‘The Birth of the Restoration’
Excerpt from an Historical Address Delivered at the Clarke Fund Rally, Cincinnati, O., Dec. 11, 1923
March 8, 1924; p. 3
By Ira M. Boswell
The nineteenth century dawned on an America that was far from Christian. Unbelief was prevalent and popular. The pall of infidelity was upon mansion and hovel. The leading educational institutions were under the control of Unitarians. Scarcely a student was a believer. In some places men disguised themselves to hear an evangelical preacher. The evils that men suffered were laid at the door or religion. The church was supposed to be doomed, and the days of Christianity numbered.
RELIGIOUS VIEWPOINT
The Bible was considered a dead book and the gospel powerless to save. Speaking to sinners concerning personal salvation was objectionable to pious believers, and looked upon as a personal interference with the plans of God. Men who preached continually on the necessity of repentance and faith, the fullness of the gospel for all and the necessity of the new “birth,” “the purity and justice of God’s laws, the odious and distinctive consequences of sin, and the freeness and sufficiency of pardon for all” were counted as enemies to the church. Dr. Dorchester (“Christianity in the United States, 1888”) says:
The most pious people in the beginning of the present (nineteenth) century in the United States entertained a faith so unlike the present belief of evangelical Christianity as to almost create the impression on our minds that their religion was not the same religion which we now have and in which we now believe.
Barton W. Stone says:
The doctrine then publicly taught were that mankind were totally depraved; that they could not believe, repent nor obey the gospel; that regeneration was an immediate work of the Spirit, whereby faith and repentance were wrought in the heart. These things were portrayed in vivid colors, with all earnestness and solemnity. Now was not then the accepted time; now was not then the day of salvation; but it was God’s own sovereign time, and for that time the sinner must wait.
John Augustus Williams (“Life of John Smith”) says:
A hell of the most appalling horrors, into which little children might be cast; an unalterable destiny for every one, regardless of his conduct or his creed, as God might have chosen him for heaven or doomed to hell before he was born; the dread uncertainty that rested on his fate; his utter inability to understand the Scriptures, to believe or repent, to love God or to obey Him, until endued with power from on high; the necessity of some supernatural sign or sensation, some miraculous voice or vision as evidence of pardon and acceptance with God.” . . .
THE BIRTH OF THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT
It was during this time that the Restoration had its birth. It resulted from two separate movements. One had its beginning in Kentucky, and the other in Pennsylvania. One was born in a camp-meeting and the other around the Lord’s table. Barton W. Stone began with the great commission, and Thomas Campbell with the communion. This gave us two outstanding characteristics, which at one time were almost universal among us—zeal for evangelism and loyalty to the Lord’s table.
Barton W. Stone began at Cane Ridge in 1801; Thomas Campbell at Chartiers in 1807. The former gave us “The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery,” 1804; the latter, “The Declaration and Address,” 1809.
STONE SEES THE LIGHT
Stone was greatly perplexed trying to reconcile “whosever will” with special election. He says:
From this state of perplexity I was relieved by the precious word of God. From reading and meditating upon it, I became convinced that God did love the whole world, and that the reason why He did not save all was because of their unbelief; and that the reason why they believed not was not because God did not exert his physical, almighty power to make them believe, but because they neglected and received not His testimony given in the Word concerning His Son. “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, ye might have life through his name.” I saw that the requirement to believe in the Son of God was reasonable, because the testimony given was sufficient to produce faith in the sinner; and the invitation and encouragement of the gospel was sufficient, if believed, to lead him to the Saviour for the promised Spirit, salvation and eternal life.
This glimpse of faith—of truth—was the first divine ray of light that ever led my distressed, perplexed mind from the labyrinth of Calvinism and error, in which I had so long bewildered. It was that which led me into rich pastures of gospel liberty. I now saw plainly that it was not against the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that I had not been tempted to blaspheme, but against the character of a God not revealed in the Scriptures.
THE CAMPBELLS SEE THE LIGHT
The story of the events which led up to the “Declaration and Address” is tolerably familiar to most of us. Thomas Campbell came to this country in May 1807, and immediately began his labors with the Presbyterians. It was not long before he had occasion to visit a few scattered members of his flock, living some distance up the Allegheny River above Pittsburgh. In his sermon preparatory to the Lord’s Supper he lamented the divisions among them and invited all to partake, regardless of their religious differences. A Mr. Wilson, a young preacher, taking exceptions to this and Mr. Campbell’s little respect for the division wall which had been built, indicated in conversation and discussion, preferred charges against him. The Presbytery censured him for not adhering to the “Secession Testimony.” Mr. Campbell appealed to the Synod. Before the meeting of the Synod he addressed to them an appeal, defining and defending his position. In this communication he said, among other things:
To refuse any one his just privilege, is it not to oppress and injure? In proportion to the magnitude and importance of the privilege withheld, is not the injustice done in withholding it to be estimated? If so, how great the injustice, how highly aggravated the injury will appear, to thrust out from communion a Christian brother, a fellow minister, for saying and doing none other things than those which our divine Lord and his holy apostles have taught and enjoined to be spoken and done by His ministering servants, or to be received and observed by all His people?
However, the Synod passed censure upon him. To this he submitted, with the understanding that his submissions meant no more than deference to his brethren. He had hopes that he could continue to work with his brethren, but it soon developed that his hope was vain. No longer able to maintain his relationship, he presented to the Synod his formal renunciation of his authority.
Quite a number were in sympathy with Mr. Campbell. At a subsequent meeting he proposed the motto which has been ours from that day to this: “Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; and where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent.” When this was proposed, Andrew Monroe said: “Mr. Campbell, if we adopt that as a basis, then there is an end of infant baptism.” Mr. Campbell agreed that if there is no warrant in the Scriptures for infant baptism, it would have to go; but he still believed that there was sufficient warrant in the Scriptures to hold on to it. Many of the brethren were afraid that the opinion of Monroe might be correct, and, unwilling to follow a principle that would carry them so far, withdrew. Mr. Campbell was still of the opinion that one could accept the basis and determine for himself the validity of infant baptism and the propriety of the several forms or actions of sprinkling, pouring and immersion, which had been adopted by different portions of the religious community. Upon one occasion he took the opportunity to urge these views upon James Foster. Finally Mr. Foster said: “Father Campbell, how could you, in the absence of any authority in the word of God, baptize a child in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?” Somewhat irritated, Mr. Campbell replied: “Sir, you are the most intractable person I ever met.”
On the 17th of August, 1809, a meeting was held on the headwaters of the Buffalo, at which time they resolved to form the “Christian Association of Washington,” and the committee of twenty-one was appointed for the purpose of conferring together, with the assistance of Mr. Campbell, in order to determine upon the proper means of carrying out the purpose of the association. Mr. Campbell then wrote the “Declaration and Address,” which was unanimously adopted by the committee and ordered printed, Sept. 7, 1809.
This is a very lengthy document and well worth frequent and careful study. The gist of it can, I think, be summed up in the following statement:
The Holy Scriptures are all-sufficient and alone sufficient as the subject-matter of faith and rule of conduct, and that, therefore, they would require nothing as a matter of faith or rule of conduct for which they could not give a “thus saith the Lord,” either in express terms or by approved precedent.
Some time in 1811, Thomas Campbell immersed three candidates in Buffalo Creek, but he himself was not immersed until June 2, 1812.
JOHN SMITH CHANGES HIS VIEWS
In 1823 Alexander Campbell began the publication of the Christian Baptist. In the prospectus, which fell into the hands of Smith, were these words:
The Christian Baptist shall espouse the cause of no religious set, excepting that ancient sect called Christians first at Antioch. Its sole object shall be the eviction of truth and the exposure of errors in doctrine and practice. The editor, acknowledging no standard of religious faith or works other than the Old and New Testaments, and the latter as the only standard of the religion of Jesus Christ, will, intentionally at least, oppose nothing which it contains, and recommend nothing which it does not enjoin.
He became a subscriber, and, in 1825, decided to preach the great facts of the evangelical history and call upon all men to believe them on the testimony of the inspired writers. He began to declare the commandments of Jesus as the only Head of the church, and urged all men to obey them.
THE DOCTRINE PREACHED BY THE PIONEERS
After the withdrawal of Stone and his companions from the Synod, they organized the Springfield Presbytery, and published “The Apology of the Springfield Presbytery.” “In this book,” says Stone, “we stated our objections at length to the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, and against all confessions and creeds formed by fallible men. We expressed our total abandonment of all authoritative creeds but the Bible alone, as the only rule of faith and practice.” Again he says:
The distinguishing doctrine preached by us was that God loved the world—the whole world—and sent His Son to save them, on condition that they believed in Him; that the gospel was the means of salvation, but that this means would never be effectual to this end until believed and obeyed by us; that God required us to believe in His Son, and had given us sufficient evidence in His word to produce faith in us, if attended to by us; that sinners were capable of understanding and believing this testimony, and of acting upon it by coming to the Saviour and obeying Him, and from this obtaining salvation and the Holy Spirit.
In speaking of Alexander Campbell, Stone says:
He boldly determined to take the Bible alone for his standard of faith and practice, to the exclusion of all other books as authoritative. He argued that the Bible presented sufficient evidence in His Word to produce faith in us, if believe it, and sufficient motive to induce them to obey it; that, until they believed and obeyed the gospel, in vain they expected salvation, pardon and the Holy Spirit; that now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation.
Smith says:
We are determined, by the favor of God, to the utmost of our ability, to teach what the primitive disciples taught: and in admitting persons into the congregation of Christ we will require what they required, and nothing more. We will urge the practice of all the apostolic commands and examples given to the primitive Christians, and thus labor for the unity of the disciples of Christ upon this one foundation.
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