The Disciples of Christ

Front matter

V

^v

The Story of the Churches

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. The Campbells .... 7 II. Religious Conditions in Scotland

and Ireland . . . .17

Chapter I The Campbells

The Disciples of Christ will complete the first hundred years of their history as a distinct religious movement in 1909. Their

e in 1809 is marked by the withdrawal

f Thomas Campbell from the Seceder Presbyterian church in Western Pennsylvania and the publication of the so-called Declaration and Address.

Thomas Campbell was born in County Down, Ireland, February 1, 1763. His ancestors were the Campbells of Argyleshire, Scotland, a clan famous in the political and military history of the country. He was the eldest of a family of four sons, all of whom showed marked religious dispositions and took leading parts later in life in local religious affairs. The father belonged to the Church of England, and always preferred to worship after the Episcopal ritual, but his sons turned with greater sympathy and pleasure to the simpler worship of the Covenanters and Seceder Presbyterians. Very early in life Thomas passed through a deep religious experience, which set at rest his fears of the divine displeasure and gave him assurance of salvation and acceptance with God. His religious experience conformed to the theological teaching which he met and accepted in attendance at Presbyterian churches. It was of that serious Calvinistic sort which laid particular emphasis upon the divine activity in conversion. The spiritual monitions attending his conversion were such as not only to give him assurances of salvation, but to lay upon him the duty of consecrating himself to the ministry of the gospel. The moment of his conversion was also the

The Campbells 9

moment of his dedication to the ministry.

He naturally turned to the Seceder church as a sphere for the exercise of his ministry, but the proposal met with the disfavor of his father; and being under age he yielded for the time to the wishes of his father and continued his work as a teacher in an English academy which he had established in the less enlightened regions of Ireland. Hitherto his education had not passed beyond a good English schooling, at a military regimental school near Newry, County Down, and what by his native genius and aptitude for study, he had acquired by selfeducation and in the practice of teaching; but upon his return from teaching in the central parts of Ireland, he was taken under the patronage of a Mr. Kinley, who encouraged him in his desire to enter the ministry and gave him financial assistance to continue his education in the University of Glasgow. After completing his literary lo The Disciples of Christ

studies in the University, he entered the theological school of the Seceders at Whithburn, then in charge of Dr. Archibald Bruce. He completed his theological studies in five sessions of eight weeks each and was licensed to preach among the Anti-Burgher Seceders, as a probationer, under the supervision of the Synod.

Very little is recorded of his early life as a preacher. He was always obliged to carry on his teaching to eke out his meagre salary as a preacher and provide for an increasing family. He was married to Jane Corneigle, of French Huguenot descent, in County Antrim, Ireland, in 1787. Their first child, born in 1788, was a son, whom they named Alexander. The two men, father and son, were destined to be, the one the inaugurator, the other the promoter of the religious movement whose history is the theme of this work. As the son of Thomas Campbell and Jane Corneigle, Alexander Campbell had the best blood of Scotland and of

The Campbells il

France flowing in his veins. He is said to have had a striking resemblance to his mother, both in character and physical appearance, while she possessed all that we have come to associate as best with the French Huguenot character.

The father accepted the pastorate of the Seceder church at Ahorey, County Armagh, and moved his family to a place called Rich Hill. The son was about ten years of age when this took place, and so far had given no evidence of anything unusual in his intellectual powers. He had received the rudiments of his early education under his father and in the academy of his uncles, but no scholastic regimen could subdue the native physical strength and buoyant spirits of the boy. He was well on towards sixteen years of age before he was distinguished by anything but his irrepressible love of sport and out-of-doors exercise. He was simply a normal, healthy boy, with a good mind and a well disposed moral nature. Of early piety and precocious religious experience we hear nothing. His restless physical spirit must have fretted more than once under the long religious exercises of his Seceder home and church, for it was the rule of the church prescribed by the synod that "the minister should worship God in his family by singing, reading and prayer, morning and evening; that he should catechise and instruct them at least once a week in religion; endeavoring to cause every member to pray in secret morning and evening." Besides this it was the rule in the home that "every member should memorize, during each day, some portion of the Bible, to be recited at evening worship, and each again rehearsed on the evening of the Lord's day; that every one should go to meeting, and on returning home give an account of the text and of the discourse preached/'

Such discipline had its effect upon the boy. His intellectual and religious awaken-

The Campbells 13

ing finally came when he was about eighteen years of age. They seem to have been coincident, He entered with zeal and efficiency into the work of assisting his father in the academy. He began to experience " great concern in regard to his own salvation." In a later account of this period he says: "From the time that I could read the Scriptures, I became convinced that Jesus was the Son of God. I was also fully persuaded that I was a sinner, and must obtain pardon through the merits of Christ or be lost forever. This caused me great distress of soul and I had much exercise of mind under the awakenings of a guilty conscience. Finally, after many strugglings, I was enabled to put my trust in the Saviour, and to feel my reliance on him as the only Saviour of sinners. From the moment I was able to feel this reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ, I obtained and enjoyed peace of mind." He was received as a member of his father's church at Ahorey and under the solicitation of his father began to devote time to theological studies. It was not until later, however, that the son dedicated himself to the ministry of the gospel, though it was the father's wish that he do so from the beginning of his life.

The labors of the father were divided between his duties as pastor of the church at Ahorey and superintendent of his academy at Rich Hill, where he lived. His first interest was always the religious interest. He was a careful observer of and interested actor in all the religious affairs of his country and time. He was possessed by nature of a broad Christian spirit which transcended the sectarian boundaries of his own denomination. The " occasional hearing" of ministers of other religious bodies, reluctantly granted by his own denomination, and then only when there was no meeting at the same hour and in the same place in one of their own churches, was eagerly seized upon by Thomas Campbell

The Campbells 15

and improved. He was a frequent attendant at the evening meetings of the congregation of Independents at Rich Hill, and was on the most cordial terms with them as neighbors. He was found entering into cooperation with all religious movements whenever opportunity was offered. He became a member of the " Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home," organized by the Haldanes and composed for the most part of members of the Church of England, whose object was the arousing of a deeper religious spirit throughout the British Isles to counteract the deadening influence of French infidelity and liberalism.

He felt that the religious need of the times was a union of all the people of God. It must have pained his soul to witness the divisions going on in the two branches of the Seceder church of which he was a member. The story of the division and subdivision of this church, the resulting narrowness and bitterness of spirit manifested towards each other, is a fitting background against which to understand the spirit and motives of Thomas Campbell.

Chapter II Religious Conditions In Scotland And Ire- Land

In Thomas Campbell's time sectarianism and religious bigotry had gone to seed in the Seceder church. It was conceived in pride and bitterness, born in narrowness, and grew up in exclusiveness. Its sources lie far back in the history of the Scottish church.

When the Reformation suddenly invaded Scotland in the year 1560, it found the Scottish people and the ruling nobility ready for it. "The Estates convened in August, the Calvinistic confession of faith was approved, the Roman Catholic religion was abolished, and the administering of the mass, or attendance upon it, was forbidden — the penalty for the third offense being death/' "On the morning of the 25th of 17

August, 1560, the Romish hierarchy was supreme ; in the evening of the same day, Calvinistic Protestantism was established in its stead." The nobility and the common people joined in their desire to see the overthrow of Roman Catholicism, and made common cause against the king and church. The nobility feared the power and craved the vast wealth of the Roman church, while the people longed for a purer ministry, a worship in their own language and a voice in the affairs of their parish churches. It was an expression of the democratic spirit in religion.

No form of Protestantism so completely satisfied this spirit as the Presbyterian. John Knox had gone to Geneva and sat at the feet of John Calvin. He brought back to his native Scotland and recommended to his people both the doctrine and the order of Calvinistic Presbyterianism. They found these to their liking. Presbyterianism was essentially democratic, and gave to the peopie the right to choose their own pastors and a representation in the government of the church. It was impossible that the old order could be completely wiped out and destroyed in root and branch. Some roots remained. One of the strongest to remain was the institution of patronage which the nobility was interested to maintain. When the property and revenues of the old church fell at one stroke into the hands of the reforming party, the nobles laid claim to it as a part of their estates which had been alienated by pious ancestors through donation and bequest to the church. It properly escheated to the owners of the estates from which it was originally set aside to maintain parish churches. The nobles had their way in spite of the protest of the religious leaders. Parish livings for the support of the pastors now fell into the hands of nobles and landowners who exercised the right of patronage or presentation to living. It was impossible that a pure Presbytery could be grafted upon this old stump of patronage. The people might choose a man to be their pastor, but if he did not suit the patron, the holder of living, who might be a Romanist, an Episcopalian, or a Presbyterian, the chosen pastor could not settle with his parish.

After more than a century of struggle on the part of the Scottish people to keep their Presbyterianism against the encroachments of English Episcopacy, they were finally victorious at the time of the Revolution Settlement of 1690. By this settlement Presbyterianism was constituted by act of Parliament the established religion of Scotland, and with the overthrow of Episcopacy went patronage. But only for a time. It came back by act of the English Parliament, which now included the Scottish Parliament, in the year 1712, and was destined to remain, the principal cause of all the troubles of the Scottish church, until finally abolished in 1874.

It was incident to the troubles growing out of restored patronage that the Seceder church arose in Scotland. The system of patronage completely nullified the free choice of the pastor by the people. The patron took the initiative and presented as a pastor for the church a man to his own liking, and was not necessarily governed by the desires of the people or the needs of the place. Private and pecuniary considerations very often operated in the presentation. The people were obliged to acquiesce in the appointment or go without a pastor.

It was the conflicting interests and wishes of patrons and people that often came before the presbyteries or assemblies for settlement. An attempt on the part of the Assembly to remedy the evil of vacant parishes by obliging presbyteries to induct pastors on call of heritors, if Protestant, and elders, (in cases where patrons refused to make a presentation within six months after a vacancy that they might obtain the income for themselves,) called forth a bitter protest against the action of the Assembly by Ebenezer Erskine, in a sermon delivered as retiring moderator of the Synod of Perth and Stirling. He was rebuked by the Synod for offensive utterances in the sermon. He appealed to the Assembly of 1733 against the rebuke of the Synod and was joined by three other ministers. The Assembly approved the action of the Synod and ordered that Erskine be rebuked before the bar of the Assembly. He refused to submit in silence to the action, and was called on to retract, failing which in a year he was suspended from the ministry of the church. The protesters seceded from the established church and constituted themselves into a Presbytery. When the Assembly relented a year later and opened the door for their return by removing all censure and restoring their names to the ministerial roll, they stubbornly refused to return. They went on organizing churches and constituting presbyteries, and by 1742 constituted the first synod out of three presbyteries and thirty congregations. The ranks of the Seceders were from time to time increased by withdrawals from the establishment of churches and members who had been outraged by the violent intrusion of obnoxious pastors upon them. Rather than submit, they seceded. The secession profited for a long time by the workings of the law of patronage.

These Seceders, as they were called, began to regard themselves as the true church of God in Scotland and identified themselves with the church of the first and second reformations. When George Whitfield came to Scotland they demanded that he confine his ministrations to their churches; and when asked "why," they said, "because we are the Lord's people/' "Are there no other Lord's people but you ?" he inquired. " And supposing all others are the devil's people; certainly, they have the more need to be preached to." August 4, 1741, was proclaimed throughout their body as a day of fasting and humiliation for the countenance given to Whitfield.

It was not long before strife broke out in their own ranks over the lawfulness of the oath administered to burgesses of towns. Some held that a Seceder who happened to be a burgess could not consistently swear "to profess and allow with his heart the true religion presently professed within the realm and authorized by the laws thereof," without promising to support the church from which they had seceded, and now regarded as "a household of Satan." Consequently they divided in 1747 into Burghers and Anti-Burghers. Each proclaimed itself to be the true church and anathematized the other.

The Burgher branch of the Seceders was for a long time stirred with dissension as to the power of the civil magistrate in religious matters. They divided on the question in 1796 into Old Lights and New Lights. A similar division took place in the Anti- Burgher branch in 1806. There were now four distinct parties of Seceders. The divisions of the parent body in Scotland were transferred to its new home in Ireland. Thomas Campbell became a member of the Old Light, Anti-Burgher branch of the Seceders.

All branches grew in narrowness and bitterness of spirit, as their ranks diminished in numbers through division. " In 1798 the Anti-Burgher Synod forbade the people to attend or give countenance to public preaching by any who were not of their communion; and a year afterwards actually deposed and excommunicated one of its ministers for having heard Rowland Hill and James Haldane preach." A case is on record where the Burgher Synod cited one of its members before it, for working as a mason on an Episcopal chapel in Glasgow, and decreed that he was highly censurable and

M ought not to be admitted to any of the seals of the covenant till he profess his sorrow for the offense and scandal that he had given and been guilty of."

The spirit of bigotry and sectarian animosity was not confined to the Seceders. The established church herself and all dissenting bodies, including the Presbytery of Relief, finally narrowed the grace of God and his covenanted mercies to their own bodies. To the genial Christian spirit of such a man as Thomas Campbell, the spectacle of these divisions and animosities between Christians seemed more than childish; they were sinful. As he reflected upon them he must have inquired the reason for them and sought a remedy. His own church was rent asunder before his eyes and he was forced to take sides on a question which had no meaning in Ireland where the burgess oath never had been in use. So needless seemed the perpetuation of the division between Burghers and Anti-

Burghers on Irish soil, that he led in an effort to unite the two bodies in 1805, but failed through the unwillingness of the Scottish General Synod to free the Irish Synod from its jurisdiction. The union was finally accomplished in 1818.

Other influences were at work upon both of the Campbells beside the hard and bitter sectarianism of the times. The church of Independents at Rich Hill, which they frequently attended, held to doctrines and practices which subsequently became characteristic of the churches founded by them in America. Independency in Scotland originated with John Glas, a minister of the established church, who was deposed in 1730 for teaching that " there is no warrant in the New Testament for a national church ; that the magistrate, as such, has no place in the church, and has no right to punish for heresy; that both the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant are without scriptural grounds; and that the true reformation is one that can be carried out, not by political and secular weapons but by the word and spirit of Christ only." He gathered around him a group of people who shared his views, and adopted in all his teaching the principle that the Scripture is the only standard of both doctrine and practice. He accordingly adopted the observance of the Lord's supper every Sunday, the practice of feet washing, the holy kiss, mutual exhortation in public worship, plurality of elders, community of goods, and other customs which he derived from the primitive church. His son-in-law, Robert Sandeman, took up his views and established churches. They were called Glassites or Sandemanians. They developed into a narrow, exclusive sect, and divided into no less than three parties, each disavowing all fellowship with the others.

The last decade of the eighteenth century was characterized by unusual ferment in religious circles in Scotland and Ireland. The older Presbyterian bodies threw off, by reason of the tyrannical power of the church courts, a variety of persons an^ groups of persons, all of whom took the direction of independency. In 1768 arose the " Old Scotch Independents"; in 1769, the "Old Scotch Baptists"; in 1780, the "Bereans"; in 1798, the "Modern Congregationalists"; and between 1790-1800, the evangelistic activity of Rowland Hill, the Haldanes and their associates, gave rise to many "Tabernacle Churches" throughout the British Isles, notably in Scotland and Ireland, which swelled the ranks of independency. Many of these new sects on acquaintance found themselves in agreement with each other and came together. The features which they shared in common were, independency in church government and a more strict adherence to the Scriptures in faith and practice. This appeal to the precedent of the primitive churches in its application to their doctrines and practices occasioned many internal controversies. The question of baptism inevitably came up for discussion, and finally determined the arrangement of independent bodies into two groups : those who adhered strictly to immersion, and those who treated the form of baptism as a matter of indifference. This question of baptism divided the Haldanean societies, both of the Haldanes adopting Baptist views. "The new notions spread over most of the churches of the connection, and contention, strife of words, jealousies, and divisions followed, of which none but such as passed through the painful scenes of those days can have any adequate idea." "The occurrences in question, while they embarrassed and weakened the churches, exposed them also to the triumph and sneers of adversaries, while at the same time much odium was brought on every attempt to follow out scriptural fellowship." Through the influence of Greville Ewing, one of the associates of the Haldanes, their societies quite generally adopted the weekly communion of the Lord's supper.

The congregation of Independents frequently attended by the Campbells at Rich Hill seems to have been of the Haldanean order, for the Haldanes were occasionally heard in the church. It was in this church that the Campbells heard such men as J. A. Haldane, Rowland Hill, Alexander Carson, and John Walker, concerning the latter of whom Alexander Campbell wrote in 181 5: "I am now an Independent in church government; of that faith and view of the gospel exhibited in John Walker's Seven Letters to Alexander Knox, and a Baptist so far as regards baptism."

Such were the religious conditions and influences surrounding the Campbells in Scotland and Ireland during the closing years of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the nineteenth. They were both negative and positive: negative, in disgusting them with the petty differences and bitter animosities of sectarianism; and positive, in acquainting them with and disposing them towards the teachings of the Independents. This is shown in one matter — the weekly observance of the Lord's supper. "From the first all the Congregational churches, with the exception of a few in Aberdeen and the north, observed the Lord's supper every first day of the week, as a part of the usual morning service." Thomas Campbell introduced the weekly observance of the Lord's supper into the first church he established in America.

Chapter III The Christian Association Of Washington

The health of Thomas Campbell began to suffer some impairment from his excessive labors as preacher and teacher, and his physician recommended a sea voyage as a remedy.

Many of his neighbors had gone, and more were going, to America, to seek homes. Some of his Seceder friends had emigrated to the New World. To take a journey to America, whether to see the country as a visitor or remain as an inhabitant, would not be going alone or entirely among strangers. He bade farewell to his Seceder congregation at Ahorey, and took letters of dismissal and testimonials from the church and the Presbytery of Market Hill. Leaving his family behind and the academy in charge of his son Alexander, he set sail April 8, 33

1807, and arrived in Philadelphia thirty-five days later, where he found the Seceder synod in session. He presented his credentials, and was assigned to the Presbytery of Chartiers, in Western Pennsylvania.

The Seceders lost none of their peculiarities by being transplanted to the New World. They brought their Old World "testimonies " with them and perpetuated their divisions in America as they had in Scotland and Ireland against the better feeling and judgment of many of their members. The Anti-Burghers were the first to establish churches in America, and when the Burghers arrived on the ground there was a disposition to go into the Anti-Burgher fellowship. There was even less reason for the division of Seceders into Burghers and Anti-Burghers or into New Lights and Old Lights, in America than in Ireland, for the divisions grew out of political conditions which were completely changed in this country. Pennsylvania became the stronghold of Secederism. The Anti-Burgher branch, being the stronger, absorbed the Burgher element in the stream of emigration from the Old World, and put itself under the oversight of the Associate (Anti-Burgher) Synod of Scotland. This body in America became more exclusive and conservative than the body in Scotland, and in 1796 passed "an act against occasional communion, which ever afterward remained the law of the church."

Thomas Campbell had not been long at work among his New World Seceder brethren before he broke over the narrow boundaries of his denomination and violated one of its most cherished usages. It had decreed to have no fellowship with brethren of other Presbyterian parties, much less other denominations. But when Thomas Campbell went into the religiously desolate parts of his field, he invited his brethren of all Presbyterian parties who were without pastoral care and the sacraments of the church, to join his Anti-Burgher members in communion service. Whether it was due more to the zeal of his ministerial brethren for the correct usages of Secederism or to their jealousy of his growing power and popularity, that they assumed a hostile attitude towards Mr. Campbell, is not clear; but it was not long before sufficient offense had been given to warrant them in openly proceeding against him before the Presbytery. He was charged with departure from the standard of Seceder faith and with violation of the rules and usages of the church. There is no record of the trial before the Presbytery, but judging from the contents of a letter written immediately after to the Synod, we may infer that he pleaded for larger liberty and fraternity than were allowed by the "testimony" of the church, and took his stand upon the authority and teachings of the Scriptures over against the authority of the "testimony." The Presbytery voted him deserving of censure. He protested and appealed to the Syood.

Mr. Campbell was desirous of continuing in fellowship with the Seceders and working harmoniously with them, but he was not willing to do so at the sacrifice of his Christian liberty and fraternity, or the primacy of the Scriptures as the law of his Christian conscience, and the rule of his faith and practice. By this time he had clearly grasped the principles by which he was to govern his own conduct in religious matters, and by which alone he believed the church of God could be brought to unity and purity. How long before this he had arrived at his position cannot be said. It first appeared in the letter to the Synod. The letter is too long to quote in full, but it is so important a piece of evidence in the development of Thomas Campbell's religious position, that it cannot be entirely omitted. He said : "Honored Brethren : Before you come to a final issue in the present business, let me entreat you to pause a moment and seriously consider the following things : To refuse any one his just privilege, is it not to oppress and injure? In proportion to the magnitude and importance of the privilege withheld, is not the injustice in withholding it to be estimated ? If so, how great the injustice, how highly aggravated the injury will appear, to thrust out from communion a Christian brother, a fellow-minister for saying and doing none other things than those which our Divine Lord and his Holy Apostles have taught and enjoined to be spoken and done by his ministering servants, and to be received and observed by all his people!

Or have I, in any instance, proposed to say or do otherwise? If I have, I shall be heartily thankful to any brother that shall point it out, and upon his so doing, shall as heartily and thankfully relinquish it. Let none think that, by so saying, I entertain the vain presumption of being infallible. So far am I from this, that I dare not venture to trust my own understanding so far as to take upon me to teach anything as a matter of faith or duty but what is already expressly taught, and enjoined by divine authority. " "It is, therefore, because I have no confidence, either in my own infallibility or in that of others, that 1 absolutely refuse, as inadmissible and schismatic the introduction of human opinions and human inventions into the faith and worship of the church. Is it, therefore, because I plead the cause of the scriptural and Apostolic worship of the church, in opposition to the various errors and schisms which have so awfully corrupted and divided it, that the brethren of the Union should feel it difficult to admit me as their fellow laborer in that blessed work ? I sincerely rejoice with them in what they have done in that way; but still, all is not yet done; and surely they can have no just objections to going farther. Nor do I presume to dictate to them or to others as to how they should proceed for the glorious purpose of promoting the unity and purity of the church; but only beg leave, for my own part, to walk upon such sure and peaceable ground that I may have nothing to do with human controversy about the right or wrong side of any opinion whatsoever. By simply acquiescing in what is written, as quite sufficient for every purpose of faith and duty ; and thereby to influence as many as possible to depart from human controversy, to betake themselves to the Scriptures, and in so doing, to the study and practice of faith, holiness and love."