not one of those is published which belongs to the time of Alexander's sojourn in Glasgow. This defect is to be regretted, since, if it were supplied, some light might fall from that source on the course of Thomas Campbell's proceedings during the same season in Pennsylvania.
In the narrative of Professor Richardson it is represented that Thomas Campbell had reached a position substantially like that to which Greville Ewing had brought his son, by means of his own private reflections and experiences, without any refer- ence to communications that he might have received from Alexander while the latter was detained in Glas- gow (Memoirs, vol. i. p. 220) ; but this conclusion is, for several reasons, inadmissible. Every thing, for ex- ample, that is reported of Thomas Campbell, whether in the volume which contains his own Memoirs (Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, by Alexander Campbell of Bethany, Va., Cincinnati, 1861), or in the biography which Professor Richardson has supplied of his son Alexander, goes to show that he was a timid, inefficient person. There are no certain proofs that he was capable of independent thought or action, either at this or an}^ other period of his life. The facts and instances which might serve to estab- lish the propriety of this judgment regarding him are too numerous and circumstantial to be repeated here, but it would not be difficult to supply them on demand.
64
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
Moreover, it is not to be supposed that Thomas Campbell, in Pennsylvania, was kept in ignorance of the experiences of his family in Glasgow, nor of the kindness of Greville Ewing towards them, especially as every member of the household was glad to ac- knowledge the extent of their obligations to him. (Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, vol. i. p. 149.) The heart of the good and weak man would naturally be moved with gratitude towards the distant bene- factor, and there would be no just bounds to his admiration for the greatness and power and conde- scension of the noble Sandemanian. Comparisons would easily be drawn between the kindness and attentions of Mr. Ewing, and the relative coldness and neglect of the Seceder minister, Mr. Moutre ; and there would be no very careful reflections upon the circumstance that the distant bearing of his ministe- rial colleague might be due to the passion which his own loved ones had conceived for a disagreeable rival.
Again, it is entirely possible that Alexander was not slow to communicate the points of that inti- mate knowledge of Mr. Ewing's previous religious history which he had been enabled to acquire in the progress of his exceptionally friendly intercourse with him (vol. i. p. 149). By means of this kind, Thomas Campbell, who, perhaps, was already in subjection to the imperious will of his son, would be placed in possession of several items of news that were highly acceptable to a husband and father in his own unfor- tunate situation.
ME. CAMPBELL AS A PROPAGANDIST. 65
By degrees, as Alexander found himself "grad- ually becoming more and more favorable to the principles of Congregationalism entertained by Mr. Ewing" (vol. i. p. 189), various considerations in support of these would be included in his epistolary communications with his absent parent. These sug- gestions would each of them fall upon a mind and heart which had been prepared to receive them with cordiality. The father, in his rather exceptional weakness of character, would perceive that himself also sympathized with Alexander's distaste for the people among whom he was brought up, and witli whom his fortunes had been the reverse of nourishing.
Under circumstances of this kind, it is not a matter of surprise, — it is only what might be rea- sonably anticipated, — that Thomas Campbell should become involved in a controversy with the Seceders of the vicinity where he kept his residence. In the spring of the year 1809, while his family were still in Glasgow, a libel was laid against him in the Pres- bytery of Chartiers, " containing various formal and specified charges, the chief of which were, that he had failed to inculcate strict adherence to the Church standard and usages, and had even expressed his dis- approval of some things in said standard, and of the uses made of them " (vol. i. p. 225). The case was appealed to the Associate Synod of North America, which convened in the fall of the year 1809. From the letter of protest that was addressed by Mr. Camp-
66
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
bell at the time to this body (Memoirs of Thomas ,Campbell, by Alexander Campbell, pp. 12-15), it may be gathered that the objections urged against him related to the usual Sandemanian scruples con- cerning the impropriety of any human standards of belief, and to his advocacy of the customary Sande- manian position that the Scriptures are the only admissible standard, to the exclusion of all kinds of creeds and confessions of faith. Here was the earliest, if not the most brilliant, conquest which Alexander was enabled to make on behalf of San- demanianism.
It is possible that the troubles which arose in the Presbytery of Chartiers were duly reported to the family, who were then abiding in Glasgow. Tidings of these occurrences may have reached their ears before the communion season already mentioned, at which Alexander was successful in making up his mind no longer to recognize the Seceder Church as the Church of Christ (vol. i. p. 190). Although his case was pending before the Synod, Mr. Camp- bell did not leave off proclaiming the Sandemanian notions which had just met with decided opposition in the Presbytery. The churches of his Seceder brethren, it would appear, were promptly closed against his access ; but he found accommodation for the people who were disposed to give heed to him, in the private houses of various persons who might be inclined to show him that favor (vol. i. p. 231). In this labor of making propaganda for his new
MB. CAMPBELL AS A PROPAGANDIST. 67
principles, he received especial support from certain members of the Sandemanian Church in Rich Hill, Ireland, who had emigrated to America but a fort- night after he himself had come over (vol. i. pp. 81-83). Regarding one of these, who was the pre- centor of the Church, Professor Richardson truly says (vol. i. p. 82), " This James Foster was destined to take no unimportant part in Thomas Campbell's future religious movements." In fact, he was the faithful and efficient ally of Alexander in the efforts he made to draw his father away from his former allegiance to Presbyterian doctrines and polity.
Before the summer of 1809 was half closed, Thomas Campbell was engaged in meditating a scheme by which it might be in his power to put his new-found notions into practice. He proposed to his followers the propriety of holding a meeting for the purpose of imparting greater definiteness to the movement in which they were embarked. Perhaps it was some time during the month of May or June that one such was appointed at the house of Abraham Altars, one of his more subservient adherents (vol. i. p. 231).
When that meeting had been duly convened and addressed, Mr. Campbell proposed, as a basis for all further action, the motto : " Where the Scriptures speak, we speak ; where they are silent, we are silent." Here was, beyond dispute, an excellent ideal ; but, in point of fact, it could hardly ever amount to any
68
THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
thing more than an ideal. Neither Thomas Campbell, nor Alexander, nor any of their supporters has ever possessed wit enough to give effect to it by mak- ing out just where the Scriptures do speak. Great abuses once prevailed among them in that regard, which Alexander attempted to regulate by composing and publishing a fourth-rate treatise on the subject of Biblical Interpretation. Nothing was clearer than that the Campbells were hopeless failures in the de- partment of exegesis, as most of their people have been ; at any rate, they could lay no sort of claim to infallibility. Consequently it was impossible for them to apply their watchword to any advantage. What is the profit of professing to speak where the Scrip- tures speak, without more power than these gentle- men had to determine where the Scriptures speak or where they are silent ?
However, the above motto was a neat and popu- lar expression of the fundamental principle of Mr. Greville Ewing. (Facts and Documents, pp. 124, 130.) It is likewise nothing more than is professed in fact, if not in form, by every sect of religious worshippers in Christendom. Mr. Ewing and Mr. Haldane had both adhered to this motto with all the skill and devotion they could command, but with the sad result of perceiving, that, instead of the excellent Christian union which they so ardently desired, they were daily drifting farther apart. Ewing even felt himself constrained to deny any visible fellowship with the sometime friend and associate to whom he
MR. CAMPBELL AS A PROPAGANDIST. 69
was under the deepest obligations for kindness be- stowed. Nevertheless, he had not lost any portion of his faith in this watchword, believing that there was virtue in it to charm every discord that might arise in the Christian world. It is likely, that, in the mouth of Thomas Campbell, it signified nothing more important than, " Where Mr. Ewing speaks, we speak ; and where he is silent, we are silent."
Whether the father or the son should be awarded the credit of imparting this taking expression to the leading principle of Ewing, is an inquiry that may not be easily determined. It is not unlikely that the first meeting and its incidents were duly and minutely reported to Alexander beyond the seas ; he may have had knowledge of the whole business before he set sail for America on the 3d of August 1809. The chief result of this preliminary meeting was not enacted until the 17th of August, when Alexander was already on the high seas. On that date was formed " The Christian Association of Washington," which appears to have been modelled in several re- spects after the pattern of the Haldanean " Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home," of which Thomas Campbell was a member during his residence in Ireland.
The first act of this Association was to issue a " Declaration and Address," the proofs of which were just coming from the press when Alexander arrived with the family at Washington, Penn., on the 28th of October 1809 (vol. i. p. 246). This document
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THE DISCIPLES OE CHRIST.
embraced a number of considerations in elucidation and advocacy of the principle that the Scriptures are in themselves a sufficient guide without the aid of any confession of faith or other kind of standard. It confined itself to somewhat narrow limits and general statements, its author not venturing to step beyond the boundaries winch had been set for him in Scotland, through the example of Mr. Ewing, and possibly through the dictation of Alexander.
In the autumn of the year 1S09. his letter of pro- test against the censure of the Presbytery of Char- tiers was brought to the attention of the Associate Synod of North America, and along with it a copy of the M Declaration and Address " which in the in- terval had been published (vol. i. p. 228). The ' Synod were kindly disposed towards him, and, re- versing the action of the Presbytery, directed that he should be released from censure. At this point the narrative of Professor Richardson is confused and indefinite, but it suffices to indicate (vol. i. p. 229) that the Presbytery were not content with the ruling of the Synod ; and at their next session, perhaps in the spring of 1S10, instead of dismissing the censure they renewed it, and referred the case back to the Synod. Thomas Campbell, conscious perhaps that his course was reprehensible, and for the moment unwilling to be debarred from religious communion, submitted to receive this second censure. However, instead of quitting his schismatical practices as the Presbytery now had a right to expect he would do,
MR. CAMPBELL AS A PROPAGANDIST. 71
he persevered in them. Justly offended by his con- duct, which they perhaps interpreted as a breach of faith, the Presbytery placed his movements under strict surveillance, with a view to their own protec- tion, and in order to establish by undeniable proofs the correctness of their judgment against him when the Synod should again bring forward the case for review and decision. In this latter respect they were so far successful that the defendant himself must have become aware that it would be useless to continue the litigation. Accordingly, before the Synod met to consider the questions involved, Mr. Campbell found it prudent to hand in a formal re- nunciation of its authority, in which he declared that he should henceforth hold himself "utterly unaffected by its decisions " (vol. i. p. 230). These occurrences are supposed to belong to the autumn of the year 1810.
About the same time that he was engaged in declaring his independence of the Seceders, Thomas Campbell is found presenting an overture to the reg- ular Presbyterians of the Synod of Pittsburg, pray- ing for the reception of the " Christian Association of Washington " into their communion. That body heard him with respect while he unfolded the beauties of Mr. Ewing's principle, and then coolly dismissed him (vol. i. pp. 327, 328). After this rebuff it was soon decided by the Campbells to organize a church of their own, a task which was accomplished at the regular semi-annual meeting of the Associa-
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
tion, on the 2d of May, 1811 (vol. i. pp. 366-368). This church was organized as nearly as might be after the fashion of the one over which Greville Ewing presided in Glasgow (vol. i. p. 349). It had weekly communion (vol. i. p. 373) ; it main- tained the biblical propriety of the independent form of church government (vol. i. pp. 345, 346, and p. 349) ; it favored lay preaching in the same way Ewing did (vol. i. p. 346) ; it did not adopt the notion of a plurality of elders, which Ewing also now rejected ; and was content with choosing Thomas Campbell as elder, although Alexander was licensed to preach (vol. i. p. 367). Like Mr. Ewing, both the Campbells were still in favor of infant- baptism.
Nevertheless, out of regard for James Foster, the precentor of the Sandemanian Church in Rich Hill, who had refused even in Ireland to have his children baptized (vol. i. p. 82), they were prevented from taking as definite grounds on that subject as their Scottish master was in the custom of assuming. Thomas Campbell, it would appear, strove hard to keep in the steps of Ewing in this quarter ; but it was, perhaps, impossible for him to manage Foster. The Sandemanian precentor was highly scrupulous, and labored much to bring his friend over to his own way of thinking (vol. i. p. 240). Under these circumstances there was no other resource than to make infant-baptism a matter of forbearance (vol. i. pp. 325 and 345). Considering the altered cir-
JlfR. CAMPBELL AS A PROPAGANDIST. 73
cumstances, this was keeping quite well in the track that had been marked out for them. "Mutual exhortation " also cut no figure at this moment in the Brush Run Church ; Mr. Ewing, it will be remem- bered, had become disgusted with that item of " the ancient order of things " before Alexander's arrival in Glasgow, and was even charged by the Haldanes with turning against it. (Facts and Documents, p. 126ff.) Alexander was always unfavorable to it (vol. ii. p. 128), and opposed his influence when it was later introduced at Brush Run. Alexander must have frequently heard of the theological classes which Ewing was intrusted to teach during the first two years of his residence in Glasgow. The suggestion was not lost upon him. As early as he could after his arrival in Pennsylvania, steps were taken to organize a similar class. Its first, and, so far as reported, its only students, were James Foster and Abraham Altars (vol. i. pp. 277-279).
There was one single point, however, in which he had not yet learned to speak with Ewing. Whether that failure is due to the multitude of cares which must have beset him as the head of the family in Glasgow, robbing him of most of the leisure which otherwise he might have devoted to his studies ; or whether he had a keener appreciation of matters re- lating to the " ancient order " than of such as related to the " ancient gospel ; " or whether, in the third instance, he experienced a difficulty in the prospect of surrendering the view which he had always held
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
concerning the nature of saving faith, — must remain, for the present, a theme of conjecture. But, whatever should be the right explanation of the phenomenon, Alexander rejected, for a while, the conceit of Ewing and the Sandemanians, that faith is nothing other than mere belief, which is produced by testimony alone, without reference to the regenerating grace of God. On the 7th of April 1811, about twenty months after he had left behind him the advantages of the personal tutelage of his master, he is still found holding fast to the orthodox Seceder convic- tions regarding this subject (vol. i. p. 376).
But the period was near at hand when he should accede to the notion of his master touching this point also, and, at the same time, go beyond him in other respects. The 7th of April 1811, is the latest date on which, according to the representations of his biographer, he was willing to affirm that faith "is of the operation of God, and an effect of almighty power and regenerating grace'''
The Brush Run Church which Alexander had suc- ceeded in organizing out of the material that com- posed the " Christian Association of Washington," including his own, embraced the names of twenty- eight persons (vol. i. p. 373). These were the first- fruits of his labors on behalf of the Sandemanian cause. He was untiring in his exertions, both in the neighborhood of his residence and elsewhere. On the 16th of May, 1811, he undertook his first mission- ary journey, which carried him into the State of Ohio,
ME. CAMPBELL AS A PROPAGANDIST. 75
and gave him a store of experience, but a very slight measure of success (vol. i. pp. 370, 371). In August he again went forth, and was employed most of the time until the close of the year ; but the people were nowhere inclined to favor the innovations which he v had borrowed from Scotland (vol. i. p. 379).
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CHAPTER VIII. mr. Campbell's perversion to sandemanianism. (Second Stage.*)
Already in boyhood, during his residence in Ire- land, Alexander had become aware of the existence and the tenets of the Sandemanians of the immersion observance. His biographer is careful to note the fact that before the family departed from Rich Hill, he had " been much pleased with the works of Arch- ibald M'Lean, especially his work on 4 The Commis- sion,' of which he was wont ever after to speak in the highest terms " (vol. i. p. 71). This inci- dent is of importance to the student of his life and changes.
The Brush Run Church does not appear to have enjoyed a great degree of harmony of conviction in its efforts to "unite on the Bible." On the third day after its organization, a question was raised that must have given the members an amount of solici- tude. When the Lord's Supper was celebrated for the first time on Sunday, the 4th of May 1811, it was remarked that three of the members — Joseph Bryant, Margaret Fullerton, and Abraham Altars —
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION.
77
refrained from the elements. Upon inquiry made for the reasons which might influence them to pursue this course, it was discovered that neither of them had ever been baptized after any of the various modes in which that ordinance is administered among Chris- tian communities (vol. i. pp. 371, 372).
The difficulty would have been of easy adjustment if these parties had been willing to accept baptism by affusion. In that instance there would have been no kind of obstacle in the way of Thomas Camp- bell's speaking where Mr. Ewing spoke. But they were unhappily decided in their conviction that the " ancient order of things " provided for baptism by immersion. Joseph Bryant would likewise appear to have taken the lead in making the demand for this foim of the ordinance (vol. i. p. 372), and he was a person whom it was exceedingly desirable to concili- ate. Besides the fact that he had rendered most efficient service in erecting the house of worship at Brush Run (vol. i. p. 322), it may also be mentioned that he had been an attentive member of "The Christian Association," and perhaps already was rec- ognized as an eligible match for Miss Dorothea Campbell, to whom he was united in marriage about twenty months later, on the 13th of January 1813 (vol. i. p. 458). It was, therefore, very trying to resist Mr. Bryant's conscientious scruples and his earnest solicitations.
On the other hand, Thomas Campbell was loath to depart from the platform of Greville Ewing A dis-
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST,
cussion of two months' duration was carried on, at the end of which Bryant was successful. Mr. Campbell immersed him and Iris two friends on the 4th of July 1811 (vol. i. p. 372). But this con- cession to the wishes of a few did not mend the condition of affairs ; it only whetted the appetite for other changes. James Foster, the Sandemanian pre- centor, who witnessed it, was not edified by the man- ner in which the ceremony was performed. Instead of entering the water along with the subjects, the administrator stood on the root of a tree at the side of the pool, bending down their heads until they had been covered by the water. Furthermore, in order to signify the position which he had now brought himself to occupy, Foster expressed the opinion that it was incongruous for one who had not been bap- tized in his own person, to administer the rite to other people (vol. i. p. 373). Manifestly it was becom- ing daily more impracticable for the Campbells to walk in E wing's way. They must either leave it, or submit to witness the Church which they had estab- lished at Brush Run go to pieces. An earnest dis- cussion had been some time going forward on the subject of immersion (vol. i. p. 393), and it was not a great while before " many of those connected with Thomas Campbell had advanced beyond him." They were restrained from carrying out their convic- tions, and submitting to this form of the rite, by nothing else than " the respect which they felt was due to his position " (vol. i. pp. 399, 400).
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION.
79
Alexander seems now to have perceived that speedy action must be had, else their cause was lost. He therefore resolved to take the step which it was becoming evident the larger portion of the Church demanded at the hands of himself and his father. Accordingly he made preparations to pro- cure his own immersion (vol. i. p. 395). When he went to communicate his intention to his father, an ally was found in the house in the person of his sister Dorothea (vol. i. p. 395). Naturally con- cerned to avoid an explosion in the Church, by means of which she might be required to decide between the affection she bore her parents, and her affection for the man to whom she was, perhaps, already betrothed, she had become, like Mr. Bryant, a decided advocate of immersion. If Bryant, and the majority of the little community at Brush Run, could have been induced to tolerate aspersion, it is probable that the Campbells would never have found it convenient to leave the side of the sprinkling Sandemanians.
But affairs had taken a direction which it was not in their power to control, and they were compelled to follow the current. Alexander's previous acquaint- ance with the treatise of Archibald M'Lean on " The Commission of Christ " must have now done him a service, giving him a rudder by which to steer his course. The father, then as always pliant before the stronger will of his son, was not disposed to offer any serious objections, and at the last moment
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
decided to be immersed himself (vol. i. p. 376). The event occurred on the 12th of June 1812 ; the rite being performed by a Baptist minister of the Redstone Association, named Matthias Luce. Four days afterwards, thirteen other members of the Church were immersed by Thomas Campbell. The remainder, who would not accede to the new change, went their way, leaving behind them a Church of twenty members who were united in approbation of the course that had been pursued, and whose clamors perhaps had made it necessary. James Foster was one of the thirteen (vol. i. p. 403).
A circumstance of personal concern to Alexander also had a certain share in the business of directing his attention to these issues. On the 13th of March 1812, his first child was born. The question of in- fant-baptism, therefore, became to him a topic of special interest. Doubtless with reference to the scruples of James Foster, he had formerly urged that this point should be treated as a matter of for- bearance (vol. i. p. 392). That was the utmost limit to which he might safely advance if he desired to retain the sympathy and support of so important a personage. It does not appear that he had even ventured as far as that since the 5th of June 1811, possibly abstaining through fear of provoking an ♦undesirable conflict. If now he had dared to baptize his own child, after its birth in March 1812, he must have done so with the conviction that the act would cost him the affections and the countenance of most
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION. 81
of the communicants at Brush Run. At any rate, he could not make up his mind to provoke the Church in that way; and, contrary to the position of Greville Ewing, his child was compelled to dis- v pense with baptism.
The winter of 1811-12 was in other directions an eventful one for the Brush Run Church. Fore- seeing that he would be constrained by the force of circumstances to take final leave of Mr. Ewing, Alexander began to take further lessons in the " an- cient order." Before the first day of January 1812, he had become convinced of the propriety of main- v taming a plurality of elders in every church (vol. i. p. 385) ; and on that day he was ordained, possibly in order that the Church might be provided with a Presbytery after the Sandemanian model. On the occasion of Thomas Campbell's removal from the vicinity, in the year 1813, James Foster was or- dained in his place, that the Presbytery might not be destroyed by his absence (vol. i. pp. 458, 459). Plurality of elders had now, to all appearances, become the article of a standing or falling Church.
While yet a resident of Rich Hill, Alexander had been made personally acquainted with one John v Walker, a learned and unfortunate gentleman whose literalism had rendered him one of the most fantastic of all the Sandemanians (vol. i. p. 61). He was so far gone in the "ancient order" that he "sold his carriage and travelled on foot through Ireland, and also through England," proclaming the virtues of an
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
exact conformity to the minutest details of it (vol. i. p. 61). During the season here under review, Alex- ander seems to have returned to his youthful admira- tion for this exceedingly queer head. He attentively perused his writings, and to a degree made him the man of his counsel (vol. i. p. 466). It was from Walker, perhaps, that he obtained the singular notion about religious communion, which on the 26th of February 1812, caused him to question the propriety of family prayer wherever the family might be com- posed in part of unbelievers (vol. i. pp. 447-449 ; cf. p. 61). As has been already shown, numbers of the Scottish Sandemanians refused to maintain family prayer ; but these generally referred their objections to a literalistic interpretation of the injunction which ordains that men shall enter into their closets alone, and there address the heavenly Father in secret. They likewise made much of the fact that there is no distinct biblical command enjoining in so many words the duty of praying in the family. The form in which Alexander's scruple was indicated, however, suggests rather the influence of Walker.
The admiration he felt for this impossible character was never abated. In his last years he condemned himself because he had not kept closer to Walker's rigid and exclusive principles (vol. i. p. 454). As a specimen of that gentleman's extraordinary proceed- ings, it may not be amiss to mention a visit he made to Edinburgh, perhaps to confer with the Haldanes, who went very far in the direction of restoring " the
MB. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION. 83
ancient order." The usual Sandemanian custom pre- scribes the Lord's Supper on every Lord's Day. But Walker could find nobody in all the city who was good enough to enjoy this rite of religious commun- ion, except the travelling companion who had made the journey with him, and a single student of medi- cine in the university. These three ate the elements alone. (Facts and Documents, p. 247.) Professor Richardson also records the fact that Walker's spirit- ual arrogance was cultivated to such an extreme " that it was a special point with him, strictly to pro- hibit the performance of any religious act without removing to a distance (if in the same room) from every person who refused to obey a precept that could be generally applied ; insisting that true wor- ship could be rendered only by those who receive and obey the same truths in common " (vol. i. p. 61).
The arrogance of the Scottish Sandemanians did not always carry them quite so far, but it was not unusual for principles of this kind to be applied in the public worship of their churches on the Lord's Day. A Sandemanian Church of the immersion ob- servance had been established in the city of New York, in the autumn of the year 1810, under Elders Henry Erritt and William Ovington, which was quite as fantastic an institution as one could reasonably desire. In the customary style of the party, they rejected all human creeds, rules, covenants, thinking the Scriptures perfect enough for direction in every thing. Church edifices were no part of the " ancient
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order of things," neither were pulpits : they hired a hall, and claimed that it was not possible elsewhere to witness the sight of a church assembled together. (Benedict, History of the Baptists. Boston 1813. vol. ii. p. 409). This body held four public services in the week, at neither of which were any but com- municants admitted ; at another public service ap- pointed for Tuesday evening, they were willing to see the outside world, and to preach the gospel to them. (Benedict, as above.) In the year 1818, they had so far mended their manners as to permit the " world " to attend on Sunday evenings, after the regular wor- ship of the Church had been concluded, at which time the elders, and some others of the brethren approved by the Church, would be gracious enough to declare the gospel to them. (Christian Baptist, p. 389.)
By some means Alexander had become aware of these ridiculous proceedings of the immersed Sande- manians, and was immediately captivated. He re- solved to copy them in that as well as in so many other singularities; and when, after his immersion, the Brush Run Church was re-organized on the basis of the "Scotch Baptists," no person "was recognized as duly prepared to partake in religious services, except those who had professed to put on Christ in baptism." (Richardson, vol. i. p. 454.)
The absurd tenor of his sentiments, and the sin- cerity of his conversion to these idle puerilities, may be illustrated by the fact that when he attended the session of the Redstone Association, in August
MR. CAMPBELL' S PERVERSION. 85
1812, he could not be induced to preach before the ^ outside public, as other ministers were in the custom of doing. Every solicitation of that kind was de- clined. On the contrary, he was willing to discourse "one evening in a private family to some dozen preachers and twice as many laymen " (vol. i. p. 440). This conduct would be inexplicable on any other supposition, except that Alexander's motto seems now to have suffered an alteration, by means of which it should read, " Where the Scotch Baptists w speak, we speak ; " and not many of these could be found who went to more wretched extremes.
Thomas Campbell, as usual, was the obedient echo of his son in the suggestions made by the latter in favor of this arrogant policy of exclusion (vol. i. pp. 449-454). If the father and son had but fol- lowed that policy continuously and consistently, it is not in the least probable that our country would have been burdened with the shame and evils of Mormon- ism, — which grew out of the Disciples' movement, — since their influence would have been so much circumscribed that their enterprise could have affected few persons besides themselves and their immediate dependents.
A portion of the winter of 1811-12 was also devoted to the task of acquiring the doctrine and the dialect of the Sandemanians in relation to faith. In a letter directed to Mr. Robert B. Semple in April 1826, Alexander informs him that he had " appropriated one winter season for examining this subject." (Chris-
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tian Bap., p. 228.) The facts, however, as they are set down by his biographer, show that this was not an entirely correct reminiscence ; for, in addition to his investigations regarding the nature of faith, it is clear, from what has been said above, that he also found time to investigate and accept the Sandemanian doctrine concerning the plurality of elders ; to change his mind about the action of baptism and about the propriety of infant-baptism ; to adopt the notions of the Sandemanians of the straitest sect in favor of ex- cluding from the worship of the Church all persons who were not members of the Church ; and to discuss the absurd proposition to discontinue family prayer in cases where all the members of the household might not be fortunate enough to relish the fantastic con- ceits of the party to which he was now inclined. He had long previously made the discovery upon which the average Sandemanian was likely to value himself, to the effect that Sunday is not the Jewish Sabbath day (vol. i. p. 347) ; but it was only during the win- ter in question, that the sentiments of himself and the community which he led became so much the topic of public remark as to excite the report that they " paid no respect to the Sabbath " (vol. i. pp. 432-435).
Returning to the subject of faith, Alexander de- scribes as follows the method in which he pursued his investigation : 44 1 assembled all the leading writ- ers of that day on these subjects. I laid before me Robert Sandeman, Hervey, Marshall, Bellamy, Glas,
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION. 87
Cudworth, and others of minor fame in this contro- versy. I not only read, but studied, and wrote off in miniature, their respective views. I had Paul and Peter, James and John, on the same table. I took nothing upon trust. I did not care for the authority, reputation, or standing of one of the systems, a grain of sand. I never weighed the consequences of em- bracing any one of the systems as affecting my stand- ing or reputation in the world. Truth (not who says so) was my sole object. I found much entertainment in the investigation ; and I will not blush, nor do I fear to say, that, in this controversy, Sandeman was w like a giant among dwarfs. He was like Samson with the posts of Gaza on his shoulders." (Christian Bap., p. 228.)
It would have been nearly impossible for a person of his present connections and situation, especially one who was so much lacking in respect to independ- ence of mind and theological capacity and culture, " to have reached a different conclusion. Here, as at so many other points, Alexander was the unquestion- ing slave of his masters.
In case the representations made by Professor Richardson are complete, the revolution which took place in Alexander's mind, by which he became a subject of Sandeman in the matter of faith, began in the month of October 1811 (vol. i. p. 413), and was completed in the month of March 1812 (vol. i. p. 422). In connection with it he carried forward a correspondence with his father, perhaps chiefly for
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
the purpose of showing him deference. The harm- less old gentleman was incapable of rendering any considerable assistance in his enterprises, but it was in his power to offer a deal of resistance in case he were not duly coddled and conciliated. As on every other occasion, Thomas Campbell played the r61e of a convenient echo. It is surprising to witness the readiness with which he could repeat at first blush such Sandemanian watchwords as " the bare belief of the naked truth," and affirm, against the convictions of a lifetime, that this " involuntary, unavoidable faith " was sufficient to procure salvation (vol. i. p. 419).
In requesting baptism at the hands of Matthias Luce, Alexander, in due subjection to the authority of Archibald M'Lean as laid down in his work styled " The Commission of Christ Illustrated," says he had stipulated " that it should be performed into the name of the Father, etc., and not in the name, as was then and now is usual among the regular Baptists." (Memoirs of Thomas Campbell, p. 114.) Moreover, it was not his object, in seeking immersion, to unite with the Baptists of America. On the contrary, he declares, " I had no idea of uniting with the Bap- tists " (vol. i. p. 439.) Not many months had psssed by, however, before that purpose entered his mind ; and in order to accomplish it he was willing, in the month of August 1813, to violate one of the leading Sandemanian tenets, and to contradict the teachings of the famous " Declaration and Address," by composing for the purpose a sort of confession of
MR. CAMPBELL'S PERVERSION.
89
his faith, which, if it could now be procured, would possibly supply an amount of interesting reading (vol. i. p. 4-10).
But he was never at that or any other moment, either by sympathy or by conviction, a Baptist. In a private letter under date of Dec. 28, 1815, more than two years after his Church had been received into the fraternity of the Redstone Baptist Association, he describes his situation in the following terms : " I am now an Independent " (or Sandemanian) " in Church government; ... of that faith and view of the gospel exhibited in John Walker's seven letters to Alexander Knox ; and a Baptist in so far as respects /• baptism " (vol. i. p. 466).
During the period between the year 1812 and 1820, Alexander relapsed into a condition of mere vegetation. In the year 1816, he was able to excite a small controversy by a discourse on " the law " before the Redstone Association, where, in keeping with his Sandemanian principles, he thought the preaching of the gospel was sufficient to produce the "bare belief of the bare truth," and therefore maintained that it was unnecessary and reprehensible to per- suade men by the terrors of the Lord. He also be- came to a degree interested in the missionary cause (Christian Baptist, p. 17 and p. 72), which the Red- stone Association was then prosecuting with some kind of vigor. (Benedict, History of the Baptists, New York 1856, p. 615.)
The year 1820, however, was full of events that
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supplied him fresh incitement, and opened for him a career. The month of April brought him a news- paper discussion on the question regarding the Sab- bath (vol. i. p. 522), in which he embraced an opportunity of setting forth and maintaining the customary Sandemanian distinctions with much length and logomachy. The month of June brought him an oral discussion about the action and subjects of baptism, with the Rev. Mr. Walker of the Seceder Church. These occurrences served to arouse him from his long-continued lethargy, as well as to call the attention of circles to his abilities as a rhetori- cian, which had not previously been aware of his existence.
BAPTISM FOR REMISSION OF SINS. 91
CHAPTER IX.
BAPTISM FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS.
The most important impulse that the year 1820 had in store for Mr. Campbell was conveyed to him in a doctrinal pamphlet that was published and sent forth by the " Scotch Baptist " Church of New- York City. This body was, perhaps, pleased to regard itself as, in a certain sort, the leader of sentiment among the churches of that persuasion in this coun- try. The pamphlet referred to was largely devoted to a treatment of the design of baptism. It was for- warded, we may suppose, to all the Sandemanian churches of the immersion observance in America, if not also to those in the British Islands as well. One of these existed at the moment in Pittsburg, under the pastoral supervision of Mr. Walter Scott, one of the principal co-laborers of the Campbells. A copy was conveyed to him. The work also fell into the hands of Alexander and his father. (Life of Elder Walter Scott, by William Baxter, Cincinnati 1874, p. 47.) They all perused it with more or less of avidity ; it was the subject of a number of eager conferences between the trio. (Richardson, vol. ii. p. 83.) Alexander had it on his mind at the debate with
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Mr. Walker, and ventured to employ the position which it maintained in one of his addresses against the practice of infant-baptism, asserting that "baptism is connected with the promise of the remission of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit " (vol. ii. p. 20).
Here was the beginning of a new departure. The document of the New-York Church contains the same view regarding the design of baptism to which the Campbells later gave in their adhesion (Life of Scott, by Baxter, pp. 47-53); it was also published by Scott in one of the numbers of " The Evangelist," a monthly periodical winch he edited respectively in Cincinnati and Cambridge, O. The same texts which the sect of Disciples (or Campbellites) are in the habit of setting forward are produced in this pam- phlet, and handled much in the same way, in order to support the conclusion that baptism was designed for the remission of sins.
But Alexander was disposed to approach this busi- ness in a gingerly fashion. It was manifest that the sentiments advanced by the men of New York were nothing else than a development of the views ex- pressed by Archibald M'Lean, the father of the " Scotch Baptists," in his famous work entitled "The Commission of Christ," winch had been for many years in the hands of the Campbells. (See M*Lean's Commission, edit. 1, p. 133.) At that place this author declares, M To be baptized for the remission, or icashing-away, of sins, plainly imports, that in baptism the remission of sins is represented
BAPTISM FOR REMISSION OF SIXS. 93
as really conferred upon the believer. The gospel promises in general, 4 That, through Christ's name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.' Baptism applies this promise, and repre- sents its actual accomplishment to an individual be- liever, assuring him that all his past sins are now as really washed away in baptism by the blood of Christ, as his body is washed in water." He also says (pp. 131, 132, note), " As to the necessity of baptism to salvation, it is no stronger expressed in these passages " (John iii. 5, and Tit. iii. 5), " than in some others concerning which there is no dispute, such as, ' He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ' (Mark xvi. 16) ; 4 The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us,' etc. (1 Pet. iii. 21) ; 'Be baptized, and wash away thy sins' (Acts xxii. 16)." (A Disciple firm of publishers in Cincinnati, O., have republished this work from the third Edin- burgh edition. In the year 1871 there had been five editions of the American reprint.)
But from the manner in which M'Lean, in this work, guards some of his utterances, it might be in the power of an opponent to affirm that it was not entirely warrantable to represent that author as a thorough-paced advocate of the theory of baptismal remission. His New-York followers, on the other hand, had fully, and without much hesitation, taken their stand upon this dogma. Alexander, however, is considered to have felt some misgiving as to whether these gentlemen were of canonical author-
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ity. It is not, perhaps, entirely accidental, therefore, that, in his published version of the debate with Mr. "Walker, he appears on both sides of the issue touch- ing the design of baptism. (Compare Richardson vol. ii. p. 20, with vol. ii. pp. 36, 37.) Nevertheless, the question was not of small concern to him. The topic of the New-York pamphlet was often the theme of remark. (Richardson, vol. ii. p. 83.) When the " Christian Baptist " was sent forth in the year 1823, it was among the first matters that were put forward for treatment. In the second number of the periodi- cal, under date of Sept. 1, 1823, an article that bears the marks of careful preparation is published, in which the writer confidently takes his stand on the side of the New-Yorkers, and pleads the propriety of the sentiments which were enunciated in their pamphlet of the year 1820. Thomas Campbell, who was not responsible, and whose opinions could easily be disclaimed in case any strong objections were heard against them, was put forward in this way to feel the public pulse. (Christian Baptist, pp. 11-13.)
In the month of October 1823, Alexander was engaged in a public debate with the Rev. Mr. Mc- Calla, a Presbyterian divine, at Washington in Mason County, Kentucky, in which the action and the sub- jects of baptism were again treated. Here he like- wise found courage enough to indorse the New-York authorities in his own proper person, by setting forth the position and the arguments which they had employed in their publication. (Richardson, ii. pp.
BAPTISM FOR REMISSION OF SINS.
95
80-83.) But he was still so much disposed to hesi- tate regarding their canonicity, that his scruples at a later date more than once took him over to the other side of the issue. (Christian Baptist, pp. 58, 67, TO, p. 6-4.)
In October 1824, a second advance was made towards the principles which the New-York Sande- manians had laid down ; and Thomas Campbell was in this instance likewise employed to perform the delicate task, Alexander being still in a state of incertitude regarding the question whether it would be prudent and popular for him to espouse their cause. The article which his father was now employed to write was of twice the length of that which he had previously produced, and in some respects more decided. (Christian Baptist, pp. 99- 101.) In December 1824, the father again engages to enlighten the " professing world " upon the signifi- cance and importance of what the Xew-York theo- logians had laid so heavily upon his own mind. (Christian Baptist, p. 115.) Various other expedients were devised to keep the point before the public. In the month of May 1826, a writer who appears under the nom de plume of " Independent Baptist," who is suspected to be no other than Alexander, asserts in round terms 4i that the baptismal water washes away sin, and is the only Divinely appointed pledge that the blood of Christ has cleansed the conscience of the obedient disciple." (Christ. Bap., p. 236.) That his mind was strongly engaged in that direction, may
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also be perceived from occasional references to the topic which are elsewhere scattered up and down in the pages of his periodical. Among these, attention may be directed to the more or less covert allusions on p. 94, p. 118, and p. 351, respectively.
In October 1827, he contrives to throw off a por- tion of his constitutional timidity, and to employ in his own person language that, with considerable definiteness, signifies that he had now made up his mind to become an avowed convert to the New York theory. He says (Christian Baptist, p. 381), " Elder John Secrest told me, at the meeting of the Mahon- ing Association, Ohio, on the 27th ult., that he had immersed three hundred persons within the last three months. I asked him, 4 Into what did he immerse them ? ' He replied, he 4 immersed them into the faith of Christ for the remission of their sins.' Many of them were the descendants of Quakers, and those who had formerly waited for the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the Quaker sense of those words. But brother Secrest had succeeded in convincing them that the one baptism was not that of Pentecost, nor that repeated in Ceesarea, but an immersion into the faith of Jesus for the remission of their sins. . . . Thus while my friend Common Sense, and his two Baptist doctors, are speculating on what regeneration is, brother Secrest has by the proclamation of repent- ance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and immersion for the remission of sins, been the means of regenerating three hundred in three months, in the proper import of the term."
BAPTISM FOR REMISSION OF SINS. 97
These statements have the appearance of being uttered by a person who had finally made up his mind to assume a definite position, and to maintain it against all who might come forward to oppose him. Moreover, the seed that, since the year 1820, he had been sowing with so much care and covert art, had already taken root in some quarters. In more than one section of the country persons who chanced to be under his influence were proclaiming the conceit of the New-York Church. During the year 1826, Jeremiah Vardeman had been advocating it in Ken- ^ tucky, and professed to entertain a degree of satisfac- tion in administering the ceremony of baptism that was superior to any thing he had known before he was rightly instructed in the New- York theory. (Richardson, vol. ii. pp. 287, 288.) B. F. Hall was also on the same ground, with the same message, in the same year of grace (vol. ii. pp. 388, 389). Adamson Bentley and Jacob Osborne were declaring it to the people of Ohio in 1827, as well as John Secrest already mentioned above (vol. ii. pp. 207, 208). It was indeed high time for Alexander, if he desired to remain at the head of the movement, to declare in public his adhesion to the notion of bap- tismal remission.
But a number of trials were still to meet him before he should finally gain his consent to formally announce his acceptance of what seemed long since to have become his favorite tenet. Walter Scott, who in other years had been his co-laborer in Pitts-
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burg, was appointed, at its session in September 1827, as the missionary of the Mahoning Association in Ohio. This arrangement had been effected under the oversight and largely through the influence of Alexander, and he hoped that many advantages might accrue from it in the way of perverting the Baptists of that body to Sandemanian opinions and customs (vol. ii. pp. 173, 174; cf. p. 206).
Notwithstanding the circumstances that Elder Scott had been often admitted to conferences that were held touching the New- York notion (vol. ii. p. 83), and though, as Campbell declares, he had been definitely advised by Scott to introduce that opinion into the debate with McCalla in October 1823, yet this person, if one may judge from his writings in the " Christian Baptist," prior to November 1827, had never contrived to get any practical hold or under- standing of that tenet. Nay, when he heard it pro- mulgated by Jacob Osborne in the early autumn of 1827, it is said to have struck him with surprise (vol. ii. p. 208). Not long afterwards, however, he was, by some agency of which no distinct account has been given, made sensible of the meaning and importance of the new departure which Alexander had been pushing ever since the reception of the cir- cular about baptismal remission, in the year 1820 ; and he took hold of the idea with his customary en- thusiasm and precipitation. The first discourse that he delivered in favor of it was not rewarded by any visible results (vol. ii. p. 209). It served the
BAPTISM FOR BEMISSIOX OF SINS. 99
purpose, however, of rendering him broad awake to the excellency of an opinion which a number of his brethren in the vicinity where he was laboring had been some length of time proclaiming. The only apparent obstacle in the way of his action in thus going forward lay in the fact that he was occupying an official relation to the Mahoning Baptist Associa- tion, and it was wholly uncertain how that body would be disposed to regard this flagrant departure from the principles of the Baptist community. Alexander was justly uneasy regarding the issue, especially since, in case the churches which had em- ployed Scott should repudiate him, the most of the blame would attach to himself, who had perhaps suggested this expedient, and selected his long-time associate and disciple for the position.
Notwithstanding the manifest perils of the situa- tion for his principal, Scott, in the enthusiasm of a new convert, was resolved to press forward. On the 18th of November 1827, he appointed a meeting at New Lisbon, O., in which he announced that he would fully discuss u the ancient gospel " (vol. ii. p. 210 and p. 212). Here at his first discourse he secured his earliest convert ; and this may be set down as in some sort the natal day of the modern Disciple move- ment. Before the series of meetings at New Lisbon were concluded, Scott had succeeded in persuading seventeen persons to be immersed for the remission of sins.
This conduct on his part rendered it necessary that
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he should make a speedy visit to the leader of the movement at his residence in Virginia. (Hayden, History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, p. 93.) The two friends must have discussed the haz- ards to which the precipitancy of Scott had exposed their cause in Ohio, and the probabilities that he had effected the destruction of Alexander's hope to per- vert the entire Association from the doctrines which they had hitherto maintained. The situation was in- deed critical, and the slightest mishap would have brought upon them extreme disaster. Scott's energies were therefore excited to their fullest tension ; it was necessary to accomplish the work of perversion as far as possible before the date appointed for the next session of the Mahoning Association, in order that objections which might be confidently anticipated should be silenced, or that the party of opponents might be defied. In this enterprise he was successful to a high degree ; and from the 18th of November ✓ 1827, the notion of baptism for the remission of sins was officially recognized as a part of the faith of the Disciples.
In January 1828, Alexander got courage enough to lend a helping hand by commencing a series of articles in the " Christian Baptist," on the " ancient gospel," where he comes out boldly on behalf of the opinion which hitherto he was in doubt whether he should publicly and irrevocably avow. By a very adroit contrivance he is skilful enough in the first of these to represent John Secrest, a Kentucky preacher
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of the Stoneite or Christian party, as proclaiming this opinion with distinguished success on the Western Reserve. "Elder John Secrest," he reports, "told me on the 23d of November, in my own house, that, since the Mahoning Association last met, he had im- mersed with his own hands one hundred and ninety, thus lacking only ten of five hundred in about five months — for it is not more than five months since he began to proclaim the gospel and Christian immer- sion in its primitive simplicity and import.'' (Chris- tian Baptist, edit. 6, p. 402.)
This second allusion to the labors of Secrest would be, at that moment, a desirable diversion in favor of Scott, by assuring the people of the region where they were both employed that the latter was not alone in the innovation that he was practising. But at a later time, when Scott manifested a disposition to claim the most of the credit for the prosperity and success of the Disciples' enterprise, the above extract was the occasion of an amount of ill feeling. Scott ap- pears to have conceived the idea that Campbell was jealous of him, and had inserted the statement that has been cited with the purpose to deprive him of his just honors.
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CHAPTER X.
OTHER ITEMS.
The founder of the Disciples was highly reticent regarding the nature and extent of his obligations to the Sandeinanians, whether of the aspersion or of the immersion observance. The occasions were compara- tively rare when he could be induced to reveal his counsels in that direction. At the head of the " Chris- tian Baptist " he had placed as a motto the passage, " Style no man on earth your father, for He alone is your Father who is in heaven, and all ye are breth- ren ; " and it was considered important, that, in ac- cordance with this injunction, little should be reported concerning the Sandemanians, who were his own masters on earth. It was likewise an element of strength in that class of the community whom he had access to, that he should make a large parade of his intellectual independence, and sometimes of his " eru- dition " (McCalla, Debate on Baptism, Buffalo 1824, p. 124), a quality with which he was also but moder- ately provided.
William Jones, who, after the death of Archibald M'Lean, became the leader of the " Scotch Baptists," or Sandemanians of the immersion observance, em-
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braces the opportunity to disburthen his mind regard- ing this clear instance of ingratitude, which was pro- * vided by a letter he addressed to Mr. Campbell on the 16th of March 1835. (Millennial Harbinger, 1835, pp. 298-300.) From the representations there set forth, this kind of " childish vanity " must have been the common failing of a number of those churches which, in Ireland and America, had descended from the " Scotch Baptists." John Walker, the fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, for whom, even down to his latest days, Mr. Campbell felt an extravagant admi- ration, is sorely chastised for his crimes of omission at this point. Mr. Jones professes to be able to prove that Walker owed his earliest impulse in favor of Sandemanianism to the writings of Archibald M'Lean, and pities " those individuals who, through the pride and envy of their hearts, have scorned to acknowl- ✓ edge their obligations to the servants of God whose labors have been so useful to them." (Mill. Harb., as above, p. 299.)
In America he is particularly severe upon the con- duct of the New-York Church, for their neglect to feel any gratitude towards those Churches in the Fatherland to whom they owed much thanks. Speak- ing of the circular which had been sent forth by that organization, in the year 1818, to many of the prominent "Scotch Baptist" Churches in England and America, regarding the "ancient order of things," and afterwards published under the title of "The First Part of an Epistolary Correspondence between
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the Churches in America and Europe,"' Mr. Jones complains, that, u though it is well known that those individuals had gone out from this country, and carried their principles with them, there is not the smallest reference, in all their narratives, to the source whence they derived them." (Mill. Harb., 1835, p. 298.) Xor does he quite spare the Disciples, remind- ing Mr. Campbell that he would not deny that his own churches took their origin from the "Scotch Baptists." (Mill. Harb., 1835. p. 300.)
In reply to these just complaints, Alexander allows his personal obligations, but is content to express these in terms of such shadowy generality as in effect almost to deny them. At the close of the letter in which these concessions are made, he adds, u But now, Brother Jones, after all these acknowl- edgments for myself and my brethren, I have no hesitation in saying that there will be found views of the Christian institution icholly new, as far as the works of all the schools to which I have alluded are concerned. This I say not from vanity, nor from pretensions to originality; but from a conviction, before God, that it is due to all the citizens of Christ's kingdom, in Europe and America, to state that the cause we plead is at least something in advance of even the Scotch, or English, or American Baptists, as I have no doubt will appear to yourself from a careful examination of the books forwarded you." (Mill. Harb., 1835, pp. 306, 307.)
It must be conceded that he has embraced some
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items in his creed which may not be found in the works of his masters, the " Scotch Baptists." These were immediately insisted upon by Mr. Jones with so much emphasis as to defeat the hopes which at one time Alexander would seem to have entertained to the effect that it might be in his power to swallow up the "Scotch Baptists," and celebrate another triumph of that Christian union which he professed to believe would in the end destroy all "sects and sectism " by comprehending every one of the various v Churches of the Christian world in his own Church. This would have been a splendid ambition if it had not been supremely ridiculous.
The most important particular in which he de- parted from the theology of the "Scotch Baptist" writers consists in the fact that he surrendered the Calvinism in which he had been educated, in favor v of Arminian sentiments. In the present state of research, it is not possible to suggest the precise time and circumstances in which Alexander accomplished this change. His biographer is entirely at fault here, and leaves the reader wholly without information. Indeed, both himself and his hero appear to have been fresh enough to believe that they were not really Arminians as long as they omitted to desig- nate themselves by that title, no matter how firmly and consistently they might profess and support Arminian principles. This policy, which after the fashion of the ostrich leads them to imagine that they are sufficiently concealed by covering their head
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
in the sand, is one of the most amusing foibles of the Disciples.
However, it would appear that as late as the year 1811, Alexander had not yet turned away from his Calvinistic convictions; since in his notes on the writings of John Walker, made at that season, he has set down, apparently with approval, the substance of one of his author's chapters against Arminianism. (Richardson, vol. i. p. 446.) He was likely still in favor of Calvinistic views as late as the 28th of December 1815, on which date he informed his uncle Archibald, in a letter addressed to him in Ireland, that he was " of that faith and view of the gospel exhibited in John Walker's seven letters to Alex- ander Knox " (vol. i. p. 466).
There have been few more absurd hyper-Calvinists than was John Walker, and it would be difficult to embrace his " faith and view of the gospel " without in some degree partaking of that sentiment. But in the absence of more definite information regarding the portion of Mr. Campbell's life that lies between 1811 and 1820, it would be in vain to speculate about the date and circumstances of his perversion to Arminian opinions. We must content ourselves with the simple fact that when he began to set forth a printed record of his position, in the " Christian Bap- tist," he was already a confirmed opponent of the system of the Calvinists. Thomas Campbell was permitted to retain his Calvinism, but only as a sort of philosophy, or other attenuated appendage. In
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this sublimated capacity it would do no great amount of harm, while it might serve to remind them of the source whence they had sprung, and upon occasion to furnish a bond of sympathy with the " Scotch Bap- tists," in case it were deemed prudent at any time to attempt the project of effecting a union with them.
It must be allowed that Mr. Campbell's adhesion to Arminian views suited much better with his theory of baptismal remission, than the Calvinism in which he had been reared and trained. To discard the sys- tem of Calvin for the behoof of the New- York theory, and to embrace Arminianism in its stead, would at least indicate that he had an eye for symmetry.
A very considerable result of this abandonment of Calvinism appears in the fact that Mr. Campbell was thereby enabled to deny the doctrine which he had preached in his early time, that spiritual influences of some sort must co-operate with the word before the sinner will exercise faith. According to the scheme of the " ancient gospel " which Walter Scott elaborated, the operations of the Holy Spirit must be confined entirely to those who are already in a saved estate. His much-boasted ordo salutis was : (1) j Faith, (2) Repentance, (3) Immersion, (4) Remission of sins, and (5) The Holy Spirit. To the Third Per- son of the Trinity was conceded unchecked access to the hearts of believers ; but it was not allowed him to influence the hearts of unbelievers, and it was some- times even attempted to show that the act of faith was such an easy matter that there was no need of
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
his assistance in order that it might be effected. Nevertheless, the leaders of the movement had a deal of trouble to explain the circumstance, that, since faith is wholly the result of testimony, some of those who attended their own ministry should accept the testimony they were in the custom of imparting, while others of equal or superior capacity for sifting and weighing testimony would turn unaffected away from it. (Richardson, vol. i. p. 427, and vol. ii. pp. 150-163.) '
This same arbitrary method of dictating to the Holy Spirit what might be the sphere and limits of his oper- ations may be found in the writings that the Congre- < gational minister, Mr. W. Cudworth, sent forth in his controversy against Robert Sandeman, which have already been mentioned on a previous page. (Wil- liam Jones of England, in the Mill. Harbinger, 1835, p. 443.) Cudworth also advanced, in the same works, the singular hypothesis that the word of Scripture is the Spirit ; a fancy that was approved and elaborated in the well-known Dialogue between Timothy and Austin, which Mr. Campbell sent forth in the pages of the " Harbinger." (Jones in Mill. Harbinger, as above.)
In the winter of 1811-12, which Mr. Campbell appropriated to the examination of these issues, the work of Cudworth was one of the books that he studied. Writing to his father on the 28th of March, 1812, Alexander says, "I have read about one-half of Cudworth this week. Will give you my sentiments
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respecting his performance in my next." (Richardson, vol. i. p. 425.) Unhappily Professor Richardson has failed to insert the letter in which his cogitations about the production of Cudworth are recorded. If that were supplied, it is possible that a degree of assistance might accrue to the labors of students in this department. As the writings of Cudworth can- not be consulted at the present moment, it is not possible to form a conclusion with any degree of detail as to how far the positions assumed by Mr. Campbell may correspond to the opinions which that singular author has enunciated. It is just to state, however, that Mr. Campbell assures his English critic that he reprobates the notion of Cudworth. (Mill. Harb., 1835, p. 463.) It is equally just to add that this same notion is distinctly advocated in the Dia- logue between Timothy and Austin.
Mr. Jones likewise informs us that those persons in England who took up with the opinion of Cud- worth " have, in process of time, verged into Socini- anism or Deism, among whom were some of the elders of our (Scotch Baptist) Churches." Accord- ing to this account, therefore, the immersed Sande- manians of the mother country were affected by these extraordinary conceits touching the Holy Spirit, as well as their brethren under the lead of Mr. Camp- bell in America. And it is, further, no secret at all that Mr. Campbell and a portion of his adherents were much suspected of a leaning towards the tenets of Socinianism or Arianism. This suspicion was
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THE DISCIPLES OF CHBIST.
aroused at an early period, — even before the Disci- ples had entered upon any official church relations j with the Unitarian followers of Barton W. Stone in Kentucky, — as may be seen in the pages of the " Christian Baptist," pp. 50 and 216. For a number of years he was at great pains to clear himself and his people of imputations of this nature that were laid against them. After the comprehension of the Stoneite party in Kentucky, these suspicions became more numerous than ever ; and it was a tedious task to meet the objections that were excited by that action.
It is hardly necessary to ransack the literature of the Sandemanians of Europe for traces of the dis- tinction that was so much approved and employed by Mr. Campbell, between faith and opinion, and is the chief prop of the Plea for Christian Union. Noth- ing could be more easy than to fall upon this expe- dient without the aid of a special counsellor. The appearance of arrogance which induces him to assert that the confessions of faith, set forth by various Christian churches, are merely confessions of opin- ion (Christian Baptist, p. 216), is not an unusual display in the ranks of the smaller sects. In general, the opinion of Mr. Campbell, touching the meaning of a given passage of Scripture, was too likely to be regarded as a point of faith, while the equally careful and honest conclusions of others who, to say the least, were not less competent than himself, were somewhat haughtily denounced as unworthy of that
OTHER ITEMS.
Ill
high distinction. In the debate that occurred be- tween himself and the Rev. N. L. Rice, at Lexington, Ky. (Nov. 15 to Dec. 2, 1843), he was sorely pressed to declare the point where faith begins and opinion ends (Debate, p. 813), but was not able to bring forward any satisfactory reply. (Debate, pp. 835, 836.)
Nevertheless, the distinction proved to be practi- cally serviceable in enabling his people to compre- hend within their communion a number of persons believing in Unitarian and Universalist tenets, who were willing to promise that they would hold this item of their faith as a mere opinion. It was not long, however, until he was constrained to deplore an unfortunate condition of affairs, and to complain that " all sorts of doctrines, by almost all sorts of men," were proclaimed among his adherents.
The different sects and systems which we have been considering are extreme, and in several re- spects fantastic, developments of the principles of Protestantism, and especially of that principle which asserts the necessity of returning to the Bible as the standard of faith and action. The literalism which is an abuse of Protestantism was pretty well dis- played in each of them, and in several instances it became absurd and injurious.
In conclusion, it is believed that the statement with which the present treatise was begun has been shown to be true. The Disciples of Christ are the] direct descendants of the Sandemanians ; it is possible
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to point out in the literature of Sandemanianism the source whence Mr. Campbell derived almost every one of his religious opinions. If he ever had an ori- ginal idea, he took pains to avoid giving expression to it in such of his writings as have been submitted to the inspection of the public.
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