[1] Copied from Biblical Recorder.
The Tri-lemma;
OR,
DEATH BY THREE HORNS
BY J. R. GRAVES
CHAPTER IX.
ANTI-MISSIONARY BAPTISTS
They Are Not Primitive but
Derivative Baptists—Historical Proof
by Dr. T. H. Pritchard, N. C.—If the Baptisms of Missionary Baptists Are Not
Valid, Then the Anti-Missionaries Are All Unbaptized and No Churches—A Tri-lemma
for the Hard Shells.
That the Anti-missionary Baptists are not Regular or Primitive Baptists, but an
unscriptural sect and apostate from the faith and practice of the Apostolic
Baptists, has been repeatedly shown from accredited history and even from their
own. The fact is, they were
Derivatives and not Primitives.
They “fell away” from the Regular Baptists in 1827-32, about the time the
Campbellites did, and are no more Baptists than the Campbellites are.
They went out from us, because not of us, and when they had the majority
in the churches they drove out the Regular Baptists from the church houses they
had built. In the following
historical sketch[1]
from the pen of Dr. T. H. Pritchard, President of Wake Forest College, North
Carolina, we find a brief and conclusive demonstration of the whole matter at
issue:
NOT PRIMITIVE OR OLD SCHOOL, BUT NEW SCHOOL, OR ANTI-MISSIONARY BAPTISTS.
“I propose to show that the term Old
School and Primitive, when
applied to that class of Baptists who oppose Foreign Missions, Sunday-schools,
revivals of religion, Bible societies, etc., are
misnomers, and that the real
Primitive or Old School Baptists are the Missionary Baptists of this day. This
is a question of fact, not of
opinion, and I shall submit testimony
drawn from their own records
establishing the position. The
evidence adduced is taken from the “History of the Sandy Creek Association,”
written by Dr. Geo. W. Purefoy, and I shall sometimes use his language and
sometimes my own, quoting the names of authors, with chapter and verse, that
there may be no question as to the authenticity of the testimony presented.
Taking it for granted that the Christians of the apostolic age were
Baptists, which I assuredly believe, two things are clear:
First, that God called and directed men to preach to the heathen (Acts
xiii, 2; Gal. i.15); and, second, that funds were raised by the churches and
paid as “wages” to the missionaries (2 Cor. Xi: 7, 8, 9).
The original and Primitive Baptists were, therefore Missionary Baptists,
like those of the present day, who sent men called of God to preach the Gospel
to the heathen and collect funds which are paid as wages of the missionaries.
I shall now prove from unquestionable historical facts that the Associations
which are now anti-missionary were in favor of foreign missions up to the years
1826-27-30, and hence have no claim to the title of Old School Baptists.
I will begin with the Baltimore Association, perhaps the most famous body of
this modern sect in the United States.
Their minutes for 1814 contain the following record:
“Received a corresponding letter from Bro. Rice, one of our missionary
brethren, on the subject of encouraging missionary societies.” This Bro. Rice
was Luther Rice, who was then just from Burmah, whither he had gone as a
missionary with Adoniran Judson.
In 1816, these minutes, in their circular letter, say:
“The many revivals of religion which are witnessed in various parts of
the country—the multiplication of Bible societies, Missionary societies, and
Sunday-schools, both in our own and foreign countries—are viewed by us as
showing indications of the near approach of that day when the knowledge of the
Lord shall cover the earth.”
The minutes of the same year state that “the Standing Clerk was instructed to
supply the Corresponding Secretary of the Foreign Mission Board with a copy of
our minutes annually.”
In 1817, “Bro Luther Rice presented himself as the messenger of the Baptists
Board for Foreign Missions, and was cordially received.”
Elder James Osborne was a member of this body which cordially received a Foreign
Missionary, and at this very session was appointed a Home Missionary.
This man Osborne, who was a leader in the Anti-mission secession, both in
Maryland and North Carolina, I remember to have seen in Charlotte when I was a
small boy. He was a handsome,
dressy man, full of conceit, and very fond of talking of himself and of selling
his own books.
From the same authentic source, the minutes of the Baltimore Association, we
learn that in 1828 they called themselves “Regular Baptists,” just as we do now.
The same year they express their joy at the intelligence of the
conversion of the heathen, and as late as 1827 the association expressed by
formal resolutions their sorrow at the death of Mrs. Ann H. Judson, and their
great interest in the mission with which she was connected, and it was not till
1836, when the association met with the
Black Rock Church, and then by a vote of
sixteen to
nine, that fellowship was withdrawn
from churches favoring foreign missions, Sunday-schools, etc.
To come back now to North Carline, I can prove that the Kehukee and Country Line
Associations, two of the most influential of the Anti-mission party, were once
missionary bodies. In Burkett &
Read’s History of the Kehukee Association it is stated on page 139 that in 1794,
a special day was appointed to pray God for a revival of religion, and on page
145, that it was the custom of ministers of that date to invite penitents to
come forward and keel down to be prayed for, just as we do in our revival
meetings now.
In the Bigg’s History, Kehukee Association, page 162, it appears that this
Association appointed delegates to meet at Cashie Church, Bertie county, in
June, 1805, with delegates from Virginia, Portsmouth, and Neuse Association, and
at this meeting arrangements were made to collect money for missionary purposes.
Thus it appears that the Kehukee was not only in fellowship with the
Portsmouth and other missionary Baptist Associations, but that the very first
missionary society every organized in the State was in the bounds of this body.
In 1812, this association sent $3; in 1813, $5; and in 1814, $5, to the general
meeting of correspondence of North Carolina, which was an organization of the
Missionary Baptists.
The same history of the Association shows that in 1817 it was in correspondence
with the General Convention of the Baptists, which met that year in
Philadelphia, and which was supporting Judson and other foreign missionaries,
and it was not till 1827 that this Association took a decided anti-missionary
ground.
The evidence to show that the Country Lien Association was a missionary body up
to the year 1832 is perfectly overwhelming.
Its minutes show that in 1816, ’17 and ’18, that body sent delegates to
the general meeting of correspondence, and in 1816 Elder Geo. Roberts, one of
the ministers of this Association, was the Moderator of the general meeting of
correspondence of which Robert T. Daniel was the agent, and which developed into
the North Carolina Baptist State Convention.
In 1818 this association sent $32.45 to the North Carolina Missionary
Society by the hands of Bro. John Campbell.
And what is still more remarkable, there was a very prosperous Woman’s Mission
Society in this Association, the minutes of which, kept by John Campbell, show
that the “Hyco Female Cent Society” was formed at Tynch’s Creek meeting-house,
in Caswell county, in October, 1816; in March, 1817, it met at Bush Arbor
meeting house; in March, 1818, it met at the same place; in 1819 at Grave’s
meeting-house, and the fifth annual meeting was held in September, 1820, at
Arbor. All of these churches are
now anti-mission, but were then missionary bodies, and the persons who preached
the annual sermons—R. Dishong, J. Landus, Barzillar Graves, Abner W. Clopton,
and S. Chandler—were all Missionary Baptist Ministers.
In 1832, the Country Lien Association was in regular correspondence with the
Flat River and Sandy Creek Associations, both of which were then and still are
missionary bodies.
In 1832 James Osborne, of Baltimore, visited this Association, and under his
influence it was induced to withdraw fellowship from the Missionary Baptists of
the State.
Now from this brief statement of unvarnished facts we see that the Missionary
Baptists are just where the apostles were till 1827-28, when a
new sect arose, calling themselves,
according to Elder Bennett’s Review, page 8, at first the
Reformed Baptists in North Carolina,
and then the Old Baptists, the Old Sort
of Baptists, Baptists of the old Stamp, and finally adopted the name of the
Primitive Baptists.
There are many things about these brethren which I like, and I would not
needlessly call them by an offensive name, but I can not style them either Old
School or Primitive Baptists, for in so doing I should falsify the facts of
history and acknowledge that I and my brethren have departed from the faith of
the apostles and Baptist fathers.
In no invidious sense, therefore, but from necessity, I am obliged to call them
New School or
Anti-missionary Baptists.
The short statement of the whole matter is this:
1.
The Regular Baptists of Europe are
Missionary Baptists.
2.
The first Baptists of England were Missionary Baptists.
3.
The first association ever formed in England was a Missionary Baptist
Association.
4.
The first Baptist Church in America, at Newport, R. I., was a Missionary Baptist
Church.
5.
The first Baptist Association ever organized in America, the Philadelphia, which
included all known Baptist churches, was a Missionary Baptist Association, and
annually raised money for ministerial education and missionary operations.
That Association has ever been a missionary body.
6.
The first Association that was organized in new England, the Warren Association,
which embraced all the Baptist churches in New England, was a missionary body,
and is to this day.
7.
The first Baptist Association every formed in Virginia was a Missionary Baptist
Association.
8.
The first Association organized in North Carolina, in South Carolina, in
Georgia, in Tennessee, and in every Southern State, were Missionary Baptist
Associations.
9.
All the fathers, founders, and originators of this new sect, who claim the name
of primitive Baptists, once belonged to Missionary Baptist churches, and
co-operated in the missionary work, and some of them, like James Osborne, the
originator of anti-missionism in Maryland and North Carolina, were actually
missionaries of the boards. Now this is the unenviable position in which the
“Anti-missionaries” have placed themselves.
So far as I can learn, they deny that Missionary Baptist churches are
churches of Christ, or that they can, or ever could administer Gospel
ordinances. Whence, then, did the
Anti-missionaries get their baptisms and ordinations?
HERE IS THE TRI-LEMMA FOR THE HARD SHELLS.
Missionary Baptist Churches are either true churches of Christ or they are not.
If true churches, then those who apostatized from them are sectaries and
no churches, and have no right to administer the ordinances.
But if false churches, they were always so, and therefore they never
could, or did, administer scriptural ordinances, and all those immersed or
ordained by them are today unbaptized and unordained; in which case the
Anti-missionaries are themselves unbaptized and no churches of Christ.
The fact is, the Anti-missionaries are not Baptists, neither are they
churches of Christ. Their faith is
not the faith of the Gospel—the faith once delivered to the saints.
Their preaching is another gospel than Paul preached, and we are
commanded to condemn it and withdraw altogether from those who preach it, and
hold another gospel than that he preached.
They, by organic law, deny and refuse to execute the mission for which
Christ organized His churches, and exclude and persecute those who do, and
thereby they forfeit all claims to be regarded or treated as scriptural
churches. If not churches of
Christ, their ordinances are null and void, and ought not to be accredited by
us. If they are indeed scriptural
churches, then Missionary Baptist churches evidently are not.
Missionary Baptists have no more bitter and malignant enemies than the
Anti-missionaries. They deny our
churches to be scriptural. They
deny the faith we hold and teach.
They deny our ordinances to be scriptural or valid.
They openly and constantly proclaim all our efforts to build up and
extend the kingdom of Christ, our Sunday-schools, our missionary efforts, our
Bible Societies, our efforts to educate young ministers, our efforts to
circulate pure versions of the Bible at home and in heathen lands, and our
boards through which we send and support missionaries to preach the everlasting
Gospel of the blessed God, even our Saviour, as the very work of the devil, and
promptly exclude from their duty to assist in these efforts to evangelize the
world.