A RESTATEMENT

OF

BAPTIST PRINCIPLES

PHILIP L. JONES

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YALE UNIVERSITY
Xibrarg of the Btoinitg School
GIFT OF
Douglas Qlgde JWacmtosh
DWIGHT PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY
DWIGHT PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
] 1916-1942

H "[Restatement of
Baptist principles

A BAPTIST DECLARATION OF FAITH
I believe that my life should be controllecf by the
underlying spirit of the teachings of Jesus as found in
the Sermon on the Mount and that I should teach his
way of life.
I believe that the love of God and the love of man
should be the ruling motives of all men.
I believe in the fundamental principles of the Bap
tist church: believer's baptism, separation of church and
state, the independent local church and the right to
individual belief. However, I believe that I am a good
Baptist when I am a good Christian. That is, I place
the Kingdom of God before any denomination.
I believe in prayer as the soul's greatest desire; in
God — as the embodiment of the Good, the Beautiful
and the True; in missions — as the sharing of the faiths;
in Jesus — as the revelation of man's highest conception
of the divine; in the Bible — as the story of the struggles
of a part of God's children toward Truth; and in im
mortality — as a great hope.
I believe that God is revealed in the discoveries
of modern science, and that the revelation which ended
in the Book is now to be found in the stars and in
humanity. I believe that the "saved" life is one which is in
harmony with the True, the Good, and all that is Beau
tiful; and that to be "lost" is to be out of sorts with
these eternal realities.
In brief, these are the fundamental principles of
my faith. I say it in all humility — I believe uiat Jesus
would be pleased with them, for they merely reiterate
His way of life in modern terms. — From the "Church
Messenger." Vermillion. S. D.. W. C. Deer, pastor.

H IRcstatcmcnt of
Baptist principles
pbtlfp &? Jones
Sutbor ot
"ttbe Divine JFatbetbooD"

Hmcrican Baptist jpubltcation Society
pbilaDelpbia
Boston Cbicago Btlanta
View J St. Xouta Dallas

Copyright 1909 by
A. J. ROWLAND, Secretary

Published March, 1909

Special mote
In accordance with the vote of the Publication
Committee, Dr. Wayland Hoyt prepared the fol
lowing special note: The Rev. Philip L. Jones,
D. D., has been connected with the Book Depart-
V ment of the American Baptist Publication Society
\ for twenty years, and Book Editor for sixteen.
«- No man ever did duty more lovingly, thoroughly,
-5 admirably. How natural is it that also authorship
v should bloom out of such service. And here is the
flower — this book. It is a clear, concise, every
x$ way fine statement of the structural Baptist princi-
_g pies. It is a book, just now in these everywhere
.2 questioning times, much needed. I heartily advise
.4 both its reading and the widespreading of the
book by those who read. No wonder that the
° Publication Committee of the Society, in accept
ed ing the MS of this book, tendered its special con-
^ gratulations to Doctor Jones, both for his long-
2 standing industry as Book Editor, and for such
^ fair issue, as is this book, from his own heart
° and brain. Wayland Hoyt.
U PHXtADELPHiA, February 19, 1909,
c8U

jforeworo
In denominating the principles of the following
discussion as those of Baptists, it is not intended
to intimate that they are now held exclusively by
them. It is still true of some, as for example, the
ordinances and their symbolism, and the supreme
headship of Jesus Christ. And even where the
holding of these principles, on the part of Bap
tists, is in common with that of other denomina
tions, the loyalty of the former is a little closer
and more consistent than that of the latter. It is
sufficient to instance the authority of Scripture
and the separation of Church and State. Because
of this then, as well as because of their early and
sole espousal of them, we are justified in calling
them principles of Baptists ; indeed, we should not
be far wrong if we called them distinctively such.
But why restate them? Are there not already
statements of them sufficient in number? Per
haps. But it is sometimes necessary to restate an
axiom. There are always some whom current
statements do not reach and whose attention a
7

[8]  jfotewots
new voice may arrest. Moreover, fresh con
stituencies are constantly arising with the advent
of new masses of young people; while changing
conceptions of the old thought demand new forms
in which it shall be embodied. For these reasons,
therefore, this little brochure is sent forth, and it
is fervently hoped that the cause of truth and the
interests of the Lord's kingdom may be furthered
thereby. Philadelphia, February », 1909. *¦ "¦ J"

Sable of Contents

Chapter Page
I. The Soul's Direct Relation to God  u
II. Faith the Key to the Kingdom  21
III. Jesus Christ's Supreme Headship  31
IV. The Church a Spiritual Democracy  41
V. The Ordinances of the Church and Their
Symbolism  49
VI. Obedience to Jesus Christ, the Test of Dis-
cipleship  59
VII. The Absolute Severance of Church and State 67
VIII. Individual Freedom Essential to Progress  79
IX. Love, Not Law, the Binding Factor  93
X. A Redemptive Service the Church's Supreme
End  105

Gbe Soul'0 Direct IRelation to <5ot>

When I consider Thy heavens, the works of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that thou visit est him?
For thou hast made him but little lower than God,
And crownest him with glory and honor.
Thou modest him to have dominion over the works of thy
hands;
Thou hast put all things under his feet. —Psalm 8 : 3-6.

T the basis of all being lies the individ
ual. In matter we come in the final
analysis to the atom or more recently
to the electron. In natural history back through
genera and species we go until we find the primi
tive parent. In human history, whatever line we
traverse, we cannot stop before we reach the in
dividual. The unit everywhere begins the arith
metic of God's universe.
In the spiritual realm this is no less true than
elsewhere. It is the man, and not the nation, or
tribe, or family with whom, in the closest scrutiny,
God has to do. The question that came to Adam
in that first inquest into moral action, Where art
thou? is the question that in some form has been
propounded throughout the ages. It is the human
soul that must stand face to face with God. That
human method at times has seemed to act other
wise does not set aside this supreme principle.
Israelitish polity might include Achan's family
in his punishment, but it was Achan alone who
*3

[14]  Baptist principles
was guilty of the sin. The burden of the stolen
wedge of gold and the goodly garment was his
and only his. The stones of the executioners
might fall upon all alike, but God saw in him
alone the culprit. Down through human history
the student may discover many similar instances,
but always and everywhere God has separated the
mass and caused each to stand alone. Ezekiel was
right for the whole sweep of human history, " the
soul that sinneth it shall die." Not the nation,
the tribe, the family, but the soul, it shall die.
These are involved with it, but the divine tribunal
does not rest until it, and it, and it are reached
and the whole mass is judged.
In the bestowment of blessing, as in the dis
tribution of blame, the same analysis is employed
and the same result is reached. The exigencies of
theological mechanicians may at times have de
manded the substitution of the household for the
units of the same, and the federal covenant may
have been thrust in to diminish the necessity or
importance of the individual response, but the
principle has only been vitiated; it has not been
repealed. Well does Dr. E. Y. Mullins say :
" Primarily the religious relation is a relation
between God and the individual man. Religious

g)itect IRelation  [15]
privilege and religious duty subsist between men
and God, in the first instance, in their capacity
as individuals, and only secondarily in their so
cial relations. On the social side of their religious
life there is nothing which can properly destroy
the freedom of access which all men have to
God, or in any way mar that fellowship." * The
definition of " social relations " may be of the
widest character, taking in those that are eccle
siastical or otherwise, and the truth of the af
firmation remains the same. No human device,
however skilfully formed, can destroy the bond
God has established, nor bind together that which
he has determined to stand alone.
All through the Bible, in its deeper spiritual
meaning, this fact of individuality stands forth
with a clearness no sophistry can dim. It is Moses
the man God calls from his herds, and David from
his flocks, and Isaiah amid the glories of the tem
ple vision. It was Peter and Matthew and John
Jesus summoned from publican's stand and fisher
man's boat, and later Saul, alone, amid the blind
ing light of the heavenly vision, to whom he
showed how hard it was to kick against the pricks.
Everywhere it is to him who believeth, and not to
1 " Axioms of Religion," p. 93.

[16]  Baptist principles
them to whom is shown the salvation of God.
Moreover, it is to him and not to them the varied
rewards will be given contained in the promises
of the angel of the seven churches. We do not
walk in serried ranks when we come before God,
whether for condemnation or acquittal. Each for
himself and herself must come to the fountain of
grace and dip and drink and live. And each for
himself must feel the parched lips and impover
ished soul inevitably resulting from the refusal of
the refreshing draught. " For this is the cove
nant that I will make with the house of Israel
. . . saith the Lord; I will put my law in their
inward parts and in their hearts will I write it.
. . And they shall teach no more every man his
neighbor and every man his brother saying, Know
the Lord, for they shall all know me from the
least to the greatest." 1 It is not upon the heart
of the mass that the divine stylus does its work,
but upon the heart of the man.
This doctrine of the individual relationship_of
the soul to God has always and everywhere been
insisted upon by Baptists. Indeed, no doctrine
has been, nor is, more Baptistic than this. No
edict of the State, no ordinance of the Church, no
'Jer. 31 : 33. 34-

Direct IRelation  [17]
act of the ecclesiastic, no function of the priest,
will the one imbued with Baptist doctrine permit
to come between himself and his Maker. He says,
with no one and no thing to intervene, " my
Father," and with filial affection in his heart he
enters his presence. He sings,
I know his courts ; I'll enter in
Whatever may oppose.
He never has surrendered, he never will sur
render this priceless gift of the soul's competencv
in its dealings with God. Each man is a priest in
his own inherent right ; each woman is a priestess
and can gain access to Him who has said " all
souls are mine." No intercession of saints is
needed; no pleading of Mary, whom Rome has
elevated to a position no scripture warrants; np
placatin^_^™isj:ry_of_the divine Lord himself is
demanded. The_maiL_ Jhe„ individual, goes for
himself. True, our Lord ever liveth to make in
tercession for us. But it is not the intercession
of one who must appease, but that of the one who
ever stands ready to help. It is the intercession
of the trellis for the vine which it lifts into the
fructifying sunlight; it is the intercession of the
parent and instructor for the child leading it

[18]  Baptist principles
ever onward to the larger, fuller life lying beyond
the attained horizon.
At a great cost too, Baptists have held and
advocated this doctrine. Question history and it
will tell us most eloquently of this. It was be
cause of their adherence to this principle that
many of the so-called Anabaptists suffered in
Germany. For this Felix Mantz and Conrad
Griebel yielded up their lives in Switzerland, and
Balthasar Hiibmaier, clear-visioned far beyond
his age, in Bohemia. It was because of this that
persecution in its cruellest form visited many a
saint in England, and for this that Roger Wil
liams was banished from Massachusetts, and
Obadiahjjplmes whipped, and men, of whom
their day was not worthy, fined and imprisoned in
Virginia. The world has been slow in learning
the essentialness and worth of this individual soul-
responsibility to God alone, and Baptists have
been its teachers. Were they to become extinct,
and had they left nothing else as their share in
writing the world's history, for this their being
would have been worth while.
That this doctrine finds support in modern phi
losophy is not without moment. According to
that, God is not outside of his works ruling the

SMrect IRelation  [l9]
world from some far-off throne, but in them filling
them with his life. Hence, it is not Christian
alone, but scientific as well, when Paul speaks of
" Christ formed in you the hope of glory."
Tennyson * has expressed the thought no less
than Paul: Speak to Him thou, for he hears, and
Spirit with spirit can meet;
Closer is he than breathing, and nearer
Than hands and feet.
And it is the man who is the recipient thus of the
divine touch and the vehicle of the divine thought.
It is corroborative of the essential and struc
tural nature of this doctrine that men, whose lives
in the main have been radically divergent there
from, have been compelled to bear testimony to
its truth. No man left a deeper impress on the
ecclesiastical history of the nineteenth century
than did Cardinal Newman. No man during that
period, either, influenced men more profoundly
than he in the direction of yielding up their spirit
ual destiny to the control of an extra-individual
authority ; for none more than he swung the Eng
lish Church toward Rome. And yet, even he, in
view of the imperial demands of his soul in its
1 " The Higher Pantheism."

[2o]  Baptist principles
relations to God could say : " I rested in the
thought of two, and two only, absolute and
luminously self-evident beings, myself and my
Creator ! " * On this his most recent biographer,
Professor Sarolea comments : " It is the soul
which must decide in the last resort. It does not
behove the priest to obtrude his part in the mysti
cal drama in which have been only two dramatis
personae — God and Conscience." 2
It is something to be prized then, this doctrine
of the soul's individual relation to God. It is some
thing for which to thank profoundly our Baptist
progenitors, and something to cherish tenaciously
and sacredly for those who are to come after us.
1,1 Apologia," p. 4. 2 " Cardinal Newman," p. 147.

faitb tbe Ikes to tbe 1Rln$oom

And this is the victory that hath overcome the world,
even our faith. _f John 5 . 4
And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if
I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and
Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued king
doms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped
the mouths of lions . . . waxed mighty in war, turned to
flight armies of aliens. -Hebrews u : 32-34.

II

JT were well to spend a few moments in
definition as a preparation for the dis
cussion of this chapter. What is this
kingdom of which we think, and what is the faith
which forms the roadway thereto? It has been
said in some quarters, and still is, that the king
dom of our Lord has not yet been established.
He came proclaiming its nearness and proffering
it to the Jews, and they rejected it. It was there
fore withdrawn and the church was instituted to
take its place. This substitution will continue
until with it he shall have accomplished his pur
pose, and then by his personal presence he will
supersede it by his kingdom as, because of the
Jews' rejection, the church has superseded it.
Manifestly to most this is wrong. It would
seem to be a supposition made to support a theory.
Though good men have held and hold it, it is
difficult to see how a careful student of the situa
tion can come to any such conclusion. Careful
scrutiny of the New Testament must decide
23

[24]  Baptist principles
against it. Continually our Lord proclaimed its
imminence. Continually he spoke in terms of the
kingdom. Unmistakably he declared to those
who listened on one occasion " the kingdom of
heaven is within you," or among you. He never
withdrew it. Of the church, as it exists, he said
little; of the kingdom he knew everything. To
Nicodemus he said, " Except ye be born from
above ye cannot see the kingdom of God." The
converse of the statement is " If ye be born from
above ye shall both see and enter the kingdom."
Nicodemus was born from above, and did see and
did enter, as did all who heard the voice of Jesus
and followed him, as men and women have been
doing throughout the centuries, as they are doing
to-day. For, consider what this kingdom is. The apos
tle has defined it : " The kingdom of God is not
eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Ghost."1 These are the
spiritual heritage of all who may rightly count
themselves Christ's disciples. It is not then — this
kingdom — an institution or an organization. It is
a condition, an attitude, a state, a mental and
ethical and spiritual atmosphere of which all who
1 Rom. 14 : 17.

jfaitb tbe "Keg  [25]
are truly Christ's must breathe. It is biological,
not theological. The church is not the kingdom
though, as it is true, it is a part of the kingdom.
It is of it but not it. Some are in the one who
have not yet, with the spiritual vision, seen the
other. To none in the kingdom will Jesus ever
say, " I never knew you " ; to some in the church
it is quite conceivable that he may. In this king
dom the individuality of the soul's relationship to
God manifests itself, and its competency is assured.
The key now to this kingdom we have said is
faith. What is it ? How shall we take its meas
ure? How shall we define it? It differs from
belief. It includes that but it is more than that.
The demons may believe but they have not faith.
Evil men may subscribe to the creed that under
lies belief, but be total strangers to the princi
ple that vitalizes faith. It is assent but it is con
sent likewise. Dr. E. G. Robinson used to say, it
is the assent of the will and the consent of the
heart. It is willingness to let Jesus Christ save.
It is the appropriation on the part of the individ
ual soul of all the privileges and bestowments
flowing from the treasury of divine grace.. It is
the soul's response to the beckoning that comes
from above. Dr. E. Y. Mullins puts it in this

[26]  Baptist principles
way : " It is the response of the entire spiritual
nature of man aroused in all its parts to the
approach of God the Father through the reveal
ing Christ, constituting men members of his
kingdom through his word." 1
Nor is this faith, at least not primarily and
wholly, under the soul's control. One cannot will
to have faith, as he can will to perform any ordi
nary outward act. " By grace have ye been saved
through faith ; and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God." This has a wider meaning than
that faith alone is the gift of God, but it also
means that. One can put himself in the attitude
that shall be hospitable to the reception of this
faith; he can use the means that are friendly
thereto, but he cannot generate it. Wrong, there
fore, is it to say, " Faith is an act of volition," ~
as the most recent biographer of Cardinal New
man does. Will is not quiescent, but no man can
will himself into the possession of that faith which
is the key to the kingdom of God. He cannot act
as though he had it, and have it. Faith which
leads to union with God cannot be gotten in this
way. A man may have its countersign, he may be
1 " Axioms of Religion," p. 34.
a " Cardinal Newman," p. 102.

jfaitb tbe •Reg  [27]
able to pronounce its shibboleths ; but if he is not
he has not. He might as well declare himself one
of the fellowship of music or art while ignorant
of their basic principles. Faith as thus conceived
is a spiritual condition, and a condition arising
from the divine down-reaching to the individual
soul. Now, as we have said, this is the key to the
kingdom. Everywhere in the New Testament the
petitioner for entrance thereto is met with a de
mand for its existence. Wouldest thou become a
citizen therein? Well, then believe, have faith
and thou mayest. There is no other way. Noth
ing can take its place. Birth, position — as the
rabbi found in his conversation with Jesus —
cannot set aside its necessity. No ordinance, no
priestly thaumaturgy can be permitted for a single
moment to set its imperial claims at naught.
He who would the Father seek,
Must seek him, Lord, through thee.
And the only all-sufficient guarantee of finding is
faith. As the wicket gate in Bunyan's dream was
the only means of reaching the interpreter's house,
so faith alone gives ingress to the kingdom of
God.

[28]  Baptist principles
This Baptists have so insistently and so con
sistently held that it might legitimately be
called one of their distinctive doctrines. Others
claim to be advocates of its essentialness, but
none so emphatically and exclusively as they.
They have therefore inexorably opposed infant
baptism, which those others have adopted. The
infant cannot have faith they have said. He can
not therefore enter the kingdom as the Founder of
that kingdom has prescribed. An ordinance, a
rite, administered with never so much ceremony
and backed by never so much ecclesiastical author
ity, cannot be permitted to take the place of the
soul's individual act before God. At the cost of
incalculable suffering, Baptists have maintained
this position. They must maintain it or surren
der the charter of their existence.
Men are fond sometimes of conjecturing what
would have been in the history of the world if
other principles had prevailed than those which
obtained, and another course had been followed
than that which has been pursued. Had Eastern
influences, rather than Western, been regarded in
the formation of the New Testament canon, and
in the construction of the Nicene Creed and its
attendant legislation, the history of the church

jfaitb tbe fteg  [29]
would have been different, these are sometimes
fond of saying. If Martin Luther had been logi
cal and followed the principles of his spiritual
revolt to their legitimate conclusion, as his con
temporaries the Swiss Baptists sought to do, the
complexion of the great Reformation would have
been vastly other than it was, and the subsequent
history of Europe would have been utterly
changed. Well, suppose this Baptist principle of
faith the key to the kingdom had everywhere
been regnant; how different, we may feel, the ca
reer of the church would have been. Formal
Christianity, as an institution, would have been
unknown. The travesty — and the term is not too
severe — of infant baptism would have been un
heard of. The evils of Church and State in their
illicit union could not have existed. The fires of
persecution would have remained unlighted, and
many a chapter of human history, inflicting untold
wounds on the cause of religion, and bringing the
blush of shame to the cheek of every lover of his
kind, would have remained unwritten. This, in
the unfolding of the divine purposes, seemingly
could not be. But to the honor of the Baptists
it must be recorded that they did what they could
to have it so. They failed in that, but they have

[>]  Baptist principles
succeeded in preserving intact one of the funda
mental principles of the kingdom of God — that
faith is the key, and the only key thereto. Others
may attempt the task of effecting an entrance, but
the wards of the lock will move and the door will
open only in response to it.

m
3e0U0 Cbri0t'0 Supreme IHeatebip

Strong Son of God, immortal love,
Whom we that have not seen thy face
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove.
Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood thou;
Our wills are ours, we know not how,
Our wills are ours to make them thine.
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of thee;
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
— Tennyson, "In Memoriam," Prologue.

Ill

Ehave_ spoken in the preceding chapters
af-the~sauT_s_ individuality in its rela
tion to God, and of the kingdom into
which faith qualifies it to effect an entrance. In
this we want to consider Jesus Christ's supreme
headship in this kingdom of his grace. Every
kingdom implies a king. Every government must
have a ruler who represents its authority and exe
cutes its laws. Every realm has some one who
embodies its supremacy. In art, in literature, in
life, the principle is unyielding. In the spiritual
arena we call the kingdom, it is no less so. Nay,
it is much more so. In these lower realms we may
demur and question the supremacy. In the king
dom of God we may not, if we would be citizens
therein. This supremacy now is vested in Jesus Christ.
It is not in king or priest or bishop. It is in him.
Other thrones have attempted to take the place of
his, and other scepters have sought substitution
for his. But these have been usurpers, by what-
c 33

[34]  Baptist principles
ever name called. They have no more inherent
right than has ambition or selfish greed to take the
place of love in the hearts of those who would be
loyal subjects of his sway. " Art thou a king
then? " said Pilate to the marred prisoner of his
judgment hall, " Art thou a king? " " Thou say-
est that I am a king," 1 was the firm and startling
reply. " All power," said this King a little later
when he had earned the right to say it, " All au
thority has been given unto me in heaven and on
earth; go ye therefore, and make disciples of all
the nations." 2 It was an imperial mandate ut
tered by an imperial Prince. " Yet I have set
my king upon my holy hill," says Jehovah in the
Second Psalm. It was not spoken primarily of
Jesus, but it represents the fact concerning him.
" Christ alone is king in Zion," 3 Doctor Mullins
says. And again, " Christ is Lord. The believer
in Christ belongs to an absolute monarchy, the
most absolute indeed the world ever knew." *
It were well to dwell upon this a little from a
scriptural viewpoint. " Why call ye me Lord,
Lord, and do not the things which I say? " 5 " If
1 John 18 : 37. 2 Matt. 28 : 18, 19.
3 " Axioms of Religion," p. 272. * Ibid., p. 128.
6 Luke 6 : 46.

Cbrist's Meabsbip  [35]
any man would come after me, let him deny him
self, and take up his cross, and follow me." l " In
asmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren,
even these least, ye did it unto me," 2 he declares
shall be the verdict on that august day when the
nations shall be gathered before his throne.
The Epistles and the Apocalypse catch the
thought and echo it in many an eloquent passage.
Paul represents Him as humbling himself, be
coming of no reputation, and taking the form of
a servant, and becoming " obedient unto the death
of the cross," and so " wherefore also God highly
exalted him and gave unto him the name which
is above every name; that in the name of Jesus
every knee should bow . . . and every tongue
confess." 3 Can, could, sovereignty be more su
preme than that ? In the same attitude the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews beholds him. To
him he is on the throne at the right hand of God,
" from henceforth expecting till his enemies be
made the footstool of his feet.4 In the Spirit on
the Lord's day the author of Revelation saw him,
and his eyes were like flame, and his feet like
burnished brass. And in his hand was the sword
» Mark 8 : 34- 2 M»tt. 25 : 40.
3 Phil. 2: 9, ii- 4Heb. io : 13.

[36]  Baptist principles
of authority and power, and he moved among the
candlesticks in all the majesty of his kingliness.1
And this kingship is based on the surest founda
tion. Napoleon in that oft-cited scene on St.
Helena is reputed to have said : " Alexander,
Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded em
pires, but on what did we found them ? Upon the
sword. Jesus Christ founded his kingdom on
love, and to this day millions would die for him." 2
Yes, it is upon love, and therefore it will endure.
Yes, -it is upon love, and therefore sometimes the
name of Jesus is applauded while the mention of
the church is hissed. Yes, it is upon love, and
hence ever and anon in the history of mankind
comes the cry, Back to Christ! Break through
creeds, overleap edicts, disregard ecclesiastical
authority; for he alone is king, since he alone is
supreme lover. In the " Mill on the Floss," in her
suggestive fashion, George Eliot tells the legend
of St. Oggs. It runs something like this: A
storm was resting on the river. In the midst
of it a woman, withered and worn and in rags,
with a child in her arms, asked of the group of
boatmen to be rowed across. They demurred and
bade her wait till the morning. " But Ogg, son of
1 Rev. i : 14-16. > Schaff, " Person of Christ," p. 244.

Cbrisfs SHeafrsbip  [37]
Beorl, came up and said, ' I will ferry thee across.
It is enough that thy heart needs it.' And he
ferried her across. And when she was over, her
rags turned to garments shining white, and a
glory was about her, and she shed a light on the
water like the moon in its brightness. And she
said, ' Ogg, son of Beorl, thou art blessed in that
thou didst not question and wrangle with the
heart's need.' " 1 And so Jesus did not question
and wrangle with the heart's need, but gave him
self — gives himself — in love for it and therefore
he shall reign supreme.
Baptists have always held this doctrine of
Christ's supreme headship as one of their most
precious spiritual possessions. It lies at the basis
of their polity, and furnishes the keynote to their
history. Side by side with its correlative, the
individual relationship of the soul to God, it
constitutes the prime factor in their religious life.
This, more than any other tenet, gives them their
distinctive character. As the harvest is determined
by the seed, as the oak is enfolded in the acorn, so
what Baptists are depends on this that they be
lieve. It is that which affixes to them their label
in the ecclesiastical catalogue. It is not the form
1 " Mill on the Floss," chap, xii, p. 107.

[38]  Baptist principles
of an ordinance; it is not their view of the rela
tion one ordinance bears to another which makes
them what they are, but this recognition on their
part of Christ as king. Grant this to them, and all
else follows as the stream from the fountain in
which it has its birth. So completely is it an in
tegral part of their constitutional being that they
alone, of all the Christian sects, may be said to
hold it in its completeness. All claim to hold it,
but by the direct and indirect authority they center
elsewhere they so diminish and detract from it
that their claim is not a valid one. The Romanist
has his pope and his conclave; the Anglican his
bishop and his convention; the Presbyterian his
presbytery and his general assembly; and the
Methodist his conference, and these in so many
respects have so traversed the commands of Christ
that they have rendered null his direct headship.
This is said in no narrow spirit, but as an indis
putable historic fact. The mutilation of the bap
tismal sign, the fabricating of oppression and com
plicated machinery, the transformation of what
should be a spiritual body into a mixed multitude,
and the blending of the two distinct spheres of
Church and State, all have resulted directly or in
directly from the disregard of the instructions

Cbrist's Meabsbip  [39]
Jesus gave. So tenacious are Baptists in their
view that this is so that they would surrender the
doctrine of the Lordship of Christ only with the
surrender of their denominational life.
In two ways this lordship makes itself opera
tive. One is by means of the written word. In
the Gospels and Epistles Jesus has embodied his
perpetual will. No sophistry as to the lack of an
adequate interpreter has driven Baptists from
this position. As the father speaks to the son in
the will he leaves behind, so Jesus speaks to his
people by his word. When he says " Do this,"
the command is taken at its face value. Modified
views of' verbal inspiration and as to absolute in
errancy have not materially diminished or weak
ened the authority vested therein. His word is
still, as it has been, regarded as making wise unto
salvation, and as laying down for those who will
be teachable and obedient a sufficient guide in
faith and practice.
But there is another way in which Baptists
have always believed that this lordship, this
leadership of Christ, will and does make itself
known. It is by direct communication of his
will to the soul. In the secret recesses of the
spirit's life the divine speaks to it. " The secret

[4Q]  Baptist principles
[or friendship] of the Lord is with them that fear
him, and he will show them his covenant." * Lit
erally, he will " uncover the ear " and will whisper
into it his thoughts. Call it what one may, the in
ner light, the mystical sense, the influence of the
Spirit, it is a fact the true spiritual adherent of Je
sus Christ will not surrender. Leading as it some
times has to absurdities and excess, he will still
cling to it. The soul's individual relationship de
mands it, human experience has again and again
confirmed it, and he can do no other than hold to
it. In these days the mystery of it need not repel.
Auto-suggestion, telepathic communication — shall
these be and Jesus not speak to his own ? He can,
he will ; and Baptists have always believed it and
sanctioned it. So in a sense they have formed
their own canon; so each has builded his own
creed; so for every one may be marked out the
way of life. But come to him thus, or in the more
formal embodiment, or in any way it may, the
true disciple sings, as Jesus intimates his will,
My gracious Lord, I own thy right
To every service I can pay,
And count it my supreme delight
To hear thy dictates and obey.
1 Ps. 25 : 14.

w
Gbe Cburcb a Spiritual Democracy

For mankind are one in spirit and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right
and wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity's vast
frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy and
shame;
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.
— Lowell, " The Present Crisis."

IV

|N the progress of our discussion we are
now ready for a consideration of the
church. We have seen that the king
dom and the church are different. The church is
or may be of the kingdom. It is not that king
dom, neither in area nor in form. Being, as we
have said, an attitude, a spiritual condition, rather
than a concrete embodiment, the kingdom can
be, as it is, much wider than the church. Nar
rower than the kingdom the church likewise is
more formal, more palpable, more material. It
has been compelled to organize, and it has organ
ized. It has established its polity, it has formu
lated its creeds, it has ordained its officers, it has
prescribed its worship, it has projected its min
istries. And yet, different as the church is from
the kingdom, when it has been true to the original
and scriptural ideal, the key, " faith," which has
admitted to the one, is the key that has unlocked
the door of the other. To the questioner asking
" May I become a member of the church ? " the
43

[44]  Baptist principles
true answer has ever been, " If thou believest,
thou mayest."
What then is this church of which we speak,
and with which the world has so much to do, and
of which it really knows so little? It is a com
pany of baptized believers, organized to proclaim
Christ's truth, to administer his ordinances, and
to perpetuate his ministry. Its organization is
mutual association; its ordinances, baptism and
the Supper; its officers, pastors and deacons; and
its binding creed, love to God and love to men.
These elements of church organization are found
in the New Testament, and beyond them there is
no warrant for the "intricate and elaborate ecclesi
astical machinery that has been devised, nor for
the absolute human authority it has been sought to
impose. The church to be true to its fundamental
principles must be a democracy. The soul's in
dividual relationship to God, the necessity of faith
as a guide into the kingdom, and the priesthood
and kingship of each believer, all demand the form
of a democracy in which it shall stand before the
world. There is no provision for bishop or pope
to lord it over God's heritage. " One is your
teacher," said Jesus, " and all ye are brethren." 1
»Matt. 23 : 8.

Spiritual 2)emocracg  [45]
There can be within its confines no oppressive
conclave to force adherence to its despotic behests.
" There is no conceivable justification," says
Doctor Mullins, " for lodging ecclesiastical au
thority in the hands of an infallible pope or a
bench of bishops. Democracy in church govern
ment is an inevitable corollary of the general doc
trine of the soul's competency in religion." *
There is an organization, but it has no authority
save for its own preservation. It may exclude
from its body, but it has no power beyond. No
rack or prison or any form of compulsion belongs
to it, as has been so often claimed to the infinite
sorrow of myriads of human lives. There are
officers, to be sure, but they are primi inter pares.
They are elevated because of service. There is
no promotion for them but through ministry.
They have authority, but only that which all have
who possess that which shall benefit others. It
has a creed, as all associations must have in some
form that would hold together, but one may differ
therefrom without forfeiting his membership or
justly incurring the censure of his brethren.
There is no supremacy that does not embrace the
equality of all, and there is no authority that
1 " Axioms of Religion," p. 55-

[4£3  Baptist principles
does not scrupulously conserve the rights of each.
Baptists have always tenaciously and consist
ently held to the views thus briefly set forth.
They have held to them too, when to hold thus has
meant the whip or the prison or even the stake.
The church to them has always been a spiritual
body. No rite or external act or sacerdotal in
cantation has with them been permitted to take
the place of personal faith in Jesus Christ. " Dost
thou believe ? " has ever been their question to
those seeking admission to the church. If the
answer has been in the affirmative, then the door
has opened. If the reply has been No, then despite
position and influence or what not, if the right
has been maintained, the way has been barred.
As to the Baptists the church has been ever
spiritual, so has it always been a democracy. No
ecclesiastic, whether high or low, whether Angli
can or Roman; no organized body, whether
called presbytery, or assembly, or conference, or
council has ever been permitted by Baptists to
usurp authority over them. Says Dr. A. H.
Strong on this point : " While Christ is sole King,
the government of the church so far as regards
the interpretation and execution of his will, is an
absolute democracy in which the whole body of

Spiritual Democracy  [47]
members is entrusted with the duty and responsi
bility of carrying out the laws of Christ as ex
pressed in his word." *
There is therefore no idea among them of a
" world Church," governed by one central head,
such as is held at Rome. There is no thought of
a national Church as exists in England, with the
primate and the sovereign in control. There is
among them nothing approaching the associated
body affiliated for legislation as well as for coun
sel, as among the Presbyterians and Methodists.
There is not among them even the authoritative
council as among the Congregationalists, the
Christian body of all their brethren most nearly
akin to them in polity. Among Baptists the local
church is the final court of appeal. That organ
izes, that ordains, that institutes. It is correct
therefore to say Baptist churches and not the
Baptist Church. There are thousands of these, but
all together they do not constitute that. And yet
there is no lack of associated effort. There are
the Association, the Convention, the Society.
And now for more complete unity of action for
Baptists in this country at the North, for more
concentrated aggressiveness in redemptive effort,
1 " Outlines of Theology," p. 238.

[48]  Baptist principles
there has been organized the Northern Baptist
Convention, corresponding to the Southern. But
no one of these Associations or Conventions,
whether State or national, is legislative. That
would destroy the essential democracy of the
church and kingdom of Christ, of which Baptists
have been the persistent advocates and exponents.
But with it all Baptists have been held together.
Perhaps there is no ecclesiastical unity more reg
nant than theirs. Without any tribunal of last
resort, they have been remarkably free from any
serious ecclesiastical cleavage. Without any one
save their Lord to bid them go, they have not been
disobedient to the Great Commission. Without
any conclave to formulate their creeds or institute
trials for heresy, they have held together in the
essentials of doctrine. Without any rod of any
sort over them to compel them to do, they have
not been unmindful of the claims of those who
have needed help. Moreover, their unity has been
not so much that of the grains in a pile of sand, as
that of the leaf and twig and branch of the living
tree, animated by a common life and a common
love. And so held together by no external bond,
but by the force of a common internal spirit, Bap
tists are as the world sees them at this day.

ID

Gbe ©roinance© of tbe Cburcb
ano ftbeir Symbolism

In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation:
here, therefore, by Silence and by Speech acting together,
comes a double significance. And if both the speech be
itself high and the silence fit and noble, how expressive will
their union be! Thus in many a painted Device or simple
Seal-emblem, the commonest truth stands out to us pro
claimed with quite new emphasis.

It is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or
unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being: those ages
moreover are accounted the noblest which can the best
recognise symbolical worth and prise it highest. For is not
a Symbol to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or
clearer revelation of the godlike?
—Carlyle, " Sartor Resartus," pp. 151, 153.

V

S is well known, there are certain ordi
nances in the church of Jesus Christ,
whose organization in the preceding
chapter we have been considering. It may be
well at the outset to define an ordinance. If we
turn to the " Century Dictionary " we find it given
as follows : " A religious ceremony, rite, or prac
tice established by authority." In the Roman
Catholic Church there are held to be seven ordi
nances. Baptists regard the ordinances as being
two only, namely, baptism and the Lord's Supper.
The place of these ordinances is fixed in the or
ganization of the church by Him whose authority
gave them. Baptism is at the beginning of the
Christian profession; the Lord's Supper at its
conclusion, and to be perpetuated throughout the
entire life of the disciple. The one is initiatory,
the other commemorative. The one is intended
to express allegiance to Jesus Christ, and the
other is designed continually to show a participa
tion in him. Both are intended to set forth thus
Si

[52]  Baptist principles
the soul's individual relationship to Jesus Christ.
When, for any reason, they fail in this they fail in
their mission and hinder rather than help. When
from undue emphasis, when from ecclesiastical
pageantry, when from unwholesome church disci
pline they are made to obscure or belittle or muti
late the Christ, they pervert their mission and
were better dismissed than retained. They are to
disclose Christ, not to hide him.
But what are these ordinances, baptism and the
Lord's Supper ? There are different forms in ex
istence, and the inquirer may well ask what form
is authoritative. By baptism the consistent Bap
tist understands immersion alone. The word in
the original means immersion, and that only. For
example, to give just one or two on a topic so fa
miliar, Liddell and Scott give the following defini
tion : " To dip in or under water " ; and Thayer,
in his Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testa
ment, says, " An immersion in water performed
as a sign of the removal of sin." Illustrations of
this sort as to the meaning of the word might be
indefinitely multiplied, but the ground has been so
often and thoroughly covered that these are need
less. Suffice it to say that the Greek scholarship
of the day acknowledges immersion to be the

Ube ©r&inances  [53]
primitve meaning of the Greek term fi&nrtofxa. In
so far, at least, Baptists have won their conflict.
The exegesis of the passages in which the word
in the original Scriptures is found, likewise re
quires the meaning of immersion to be attached
thereto. The symbolism of the term is no less ex
acting as to its significance. To mention one in
stance of this will be sufficient, namely, Rom. 6 :
4, " Therefore we are "buried with him by baptism
into death, that like as Christ was raised up from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we
also should walk in newness of life." Nothing
but immersion will satisfy the terms used by the
apostle in this declaration. The example of the
primitive church for more than three centuries em
phasizes the meaning attached to the word by
lexicography and exegesis. No other method was
known for the time indicated, and it was more
than twelve centuries before immersion was en
tirely abandoned by the Western ritualistic
churches. Even now it is practised by the Greek
Church. In regard to the Lord's Supper, Baptists have
always held it to be commemorative, and com
memorative only. They repudiate with emphasis
the thought of its being, as the Romanist thinks,

[54]  Baptist principles
in any way a sacrifice. It is not a mass. It is a
feast of remembrance. There is neither transub-
stantiation nor consubstantiation in the thought
of Baptists with reference to the Lord's Supper.
" This do in remembrance of me," Jesus said,
and as a rite of remembrance they have always
observed it.
The symbolism attaching itself to these forms
renders absolutely necessary their preservation as
originally given. The symbolism of baptism, for
example, is the burial of the old and a resurrec
tion to the new, as well as the setting forth of the
burial of Christ and his arising. The symbolism
of the Supper is that of partaking of Christ's life ;
the bread symbolizing his broken body, and the
wine the flowing forth into the heart of Christ's
own life. Change the form and the symbolism is
lost. No burial can be indicated without an im
mersion. No participation in Christ's life can be
fully set forth without full participation in the ele
ments that represent him. Dr. W. C. Wilkinson
in his " Baptist Principle " speaks of this as fol
lows, with special reference to baptism : " In con
clusion we may say that there is no symbolic im
port of baptism suggested in Scripture which does
not require, in order to satisfy it, that baptism

Zbe ©rbinances  [55]
should be immersion. Baptism symbolizes the
Saviour's death and his resurrection; it symbol
izes the believer's death to sin and his resurrec
tion to righteousness ; it apparently symbolizes the
mystery of the new birth or regeneration ; it sym
bolizes the fact of the believer's union and indenti-
fication with Christ; it symbolizes the fact of the
believer's incorporation into one body with his
brethren; it symbolizes the idea of the believer's
purification from sin." * It can be seen at once,
therefore, that to change the form absolutely de
stroys the symbolism, as the breaking of a vessel
will destroy the contents it holds. What is true
of baptism is likewise true of the Supper. Both
form and substance are needful for the complete
manifestation of the teaching of Christ with re
spect thereto.
Constant in their adherence to the preservation
of form in both baptism and the Supper, Baptists
have been the same likewise with reference to the
qualifications for these rites. Always and every
where they have demanded that faith shall pre
cede baptism. This consequently determines and
always has determined the subjects of baptism.
Infant baptism at once is barred, since in connec-
i"The Baptist Principle," pp. 164, 165.

[56]  Baptist principles
tion with infant baptism there can be no faith on
the part of the subject himself. The position thus
assigned to baptism disproves at once the charge
that is sometimes made against Baptists that they
regard this rite as a saving ordinance. It is not
in any wise saving, although obedience is always
safe, but it is a sign. Persons are not saved by
being baptized, but they are when obedient bap
tized, because they are saved. The order too, of
these ordinances has always been clear in Baptist
thought. Baptism precedes the Supper, as en
gagement precedes the marriage contract. Bap
tism is the sign of faith, and the Supper is its seal.
There must be a preparation on the part of those
who would be benefited in any school of life. To
discern the lessons of nature, one must have a
capacity within. The same is true of art or music.
Unless there is some artistic or musical fitness in
the subject, nothing will be carried away from art
gallery or concert room. So in the participation
in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, there must
be this preparation of heart that faith alone can
give. Otherwise eyes will be blind and the spirit
will be inert. This faith as indicated has given
sign of its existence in the baptism whereby its
profession has been made ; hence the order of the

TEbe ©rotnances  [57]
two ordinances in Baptist polity has not been
arbitrary. It is logical, and as necessary as that
the oath of allegiance in army or navy should fol
low the act of enlistment.
Baptists have always been strenuous in regard
to the preservation of these forms, as they believe
them to be laid down in the Scriptures. Tenacity
at this point is not really their most distinguishing
feature, although it is from the preservation of
the form of baptism that they derive their name.
Other things in their distinguishing characteris
tics are more important than their stand as to
baptism, perhaps. Certainly their practice of abso
lute obedience to Jesus Christ is more important,
since from that comes their attitude with reference
to the ordinances as given ; but it is very much that
it can be said of Baptists, they have preserved the
forms of the New Testament as they are ex
pressed therein. Had it not been for them, im
mersion would have disappeared from the usages
of the church of Jesus Christ. Had it not been for
them, the order in which the two ordinances were
intended to be observed would likewise have been
subverted. True, a change has come in the
methods of Baptist administration. They no
longer regard themselves as its custodians to drive

[58]  Baptist principles
from the table any of the other Faiths. They re
gard it now more as a matter of individual con
viction, and the determination of action is left
to each one for himself and herself. And yet
Baptists to-day, no less than in the olden time, as
a whole, are concerned to preserve the ordinances
of the church as Jesus Christ gave them.

ID!
©beolence to 3e0U0 Cbri0t, tbe
Zest of 2)i0Ciple0bip

Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and
sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat
°f rams- -i Samuel 15 : 22.
Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which
1 say? -Luke 6 : 46.

VI

|N the development of our thought con
cerning the kingdom and the church of
our Lord, we have seen that Baptists
hold to the direct relationship of the individual
believer to God, and to Jesus Christ as his repre
sentative. He is Head and Lord. The church is
a democracy, and yet there is no monarchy so ab
solute as is it. The reason for this is that the
members of this church have been drawn to him
by the force of love, and hence if they are true,
his slightest wish or most trivial command is im
perative. Others profess this obedience, but they
are not consistent therein. The Romanist, for ex
ample, may say that he obeys Christ, but he inter
poses the Church, the pope, between his Lord and
himself. History discloses how the indirect au
thority diminishes and really destroys that which
should be direct. We learn from it what sorrows
have been occasioned, and what dimness of vi
sion and loss of direction. In the recent " Life of
Cardinal Newman," by Prof. Charles Sarolea,
61

[62]  Baptist principles
these words are found respecting this great church
leader : " Twenty years he had to submit to a
policy which in his heart he disapproved of." *
This man, deservedly called " great," professed
allegiance to Jesus Christ, but he gave it to his
system and its head, the pope. An ecclesiastical
system came between him and his Lord, as it
comes between Christ and all those who follow in
the cardinal's footsteps. The Modernists, so
called of the present day, are experiencing the
same sort of interposition of an ecclesiastical for
a divine authority. Chairs of theology are va
cated, and pulpits are silenced, because their oc
cupants dare to be obedient to the Head of the
church rather than to the one who professes so
to be.
Others than adherents of Rome fail in precisely
the same way. They likewise profess absolute
obedience to Jesus Christ, and yet their systems
come between them and him. In all the heresy
trials of the past few years, recourse for proof
against the accused has been had to tradition
rather than to Scripture; to the creeds of the
church rather than to the teachings of Christ.
Jesus Christ has not been to their authors as he
1 " Cardinal Newman," p. 78,

XEest of 5>isciplesbip  [63]
should be to the church, their Head. These fail,
although oftentimes unconscious of their failure,
to meet the supreme test of discipleship, namely,
obedience to Jesus.
Baptists, though at times inconsistent it may
have been in conduct, have been true to this test
in thought. From Jesus Christ have come to
them the commands they have sought to obey. No
other authority has been recognized ; decrees from
no other source have received approval from them.
This is true to-day; this has been true, it may be
said to their honor, from the beginning of their
history. In the " Baptist Confession of the Seven
Congregations," published in London in 1643,
these words are found : " Concerning the worship
of God there is but one Lawgiver which is able
to save and destroy, which is Jesus Christ, who
hath given laws and rules sufficient in his word for
his worship; and for any one to make more were
to charge Christ with want of wisdom or faithful
ness or both in not making laws enough or not
good enough for his house; surely it is our wis
dom, duty, and privilege to observe Christ's laws
only." 1 How much woe and shame, and even
of crime, the world would have been saved had
1 Moss, " What Baptists Stand For," p. 13.

[64]  Baptist principles
the church as a whole been as true to the headship
of Christ as these words from that ancient Article
of Faith prescribe ! , These Baptists had recourse,
even as Baptists to-day seek to have recourse,
to Him. When he speaks, they listen. When
others interpose between them and him, as a rule,
when consistent, they have been deaf.
Obedience in this direction Baptists have felt to
be, and feel to be, the supreme test of discipleship.
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours to make them thine,
they sing, and in accordance therewith they strive
to act. They emphasize this obedience because it
is one of the ways in which they may express their
love. Can we love where we fail to render obe
dience ? " If ye love me," Jesus said, " keep my
commandments." The parent may well distrust
the love of his child when he says, " Father,
mother, I love you," and then the next moment
deliberately disobeys a command that is given.
The king could not well trust the expressed love
of a subject if that subject immediately after pro
fessing it were found in rebellion against the
king's will. Precisely as these could not trust the
love of the ones thus declaring it, so Christ cannot.

XTest of 2)isciplesbip  [65]
" Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the
things which I say? "
Obedience is needed likewise to preserve the
command that is given. It is sometimes said that
it does not matter so much as to exact obedience,
if obedience in the main is rendered. We wonder
whether a homely illustration will make plain the
absurdity of this. A man is sent into the woods
to cut timber for rails, with a direction to make
each length fourteen feet. In disobedience of the
exact prescription he makes some twelve, some
fourteen, some sixteen, etc. " It makes no dif
ference," he says, " I am obedient on the whole."
It may make no difference to him, but it will make
a difference when the man comes to build his
fence. Soldiers on a march are bidden not to
talk, but some one, near the enemy's camp, gives
a shout. He obeys on the one hand, but disobeys
on the other, and it will be found to have made
a difference when the camp of the enemy is
aroused to repel the attack. So, likewise, it makes
a difference with reference to the commands of
Christ, whether exact obedience — obedience as to
details, is rendered.
But then, again, sometimes it is said if the es
sence is preserved, no matter about the form.
E

[66]  Baptist principles
Here likewise is a fallacy that an illustration may
at once disprove. Dr. George Dana Boardman,
many years ago, in preaching a sermon on the
symbolism of baptism ' pictures a graphic scene
on the battlefield. A company is charging; shot
and shell plunge about it and riddle the standard
they are seeking to follow. But they press on as
that standard rises and falls before them. What
is it? Only a piece of cloth, but that piece of
cloth is the flag of their country ! " So long,"
Doctor Boardman says, " as the flag floats over
his ranks the soldier feels that he has everything
to fight for. Wrest his flag from him, and he feels
that all is lost." So, likewise, is it with the church
in reference to the ordinance of baptism, for ex
ample, which Jesus Christ has given. " Substitute
any other banner for it and you substitute a hu
man device for a divine ; an heresy for the gospel ;
secessionism for loyalty." There can be no true
love and no true loyalty apart from obedience.
Jesus Christ is to the true disciple Lord and
Master, and to be obedient to him is the test of
his fidelity.
1 " Madison Avenue Lectures," p. 135.

tDMI
Gbe Hb0olute Severance of
Cburcb ano State

O glorious days! When Church and State
Were wedded by your spiritual fathers,
And on submissive shoulders sat
Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers.
No vile " itinerant " then could mar
The beauty of your tranquil Zion
But at the peril of the scar
Of hangman's whip, and branding-iron.

What marvel that, in many a mind,
Those darker deeds of bigot madness,
Are closely with your own combined,
Yet less in anger than in sadness?
What marvel if the people learn
To claim the right of free opinion?
What marvel if at times they spurn
The ancient yoke of your dominion?
—Whittier, "The Pastoral Letter."

VII
I ROM the very nature of the individual
relationship of the man to God and to
the kingdom and the church, there can
be no organization legitimately uniting these with
the State. The Church and State must, in order
to be true to this ideal, be distinct and separate.
They are interrelated, but they are independent.
The one deals more with the spiritual, the ethical ;
the other with the material, the earthly. The
Church then dominates legitimately and prop
erly in one realm ; the State in another. This fact
was distinctively indicated by our divine Lord.
" My kingdom," he said, " is not of this world,"
" One is your Lord, even Christ, and all ye are
brethren." When they brought the denarius or
penny to him, seeking to entangle him by the ques
tion whether or not it was lawful to pay tribute
to Caesar, he said, " Whose is this image and su
perscription ? " When they answered, as they
could not help answering, " Caesar's," then came
the reply, directly distinguishing between spiritual
60

[7o]  Baptist principle0
and temporal allegiance, " Render therefore unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's ; and unto God
the things that are God's." 1 The very essential
nature and heart of the kingdom and church of
Christ are diverse from those of the State. In
the latter position is sought, authority is exercised,
greatness is determined by station. In the former
it is absolutely the reverse. Ye are not to be,
Jesus said to his disciples in substance, as are the
Gentiles. They exercise authority the one upon
the other, and among them their exactors are
great, but so shall it not be among you. He
among you who would be greatest shall be your
minister, and he who would be chief shall be serv
ant of all.2
History tells us very clearly and distinctively
how and when this idea of separateness began to
be perverted. In A. D. 325, Constantine, the sole
emperor of Rome, summoned the magnates of the
church to meet at Nicea. Ostensibly they were
called to settle certain questions and doctrines in
connection with which disputes had arisen. In
reality it was called that the emperor might secure
for the service of the empire an influence so domi-
1 Matt. 22 : 21.
a Matt, 20 : 25-28,

Cbutcb anb State  [70
nant as the church had then become. Constantine
was far-sighted, and he saw what a power for the
unity of the empire — which at length was brought
under his sole sway — the church would be able to
exert. Most of those in that celebrated council
failed to discern the real purpose of him who had
summoned them. There was one, however, more
clear-visioned, who most distinctly divined the
emperor's purpose and forecasted the future. It
was Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, and the
reputed founder of the party that afterward gave
the Roman Church so much trouble. Being re
proached for remaining day after day in silence
in the great conclave, while others were taking
part in the prevailing discussions, at length he
arose and said : " For me, a poor presbyter of the
Christian church, to assume the right to deliberate
upon and prescribe laws for the empire would be
gross impudence and arrogance. For any human
authority to usurp the right to make laws control
ling the faith of Christ's church would be as gross
a sacrilege. Was Constantine crucified for you ? or
were ye baptized into his name ? Do ye hope for
salvation by faith in and obedience to him ? I was
not. I have come hither, therefore, in obedience
to the imperial mandate, and have spoken by the

[72]  Baptist principles
emperor's command. As to the empire, I have no
authority and no desire to make laws for it; as
to my Christian faith, no man nor angel hath right
or power to meddle therewith or to prescribe laws
for it. It is a thing between my soul and its
Saviour, whom I have served all my life long in
spite of imperial laws, and whom I will continue
to serve no matter what laws may be enacted.
Brethren, will ye do likewise, or will ye now deny
the Christ ? " 1 It may, perhaps, be questioned
whether or not Arius really spoke these words.
He could not have spoken more truthfully, cer
tainly, had he done so; and whether he uttered
them or not, they accord with the exact conditions
of the teaching of Christ, and with the position of
Baptists in the history of the church.
What evils have sprung from this perversion,
history does not fail to tell us. Doctor Mullins
quotes from Mr. Bryce, in his "American Com
monwealth," as follows : " Half of the wars of
Europe, half of the internal troubles that have
vexed European States, from the controversies in
the Roman empire, of the fifth century, down to
the ' Kulturkampf ' in the German empire, of the
nineteenth century, have arisen from the rival
1 " Arius the Libyan," pp. 328, 329,

Cbnrcb anb State  [73]
claims of Church and State." 1 Buckle, in his
" History of Civilization," as also quoted by Doc
tor Mullins, says : " During almost one hundred
and fifty years Europe was afflicted by religious
wars, religious massacres, and religious persecu
tions, not one of which would have arisen if the
great truth had been recognized that the State has
no concern with the opinions of men, and no right
to interfere even in the slightest degree with the
form of worship which they may choose to
adopt." 2 It would doubtless be unjust to charge
all the evils from which the church may be re
garded as suffering to-day upon its union with the
State, but certain it is that vastly the larger pro
portion of these come therefrom. It is only
yesterday, as it were, that we read of the suffer
ings, the privations, the inconveniences encoun
tered by the Dissenters of England in consequence
of the imposition of a school tax coupled with
religious instruction. This was sought to be
imposed by the State upon those who did not,
and do not, believe therein. Such a condition
could not exist where the State and the Church
are absolutely severed, as they ought to be.
1 " Axioms of Religion," p. 186,
2 Ibid., p. 186,

[74]  Baptist principles
Baptists were the pioneers in the severance of
these two essential institutions. They were the
first, apparently, to grasp the true principles of
Jesus Christ's government, and seemingly they
were the first to endeavor to put those principles
into practice. Says Dr. E. Y. Mullins, " The
Baptists grasped the conception of liberty in its
full-orbed glory from the beginning. This doc
trine, and those related to it, shine in the early
Baptist Confessions of Faith among contempora
neous creeds like a constellation in the clear sky
seen through a rift in the darkness of the sur
rounding clouds. It found its' sublimest embodi
ment when Roger Williams took it in his hand as
a precious seed and planted it in the soil of East
ern New England, saying, in the words of God's
true prophet, 'Out of this seed shall arise the
most glorious commonwealth known to human
history.' " 1 Such commonwealth did arise. It
was glorious in itself, but more glorious in the
results flowing therefrom. It may be of moment
for us to quote the exact language of the charter
which formed the basis of the foundation of
Rhode Island : " No person within the said colony
at any time hereafter shall be in anywise mo-
1 " Axioms of Religion," p. 268,s

Cburcb anb State  [75]
lested, punished, disquieted, or called in question
for any differences of opinion in matters of re
ligion; but that all and every person and persons
may from time to time, and at all times hereafter,
freely and fully have and enjoy his and their own
judgment and consciences in matters of religious
concernment." 1 Such sentences strike one even
at this distance as almost inspired. The singular
thing about it, likewise, is that Roger Williams
was not the first to strike this lofty chord in the
instrument of human freedom. Even the so-called
Anabaptists themselves, those much maligned peo
ple, discerned the same great spiritual truth, and
put it into a document that would do credit as to
its breadth of view to the nineteenth or even the
twentieth century.
It will be readily seen upon what a high plane
this conception of the Church and State placed
the relations of the two in Baptist thought. There
could be, there can be, no persecution where this
ideal obtains. With this ideal these words from
Professor Sarolea are untrue. He says, " Wher
ever any church is alone in possession of the field,
and has no rival to dread, that church is ever
intolerant. There is a guarantee of tolerance only
1 Curry, " Establishment and Disestablishment," p. 48.

[76]  Baptist principles
in those countries where religious opinions are
profoundly divided, and where several churches
are struggling for existence." 1 Planted upon the
Baptist foundation, with the conception of Jesus
Christ's rulership and the soul's responsibility and
obligation to him alone, any church, whether
standing by itself or by the side of others, must
be tolerant; nay more, it must grant liberty to
others to hold what they believe, equal to that
which it claims for itself to hold what it believes.
Baptists have been consistent, and they have
been influential in shaping legislation and in in
fluencing States in regard to this important mat
ter. They were Baptists who in the early days
of the formation of the Federal Constitution in
sisted upon guarantees of religious freedom in
this favored land of ours. That Constitution as
first formed did not meet with their approval.
A committee, of which James Manning and Isaac
Backus were influential members, came to Phila
delphia and presented the matter to the Federal
Congress then in session in that city. Their in
fluence prevailed, and the Constitution was so
amended as to guarantee to the nation, for all
time, absolute religious freedom. There can be
* " Cardinal Newman," p. 142,

(Xburcb anb State  [77]
no structural relationship between the Church and
the State under our national Constitution. The
State is to protect the Church ; to guard its prop
erty, and to maintain its political rights; but it
is not in anywise to interfere with its services or
doctrines or principles. It may not dictate to
the church in any way as to these, and much less
may it in anywise compel. What a tide of woe,
what rivers of blood, what agonies of soul that
have cried to heaven would have been spared had
this idea, that now is so universal, prevailed
throughout the church's history !
It may be said in just a word, that this ideal
of which Baptists were the pioneers, and of which
they have ever been the adherents, is growing
to-day. In France, within these recent years, and
almost months, movements have been made for
the severance of Church and State looking to
ward the relegation of each to its own and proper
realm. In Italy the same influence is at work,
and likewise in Spain. Moreover, the influence
of this religious freedom is great in the direction
of political freedom. When one enjoys the liberty
of worshiping God according to the dictates of
his own conscience, he feels that he, as a part of
the people, has a right to a voice in the determi-

[78]  Baptist principles
nation of his political fortunes and fate Bap
tists may be grateful for the part they have been
permitted to take in the progress of this great
idea, and in the position that it has attained.
Others than Baptists now advocate it and sustain
it. To such an extent, perhaps, does this obtain,
that it may be forgotten by some who were the
original propagators and defenders of the true
relations of Church and State. No student of
history, however, can fail to discern this fact,
that Baptists have been the pioneers in holding
and defending that principle of the right rela
tionship of Church and State which culminates
in the ideal, a free Church in a free State.

DWI1I
flnoivitmai jfreeoom E00ential
to fl>rogre00

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell,
That mind and soul according well
Shall make one music as before,
But vaster. — Tennyson, "In Memoriam," Prologue.

VIII
ELIEVING in the soul's responsibility
to God, deprecating and repudiating all
dictation from ecclesiastical or civil
authority, and regarding the spheres of Church
and State as separable, while yet related, Baptists
hold to the individual Christian's freedom and re
sponsibility. According to them the soul, as a
unit, is answerable to God alone in the ultimate
analysis. The man himself is competent in all
religious matters, both for judgment and decision.
So it comes about that the true Baptist is toler
ant of others from the very nature of the case.
What he claims for himself he accords to them.
He does not, as it is said the old Puritan did,
claim freedom for his views and sternly repress
those opposed thereto. He is tolerant of all. Nay,
to put it in a stronger form, he grants absolute
freedom of thought to all. It is each one's right,
according to him, to think as he will. There can
therefore be no heresy trial for him. There can be
no edict against Modernism for him. He frowns
F 81

[82]  Baptist principles
down any attempt to repress freedom of thought.
To his own Master alone the man stands or
falls. This does not mean license, nor does it
mean invective in anywise against others. It
means simply individual liberty. Recognizing
Jesus Christ's headship alone, his will to him, the
Baptist, is law. His mind is to be brought into
willing subjection to him, his Lord, and he pays
in the last appeal, allegiance to no other. There
may be those who practically would question the
accuracy and the emphasis of these statements,
but to be true to the Baptist ideal, the position in
dicated must be held.
Very early in the history of Baptists this view
began to obtain. As far back in the pathway of
the years as 1527, Balthasar Hiibmaier " con
tended that any believer led by the Holy Spirit
can discern the true sense of Scripture, at least so
far as all things necessary to salvation are con
cerned." 1 Dr. George C. Lorimer says of Bap
tists, " They believe that man's primary alle
giance, so far as earthly powers are concerned, is
not to the church, but to himself; to his own rea
son and consciousness; to his own dignity and
destiny." 2 In another part of the same work,
1 " The Baptists in History," p. 64. ' Ibid., p. 60.

Inbivibnal jfreebom  [83]
quoting from Dr. Thomas Armitage, Doctor
Lorimer indorses this sentiment, " Their (that is
Baptists') primary idea is not to build up an ec
clesiastical system, but to create high and manly
Christian character. In other words, it is to
create in each individual soul and life a legitimate
independency of all men in matters of faith and
practice Godward." * It were impossible to state
too strongly the position Baptists have held in re •
spect to this matter of individual freedom and re
sponsibility. This position is justified by the nature of the
kingdom into which, by spiritual birth, men are
brought. Dr. George H. Ferris, in a sermon on
" Faith and Finality," outlines this kingdom in
these true and suggestive words : " What is the
religion of Christ ? It is just a glorious mountain
view of truth with ranges of divine possibility
reaching in endless succession that fade in future
realms of mystery. It realizes itself in any en
vironment from which it takes its form, but these
forms do not contain it or express it or hold it.
It is ever freeing itself from them, that it may
arise to a purer and higher spirituality. It is
above all things progressive. Its advance is slow,
1 " The Baptists in History," p. 4.

[84]  Baptist principles
silent, ofttimes unconscious; arrested by the
power of reaction ; hindered by the spirit of fear ;
and yet as certain as the seasons, as inevitable as
the tides."
The highest efficiency in the direction of outlin
ing this kingdom and molding its forms rests
upon individual effort. Masses cannot do it. The
church as a whole will be found incompetent. It
takes individual effort to look beyond the horizon,
to dip into the future that is to be. This is true
in science, it is true in art, it is true along all
lines. It was Hahnemann, the individual, who
sought out the specifics in medicine that should
help mankind, and submitted personally to their
influence in order that he might speak authorita
tively in respect thereto. It is the individual in
ethical and religious matters, likewise, who is the
pioneer, who discovers the new truth, and who
modifies the old. Puritan John Robinson said
that new truth should break out of the word of
God in the processes of time. It is the individual
who will discover this truth and not mankind
in a mass. Not all of Xenophon's returning ten
thousand Greeks saw the sea at first. It was the
foremost rank that discerned it, and they called
out the joyful news to those who were behind. So

Unbtvibnal jfreebom  [85]
ever is it the pioneers that receive the first vision
and give the tidings to the rest. Let the individ
ual be cramped or suppressed, and progress is
— must be — hindered. He cannot be under des
potic tuition in this matter of truth's investiga
tion, and he cannot be subjected to fear therein.
Milton says in one of his famous pamphlets,
" And how can a man teach with authority, which
is the life of teaching ; how can he be a doctor in
his book, as he ought to be, or else had better be
silent, when as all he teaches, all he delivers is
but under the tuition, under the correction of his
patriarchal licenser to blot or alter what precisely
accords not with the hidebound humor which he
calls his judgment!"1 When this law of in
dividual investigation and progressiveness has
been disregarded, inertia, stagnation, has inevita
bly resulted. History records how true this is in
the Roman Church in Italy, and in France and
Spain. It is only when men as individuals have
broken away from the despotic authority that
would cripple them that any advance has been
made. In minor measure this has been true in
other circles than that of Christian believers.
True efficiency, as likewise true life, can only re-
1 " Famous Pamphlets," " Areopagitica," p. 48.

[86]  Baptist principles
suit where each individual is free. It is each twig,
each leaf, each branch of the vine that contributes
to the life of the whole, and so is it in the assembly
of men, whether secular or religious. The life of
the body as a whole must be generated, and must
be nourished in the individual man, otherwise
there will be no growth in the body taken to
gether. Unfortunately, the church as a whole has too
often planted itself in the pathway of this individ
ual progress. Times have changed, and hence
despotic and persecuting measures are no longer
possible. The Inquisition has been destroyed and
can never be reestablished. And yet the church,
in its different branches, finds means oftentimes of
repressing individual effort. The great contest of
the day in the Roman Catholic Church is the con
test against those who therein are called Modern
ists, who have imbibed modern thought, and
would bring the Church somewhat into line with
the scientific and critical methods of the day.
That is the contest that is going on in other areas
of the kingdom of Christ. And while measures
that are persecuting, as in the olden time, cannot
be resorted to, there are others that can be em
ployed. The innuendo, the resolution of censure,

Inbivibnal jfreebom  [87]
the quiet influence that may issue in expulsion
from a given position, are still at hand and can
sometimes be used. History records in words
that still burn and blister, how men have been per
secuted for varying in thought from current posi
tions. Galileo was silenced under pressure that
was as cruel as the grave. Luther would have lost
his life had he not been protected by the secular
princes. Wycliffe's grave was dishonored, and his
ashes went journeying on the Swift and Avon to
the sea because of his loyalty to his convictions.
In later times, and in different fashion, opposition
has been dealt out to other investigators in the
realm of advancement. Darwin was labeled an
infidel, and Herbert Spencer an enemy to the
cause of truth; and others have been treated in
similar manner. It seems singular in the light of
experience, along all lines of advancement, that
this opposition should obtain, and it is difficult
from any point of view to find words for its legiti
mate defense. Society has ever been prone to
honor its historians and stone its prophets. It has
not been wrong in that, but it has been eternally
wrong in this ; for its prophets have made the his
tory its historians have written. " Pioneers are
usually martyrs," is a headline appearing recently

[88]  Baptist principles
in a daily journal, and is an expression of the
same thought. The words are used in connection
with the daring aerial flights that marked the year
1908. This martyrdom, however, is caused by
the laws of nature, and is perhaps inevitable.
That, on the other hand, which comes so often to
pioneers in the realm of thought is not inevitable.
It is due to the opposition of narrow bigotry, or
the misconception of duty, and could not be were
the minds of the many widened as are the minds
of the few, and the right of every man to think
his own thought recognized and acknowledged.
But there is danger in such independence of
thought. Yes, there is always danger where
there is freedom. Danger attends the man when
he begins to think, as it does the child when he
commences to walk. But we do not, or should
not, veto the efforts of either because of this.
When the prisoner long inured to the dungeon
comes into the light, he is blinded by the glare
and profusion of color. But we do not, therefore,
thrust him back into captivity. We give him time
that he may become adjusted. We give the
thinker time likewise, and he too may learn ad
justment, and mayhap may grow more modest.
He should be this. He is not the first to plunge

Inbivlbual jfreebom  [89]
into the ocean of thought, as he is not the only
one who has reached right conclusions. There
were great men before Agamemnon. Not all that
is old is either ill-founded or untrue; but, never
theless, the man, if he will, must be free to break
a lance against it. It is far better that he prove
himself wrong, than that he be suppressed; and
he may be right. At any rate, it is in the line of
his heritage that he shall have the chance to try
whether he is or not.
This is entirely in accord with true Baptist
thought, and to the positions that in the main
Baptists have held throughout their entire career.
Any pressure intended to stultify or to repress,
any effort to crucify the truth or the truth-holder,
that is still within the reach of the one willing to
employ such means, any real unfriendliness, even,
that should seek to hinder or to block individual
progress in the truth is un-Baptistic. Our divine
Lord in answer to Peter as to what should be the
destiny of his brother John, answered, " What is
that to thee? Follow thou me." In the spirit of
this injunction Baptists say, What is it to thee
what the other man holds as to essential truth;
look to yourself and care for that. This does not
mean a lack of interest in what others may think,

[oo]  Baptist principles
or what they may express, but it does mean the
according of absolute freedom to each one to
think and to speak as he will. " Thou must be
free thyself, wouldst thou be free to teach the
truth." But some one says, Is there not an opposite
side to this? Are there not vested interests and
cherished positions and revered standards and
hoary traditions that ought to be cherished, and
against which no organized opposition should ob
tain? We may reply that there is this side, and
they who differ from these ought well to consider
their ground. In the words of Dr. John Watson,
substantially, as he expresses himself in his " Cure
of Souls," the man who differs from others on
those points that they regard as essential, should
have consideration and kindliness and tact. He
should not belittle their adherence nor denounce
their seeming lack of enterprise. This unques
tionably is true, but at the same time the man
should not refrain from thinking his own thought
and uttering it on fitting occasion. And, after
all, are we afraid of the truth? Shall we by our
anxiety betray any fear as to its ultimate triumph ?
Shall we fancy that the ark of the covenant can
not stand the jolting of the roadway without our

Inbivibnal jfreebom  [91]
sustaining hand? In other words, shall we give
our enemies the chance to say, " They are afraid ;
their positions are not secure ; and so they depre
cate and sometimes denounce all opposing forces."
Surely this is not wise, and most surely it is not
in accord with those advocates of the truth in
all ages, who are clear-visioned as well as loyal.
But, says another, there can be no organization
with such attitude and liberty for individual
thought as you would permit. Organization
would be an aggregation of individuals such as is
formed by particles in a gravel heap, without
unity, and with little cohesion. In answer let it be
remembered that in what we have already said we
have been outlining certain common elements sup
posed to be accepted, in the main, by such as
would come together on the Baptist foundation.
It is with these that we are especially concerned.
With the common ground of the soul's relation
ship to God, with faith as the key to the kingdom,
with the supreme headship of Jesus Christ, and
with common church ordinances and organiza
tion, they have that which binds them together.
Any holding these, though perhaps here and there
in differing forms, have common ground and the
basis of unitedness. To any one asking for ad-

[92]  Baptist principles
mission not holding any or few of these, the an
swer might well be made, " You are not of us,
why ask for union with us? " If then it is replied,
" This is forming a test adverse to free thought,"
we respond " No. It is simply making provision
for a basis of union without which there can be
no organization at all." In the kingdom, which is
an attitude and spiritual condition, there is no
need of such test as this. In the church, however,
which is and must be to a certain extent definite
and formal, there is this need, and the demand to
satisfy it must be respected.

Xove, not Xaw, tbe Blncing factor

The wise men ask, What language did Christ speak?
They cavil, argue, search, and little prove.
O sages, leave your Syriac and your Greek,
Each heart contains the knowledge that you seek.
Christ spoke the universal language — love.
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

IX

E have thus far seen in our discussion
of Baptist principles that, in connection
therewith, the controlling power is not
in anything external. It is not in law as expressed
by any earthly authority. It is not in any creed
formulated by human hands. It is not in any
decree issued by any ecclesiastical assembly. It
is not in any church conclave, however high in au
thority it may deem itself, or however wide may
be its representation. There must be, however, and
there is, some bond binding Baptists together.
It is, as we have tried to point out, the divine com
mandment, and the love of the heart which binds
the disciple to it and to Him. This love, to the
true Baptist, that is to one who aims to be su
premely the disciple and follower of Jesus Christ,
is the supreme controlling, governing force.
In support of his position that it is love and not
law that is supreme, he goes back to the teaching
of Jesus Christ himself. He sees that in that love
is the keynote. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy
95

[96]  Baptist principles
God with all thy heart and mind and strength, and
thy neighbor as thyself." In this commandment,
according to Christ's own declaration, is summed
up all the law and the prophets. Love to God and
love to man will carry everything else with it in
the nature of obedience, or consecration, or beauty
of life. There can be no disobedience to a higher
power where there is supreme love for that power.
There can be no injurious influence exerted
against any one when love obtains. There can
be no failure to exert a helpful, uplifting line of
action where love exists.
How completely this supremacy of love seemed
to dominate the mind of the Master himself is
indicated by his parable of the Good Samaritan.
The man was sorely wounded by the thieves and
left helpless by the roadside. The priest passed
by, fearing lest in helping he might impair his
dignity. The Levite also went to the other side
lest he might defile his robes. It was the good
Samaritan, the member of an outcast clan, who
came along and took the poor fellow lying help
less there, and put him on his beast and carried
him to the inn and ministered to him. Above
priestly authority and Levitic position was en
throned the Samaritan's love, and there it abides

Xove, not %aw  [97]
immortal. Recall the scene in Simon's house
when the woman of the street came in and bathed
the Master's feet with her tears, and dried them
with her tresses with a love that seemed to redeem
all the past. Think of that vase of costly oint
ment that Mary broke upon the Master's feet, in
loving anticipation of the anointing that should be
needed, when she received the encomium from
him she loved — that in all the future that which
she had done should be published as a memorial
of her because of the love of him which it mani
fested. In all of this it stands forth most clearly,
how supreme and above all other motives and
emotions is that which love controls. Catching
the spirt of this, Paul wrote his inimitable thir
teenth of First Corinthians. In the language of
the poet, and with the clear vision of the prophet,
he compares love with all the other qualities he
could summon up, and then declares that while
might abide Faith and Hope, Love was to be
crowned above them all. We recall likewise how
John, the beloved apostle, in his inimitable inter
pretation of the Master's teaching glorified this
quality of love. So completely did it possess him
that, as tradition tells us, in his last days, when
borne by loving hands into the assembly of the

[98]  Baptist principles
saints at Ephesus, he could utter only few words,
these were the ones he spoke over and over and
over again: "Little children love one another."
In all of this we see how supreme a bond this
quality of love will weave. The poet is well justi
fied in declaring : " He prayeth best who loveth
most, all things both great and small." Beyond
the bond of legal decree or ecclesiastical fiat or
conclave authority is this, the potency of love.
This love is twofold. It is the love of God and
Christ to us on the one side. God so loved that he
gave, and Jesus Christ so loved that he came. So
supreme and all-controlling is this on the divine
side that in defining God the apostle declares that
he is love. The terms are synonymous; God is
love and love is God. This is the love of Christ
that constrains us according to Paul's thought.
It sends us into service; it holds us to our posts;
it thrills every act; it is a love from which Paul,
in that triumphant eighth chapter of Romans,
declares nothing can separate us. Nothing in
heaven or on earth or above the earth or beneath
it can separate from this love of God which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is this love thus manifested and thus supreme
and regnant that generates love in us. " We love

Xov>e» not Xaw  [99]
him because he first loved us," the apostle ex
claimed. It is this love in the home that makes
it the place of peace and joy and happiness. It is
this love in the church which preserves the unity
of the spirit in the bond of peace — a love which
makes any service light, and any sacrifice a joy.
It is this love in the school that makes authority
something to rejoice in; which transfigures tasks
that otherwise were hard, and helps to smooth a
pathway that without it were one of obstacles that
might prove insurmountable. And how this love
prompts to the gift of self for the happiness and
helpfulness of others. One of the most unique
and interesting characters in Ian Maclaren's
books, "The Bonnie Brier Bush" and "The
Days of Auld Lang Syne," is Drumsheugh. The
readers of these unique stories, which in some re
spects are in a class by themselves, will well re
call this man. He seemed to live for himself.
He was close in his bargaining. He was miserly,
seemingly, as to the employment of his savings.
But it all comes out at last when he reveals to
the good old doctor the story of his life. In early
days he loved Marget Howe. Because of his re
tiring nature he never told her, and he lost the
girl he might otherwise have had to brighten his

[ioq]  Baptist principles
life. She accepted another, but that other proved
not untrue, but unthrifty. He never could make
things go, and privation came to his household.
It was Drumsheugh who flew to the rescue. It
was his money that educated Marget's son, and
his means that lifted the encumbrances from her
estate. She never dreamed it until at last one
day fortune brought them together for a little
while, and she took tea at Drumsheugh's house.
Then the secret was revealed, and she exclaimed :
" A' never dreamed o' this, an' a'm not worthy o'
sic luve, whereof I hev hed much fruit an' ye hev
only pain."
" Ye're wrang, Marget, for the joy hes gien
ower the pain, an' a've hed the greater gain. Luve
roosed me tae wark an' fecht, wha micht hae been
a ne'er-dae-weel. Luve savit me frae greed o'
siller an' a hard hert. Luve kept me clean in
thocht an' deed, for it was ever Marget by nicht
an' day. If a'm a man the day, ye did it, though
ye micht never hae kent it. It's little a' did for
ye, but ye've dune a' thing for me . . . Mar
get." 1
What the love of woman could do for this
man, and has done for many another man, that the
1 " The Days of Auld Lang Syne," p. 189.

%ovc, not Xaw  [iqi]
love of Jesus Christ can do, and vastly more, in
the Christian heart. It can lift him above tempta
tion and obstacle, and glorify sacrifice, and form
a bond in life and character that can be surpassed
or even equaled by no other.
This love then as a supreme bond in the Chris
tian and church life the Baptist would exalt. He
does not much believe in legislation in order to
advance the interests of the kingdom. He would
rather put love for Jesus Christ and his work
into the individual heart. He does not seek very
much for Sunday laws in order to maintain the
sacredness of that holy day. He would rather
place the love of the Christ and so of his church
and work, in the heart of man as the restraining
and uplifting supreme motive. He would not
write the name of God in the constitution of
either the nation or the State. He would rather
rely upon the love of God in the heart that should
be the controlling force in the life. If the latter
is absent, he is inclined to say, the former will
have little force. He does not even contend
very strenuously for the reading of the Bible in
our public schools. As to this, there is diversity
of opinion, but the feeling on the part of Baptists
generally, in exact accord with the thought that

[xoa]  Baptist principles
it is the inner spirit and not the external letter
that should control, inclines them not to contend
for such reading. Contention over these exer
cises might be more injurious, even in success,
than would be their cessation. Everywhere and
always they discount righteousness by edict, and
seek to implant righteousness by love.
We dream and speak sometimes of the coming
of the kingdom of our Lord, when holiness shall
prevail and anything that defiles shall be frowned
down; when righteousness and peace shall dwell
in our homes ; when contention and division shall
obtain no more; when the nations shall dwell to
gether in unity ; and when the battle standard shall
not lead armed hosts, nor the throb of the war
drum be heard summoning them to conflict ; when
the sanctity of the home life shall be preserved,
and families shall not be scattered by the influence
of sin. But how shall this come about? It cannot
come by legal enactment; it cannot come by any
coercion, whether applied to the individual or to
men in the mass ; it cannot come by the influence
of any external act or rite or service. It can
come only by the enthronement of this supreme
love of God and Jesus Christ in the heart of the
individual man. And this unit man shall be mul-

SLove, not %aw  [103]
tiplied one by one, one by one until the single
man shall become a multitude, and the whole earth
in process of time shall be filled with his glory.
It is love then that is supreme, and love that is
the binding, regnant, dynamic force that shall
regenerate life. How splendidly in his own so
norous, rhetorical fashion Dr. George Dana
Boardman expresses this : " Love is thus the
rhythmical keynote, the discretive index, the fun
damental principle of the kingdom of God or
Christian religion. Or, to express myself in
phraseology suggested by the undulatory theory,
love is the ethereal medium pervading God's
moral universe, by means of which are propagated
the motions of his impulses, the heat of his grace,
the light of his truth, the electricity of his activi
ties, the magnetism of his nature, the affinities of
his character. In brief, love is the very definition
of Deity himself. . . Love is the greatest thing
in the world. And ... in the world to come.
" I'm apt to think the man
That could surround the sum of things, and spy
The heart of God and secrets of his empire,
Would speak but love; with him the bright result
Would change the hue of intermediate scenes,
And make one thing of all theology."1 — Anonymous.
1 " The Kingdom," pp, 209, 210.

[iq4]  Baptist principles
We think sometimes of and pray for the unity
of the Christian church. We see her divisions,
and often her strifes. We behold rivalry, not in
frequently, that is dishonoring to the Master, and
which, by its influence on the world, is injurious
to the advancement of the interests of his king
dom. We wonder at times how these things shall
be eliminated, and the church become one in the
spirit of Christ's own prayer, " That they may be
one, even as we are one." Perhaps it cannot be
by organic unity in any form. We are sure that
it cannot be by any ecclesiastical edict. It is just
as sure that it cannot be by any common creed in
whatever form it may be wrought out. Likewise,
it is certain that it cannot be on the foundation of
the "historic episcopate," as is sometimes indi
cated. It cannot be, in a word, by anything ex
ternal. It can only be by the dominance of this
supreme quality and emotion of which we have
spoken, namely, love. Where abounds the love
of God and the love of man, there his kingdom
will be set up, and it is this kingdom in the su
premacy of its dominating emotion, love, for
which the true Baptist always and ever stands.

a IReoemptive Service tbe Cburcb'0
Supreme i£no

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land;
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
— Tennyson, "In Memoriam," Canto cv.

T a service of worship, not long since,
the writer listened while the minister
prayed these words, " Make us true
to the purpose and end of life." There can be no
question as to the importance to be attached to the
answering of such a prayer. Surely no life could
have grander goal than this. But what is this
purpose and this end toward which all should
endeavor to direct their lives? It surely is not
living for self in any of its forms; simply to
breathe, to consume the fruits of earth, and doze
away existence. This cannot be the true purpose
and end of life. It cannot be either the living for
advancement in any personal direction whatso
ever, aside from that which is advancement to
ward truth and virtue and nobleness. It cannot
be seeking after earthly profit or pleasure or posi
tion in any of their forms for self alone. The true
purpose and the end of life must be the espousal of
that which is best in self, and for the highest good
of others. 107

[108]  Baptist principles
If this is true in a general sense — and none
would be inclined to question it, however adverse
to its ideal their lives may be — it must be pre
eminently true of the kingdom and the church of
Jesus Christ. These are lifted to the plane of the
ideal life. These should lift up before the people
the true standard of living. If they do this they
must show how little they seek after self, and
how greatly they seek after others' good; in a
word, how completely they seek for others' re
demption, namely, to buy back from the low in the
interests of the high. From the beginning to the
end of Jesus Christ's life and ministry this was
the purpose of it. Hear him as in the synagogue
at Nazareth, when coming back from his victory
over the tempter, he lays down the programme
of his campaign. He is come to bind up the
broken-hearted, to break the fetters from the cap
tives, to give the oil of joy for the ashes of mourn
ing, to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim
the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. Listen to
him while he declares his mission, " The Son of
man is come to seek and to save that which is
lost." Stand among his disciples as he sends them
out, two by two, to go among the people and min
ister in his name, declaring to them " Freely ye

ffiebemptive Service  [109]
have received, freely give." With rapt gaze
behold him on the side of the mount just east of
the city, when having finished his earthly work,
having heartened his disciples by his reappear
ance among them, he gave them what has been
regarded ever since as the Great Commission to
the church, its marching orders : " Go ye into all
the world and teach all nations." That is, go ye
and be the messengers of redemption to all men
in all climes and in all times.
The early church caught and honored this mis
sion. They went everywhere preaching redemp
tion in the name of Jesus, and endeavoring to
exemplify the principles of that great errand.
Peter, Philip, Paul, and the rest all went forth
proclaiming the uplift of humanity in the name of
Jesus Christ. Beautiful upon the mountaintops
were the feet of them who carried the glad ti
dings. And the church of to-day, no less than the
church of the past, must be redemptive if it is at
all true to the spirit of its charter. It is the re
demption of mankind throughout the whole
sphere of their lives that it must always and every
where set before it as the purpose and the end of
life. How splendidly Henry Drummond in his
" Programme of Christianity " sets this forth :

[no]  Baptist principles
" Anything that prepares the way for a better
social state is the fit work of the followers of
Christ. Those who work on the more spiritual
levels, too much unhonored, the slow toil of multi
tudes of unchurched souls who prepare the ma
terial or moral environments without which these
higher labors are in vain.
" He who joins this society finds himself in a
large place. The kingdom of God is a society of
the best men, working for the best ends, accord
ing to the best methods. Its membership is a mul
titude whom no man can number ; its methods are
as various as human nature ; its field is the world.
It is a commonwealth, yet it honors a King; it
is a social brotherhood, but it acknowledges the
Fatherhood of God. Though not a philosophy
the world turns to it for light ; though not political
it is the incubator of all great laws. It is more
human than the State, for it deals with deeper
needs; more catholic than the church, for it in
cludes whom the church rejects. It is a propa
ganda, yet it works not by agitation but by ideals.
It is a religion, yet it holds the worship of God
to be mainly the service of man. Though not a
scientific society, its watchword is evolution;
though not an ethic, it possesses the Sermon on

IRebemptive Service  [m]
the Mount. This mysterious society owns no
wealth but distributes fortunes. It has no minutes,
for history keeps them; no member's roll, for no
one could make it. Its entry money is nothing;
its subscription, all you have. The society never
meets and it never adjourns. Its law is one word
— loyalty; its gospel one message — love. Verily,
' Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall
find it.' " x
Baptists very early in their history regarded
this mission of redemption as the chief end of
their existence. There are some who do not think
it claiming too much when they declare that the
New Testament churches themselves were Baptist
churches. Certainly, when we consider the New
Testament polity and compare it with that of
Baptists to-day, the former seems to come closer
to the latter than does any other. But without
claiming too much in this direction, or that which
might be regarded as too much, Baptists early in
their modern history became missionary. They
believed their organization to be formed, not for
themselves alone, but for others as well; hence
they endeavored to carry the good news whereso
ever they went. Baptists were doubtless not the
1 " The Programme of Christianity," pp. 60, 61.

[iia]  Baptist principles
first, as Professor Vedder in his recent book ad
monishes us. He says :
" And just here a caution to Baptists : Do not
be guilty of making the claim that the Baptists
were the pioneers among modern Christians in
the world of foreign missions. . . More than fifty
years before Carey was born, Ziegenbalg, the
Dane, went to India and began a mission among
the Tamils, founding Christian schools, gathering
converts, and translating the Scriptures into
the vernacular. Forty years before Carey sailed
for India, Schwartz the Prussian became Ziegen-
balg's successor, and carried forward the work.
Thirty years before Carey's birth, Moravian mis
sionaries set out to preach the gospel among the
Negroes of St. Thomas, the Indians of the com
monwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Eskimos of
Greenland." 1
And yet so insistent were Baptists in this direc
tion, both at the beginning and immediately fol
lowing, that it may be said they really originated
modern missions. To quote from Professor Ved
der again :
" So, from the work of Carey, though he was
not the first of modern missionaries, from the or-
1 " Christian Epoch-Makers," pp. 292, 293.

TRebemptive Service  ["3]
ganization of the Baptist Missionary Society,
though it was not the first missionary organiza
tion of modern times, dates a conception of the
duty of Christians so greatly enlarged, an increase
of missionary activity so vast, that as we properly
call Columbus the discoverer of America, we may
with equal propriety call Carey the father of
modern missions." 1
This, during all the history of Baptists, has
been a characteristic of their general activities and
their public gatherings. Not being ecclesiastical,
they do not legislate. Having no formal doctrine,
and no creeds to revise, they have no occasion
to spend time in trying to bring their standards
into accord with modern thought. Their meet
ings are missionary therefore. They gather to
hear reports from the home field and the foreign
field. They come to know what the colporter, and
the Sunday-school missionary, and the missionary
on the frontier, and the one who has borne the
evangel to foreign shores has to report about his
or her work. They consult as to the progress of
the kingdom and the church, and seek to know
what measures may be adopted for their greater
furtherance. This may possibly be one reason
1 " Christian Epoch-Makers," p. 294.
H

[n4]  Baptist principles
why their meetings are not so generally reported
in the daily press as are others. Reports of mis
sionary operations do not furnish material for
startling headlines. Less public than those of
others, their meetings are of even greater impor
tance ; for, forever more important is the redemp
tion of a soul than the construction of a rubric
or the revision of a creed.
Partaking of the nature of their spirit and of
their polity, the work of Baptists has been volun
tary. Each individual has come as he has been
minded, and each church, likewise, to this work
of making Christ known to the world. Societies,
as we well know, have been formed for publica
tion, and for home missions, and for foreign mis
sion work. These have done noble service in the
past. They will, it is believed and hoped, do still
greater service in the future. Co-ordinated in
the Northern Baptist Convention (as in the South
in the Southern) there will be greater unity of ef
fort, if not greater nobility of aim. It will still
be voluntary. The independence of the individ
ual, and of the church, and of the Association,
and of the Society will still be regarded. There
will be no legislation, no compulsion that shall
influence any of these elements, but there will be,

TRebemptive Service  [115]
as perhaps there has not been, a unity of action
that will dominate the whole body, and advance
thereby the interests involved. There will be,
without having any form of absolute ecclesi
astical government, a completer denominational
control. There is no need, perhaps, and yet it may be
profitable for just a moment to try and get at the
ground of this redemptive service which we have
indicated as the purpose and end of the church.
It is Paul's principle of indebtedness. "I am
debtor," he said, "both to the Jew, and to the
Greek, and to the barbarian." He was debtor,
not because he had received anything from these,
but because he had what these needed. Any man
who lives in the spirit of the truth who has, must
regard himself as debtor to those who have not.
He is recreant by just so much to the highest
standards if he fails. The church of Jesus Christ,
therefore, is debtor to those who dwell in the
dark and destitute portions of the earth. It has,
as we have indicated, its task set it by its divine
Lord, because it has been so endowed with that
which he has bestowed. As Doctor Mabie has well
said: " This task is naught less than to take human

[n6]  Baptist principles
souls stricken and damaged by sin, and to begin
to transfigure them — to change them from pros
trate, sin-cursed, earthly sonship to radiant, glo
rified, heavenly sonship, like Christ's own, ideal
ized in that mount.
" To bring such a salvation to men the Chris
tian church not only has the right, but is bound,
in the appropriate ' times and seasons,' to go
everywhere upon this planet where the Redeemer
himself would come." 1
It is only as such indebtedness is recognized,
and such task performed, that the church con
forms to the ideal her Lord has set up for it.
In the glory of this redemption, the church may
find a basis for its being. How redemption in
any direction glorifies the object of it. Holland
dammed back the North Sea by her far-reaching
dikes. She pumped out the water that then made
the land a waste, and then she tilled the ground,
and gardens grow where the waves before had
rolled. There is redemption. In the far West,
in the earlier days of the history of our country,
there was the great American desert. Sage-brush
and sand were the occupants of it. But settlers
began to enter in upon its eastern confines, and
1 '* The Divine Right of Missions," pp. no, in.

Kebemptlve Service  [117]
on the western they constructed flumes and pas
sages and brought the mountain streams down
into the arid wastes. And so where there was
only desolation and emptiness, there are now to
be found fertile fields and blooming gardens.
Where was an expanse of desert, now there is an
expanse of beauty, and there is redemption. The
grace of God is poured into the life of a man or
woman, and he or she is redeemed. Every virtue
becomes enhanced, and every vice rebuked. Into
homes it comes, into schools it comes, into com
munities it comes, this abounding, renovating, up
lifting grace of Jesus Christ of which the church
is the steward, and wherever there is this coming
there is redemption. In Walter Pater's " Marius
the Epicurean " there is a most eloquent passage
depicting the coming of ^Esculapius, the god of
medicine, to this earth of ours. Where he first
stepped a temple had been reared of marvelous
architectural beauty. About the cupola these
words appeared in letters of gold : " The Son of
God coming hither has greatly loved this place."
Beneath the dome of it there poured forth a foun
tain of healing waters. They filled the basin to
the brim, but never ran over. Drawing from it
did not diminish it, and refraining from drawing

[n8]  Baptist principles
did not increase it. Water taken from it and
carried elsewhere regenerated other waters, and
poured upon the ground caused other springs to
arise responsively. The waters were regenerative,
healing, redemptive. All this is fable, but that
Jesus Christ has stood upon the earth and re
vealed to mankind the fountain of healing waters,
that are immortal, is a fact. Of these healing
waters, perennially flowing forth, the church of
Jesus Christ is made the custodian and the mis
sionary. We are, in the dispensing of this grace,
to give ourselves as stewards of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Failure here is failure in all.
It is this church thus constituted, with this
spirit of obedience to its Lord and Head, and with
this purpose of redemption with respect to man
kind, against which the gates of hades shall not
prevail. Forms may change, possibly forms may
be annulled, and yet in some form this church,
embodying the kingdom and founded by our
divine Lord, must remain until its mission shall
have been accomplished, and the kingdoms of the
world shall have become the kingdoms of our
Lord and of his Christ. It is of this church, in
large measure at least, of which we have con
ceived, as we have depicted the principles of Bap-

TRebemptive Service  [119]
tists. To hold these principles as the divine Lord
reveals them, and to be true to the ideals of the
kingdom and the church as he presented them, is
the mission of Baptists in the world. To such
honor have they been called, and for such service
they need the constant enduement of Him who
said, " Lo, I am with you alway to the end of the
days." They may not resign this task nor prove
recreant thereto, lest they incur the condemnation
of Him whose bestowment of praise by and by
will be their greatest reward.

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