Posted on 05/24/2008 7:41:30 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
HAVE WE A VISIBLE SUCCESSION OF BAPTIST CHURCHES DOWN FROM THE APOSTLES?
On the western coast of India, near Goa, and also in the Mediterranean, springs of fresh water, which do not rise to the surface but are run off by the undercurrent, rush out of the strata at the bottom of the sea. But in the Gulf of Xagu, on the southern coast of Cuba, a wonderful fountain of fresh water gurgles up in the open sea; forcing aside its salt waters, it passes off in the surface-current and is lost in the ocean. From this spring navigators often draw their supplies of pure water in the midst of the briny waste. Here nature lends us a forceful type of the fact that there may be a flow of visible succession without purity, and that there may be a continuous purity without a flow of visible succession.
Is an unbroken, visible, and historical succession of independent Gospel Churches down from the apostles, essential to the valid existence of Baptist Churches today, as apostolic in every sense of the word? This question suggests another, namely, Of what value could any lineal succession be as compared with present adherence to apostolic truth? From these two questions a third arises: Whether true, lineage from the Apostolic Churches does not rest in present conformity to the apostolic pattern, even though the local church of today be self-organized, from material that never came out of any church, provided that it stands on the apostolicity of the New Testament alone. The simple truth is, that the unity of Christs kingdom on earth is not found in its visibility, any more than the unity of the solar system is found in that direction, for its largest domain never falls under the inspection of any being but God. So, likewise, the unity of Christianity is not found by any visible tracing through one set of people. It has been enwrapped in all who have followed purely apostolic principles through the ages; and thus the purity of Baptist life is found in the essence of their doctrines and practices by whomsoever enforced. Little perception is required to discover the fallacy of a visible apostolical succession in the ministry, but visible Church succession is precisely as fallacious, and for exactly the same reasons. The Catholic is right in his theory that these two must stand or fall together; hence he assumes, ipso facto, that all who are not in this double succession are excluded from the true apostolic line. And many who are not Catholics think that if they fail to unroll a continuous succession of regularly organized churches, they lose their genealogy by a break in the chain, and so fail to prove that they are legitimate Apostolic Churches. Such evidence cannot be traced by any Church on earth, and would be utterly worthless if it could, because the real legitimacy of Christianity must be found in the New Testament, and nowhere else.
The very attempt to trace an unbroken line of persons duly baptized upon their personal trust in Christ, or of ministers ordained by lineal descent from the apostles, or of churches organized upon these principles, and adhering to the New Testament in all things, is in itself an attempt to erect a bulwark of error. Only God can make a new creature; and the effort to trace Christian history from regenerate man to regenerate man, implies that man can impart some power to keep up a succession of individual Christians. Apply the same thought to groups of churches running down through sixty generations, and we have precisely the same result. The idea is the very life of Catholicism. Our only reliable ground in opposition to this system is: That if no trace of conformity to the New Testament could be found in any Church since the end of the first century, a Church established today upon the New Testament life and order, would be as truly a historical Church from Christ, as the Church planted by Paul at Ephesus. Robert Robinson has well said:
Uninterrupted succession is a specious lure, a snare set by sophistry, into which all parties have fallen. And it has happened to spiritual genealogists as it has to others who have traced natural descents, both have woven together twigs of every kind to fill up remote chasms. The doctrine is necessary only to such Churches as regulate their faith and practice by tradition, and for their use it was first invented.. . Protestants, by the most substantial arguments, have blasted the doctrine of papal succession, and these very Protestants have undertaken to make proof of an unbroken series of persons, of their own sentiments, following one another in due order from the apostles to themselves. [Robinson, Ecclesiastical Researches, pp. 475,476]
Sanctity is the highest title to legitimacy in the kingdom of God, because holiness, meekness, and self-consecration to Christ are the soul of real Church life; and without this pedigree, antiquity cannot make Church existence even reverent. This sanctity is evinced by the rejection of error and the choice of truth, in all matters which the New Testament has enjoined, either by precept or example. In things of light import, demanding a robust common sense, the noble and courteous spirit of Jesus must be maintained, for personal holiness is the highest test of Christianity in all its historical relations. But this matter of visible Church succession is organically connected with the idea of Church infallibility, rather than of likeness to Christ. The twin doctrines were born of the same parentage, and the one implies the other, for a visible succession must be pure in all its parts, that is, infallible; if it is corrupt in some things, no logical showing can make it perfect. Truth calls us back to the radical view, that any Church which bears the real apostolic stamp is in direct historical descent from the apostles, without relation to any other Church past or present. In defense of this position the following considerations are submitted to all candid minds:
1. THAT CHRIST NEVER ESTABLISHED A LAW OF CHRISTIAN PRIMOGENITURE BY WHICH HE ENDOWED LOCAL CHURCHES WITH THE EXCLUSIVE POWER OF MORAL REGENERATION, MAKING IT NECESSARY FOR ONE CHURCH TO BE THE MOTHER OF ANOTHER, IN REGULAR SUCCESSION, AND WITHOUT WHICH THEY COULD NOT BE LEGITIMATE CHURCHES.
those who organized the churches in apostolic times went forth simply with the lines of doctrine and order in their hands, and formed new churches without the authority or even the knowledge of other churches. Some of these men were neither apostles nor pastors, but private Christians. Men are born of God in regeneration and not of the Church. They have no ancestry in regeneration, much less are they the offspring of an organic ancestry. The men who composed the true Churches at Antioch and Rome were born from above, making the Gospel and not the Church the agency by which men are begotten of God. This Church succession figment shifts the primary question of Christian life from the apostolic ground of truth, faith and obedience, to the Romanistic doctrine of persons. and renders an historic series of such persons necessary to administer the ordinances and impart valid Church life. How does inspiration govern this matter? Whoso abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God; he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son. If any man cometh to you and bringeth not this teaching receive him not. Pure doctrine, as, it is found uncorrupted in the word of God, is the only unbroken line of succession which can be traced in Christianity. God never confided his truth to the personal succession of any body of men: man was not to be trusted with the Custody of this precious charge, but the King of the truth has kept the keys of the truth in. his Own hand. The true Church of Christ has ever been that which has stood upon his person and work.
Whitaker, treating of this blunder of the hierarchy, says, Faith, therefore, is, as it were, the soul of the succession; which, being wanting, a naked succession of persons is a dead body. [i, 506] Tertullian says, If any of the heretics dare to connect themselves with the Apostolic Age, that they may seem to be derived from the Apostles as existing under them, we may say: Let them, therefore, declare the origin of their Churches, let them exhibit the series of their bishops, as coming down by a continued succession from the beginning, as to show their first bishop to have been some apostle or apostolic man as his predecessor or ordainer, and who continued in the same faith with the Apostles. For this is the way in which the Apostolical Churches calculate the series of their bishops. [De Pr¾script, C. 32] Ambrose takes the same ground, thus: They have not the inheritance, are not the successors of Peter who have not the faith of Peter. Gregory (Nazianzen), in defending the right of Athanasius, to the chair of Alexandria, against his opponent, uses these words: This succession of piety ought to be esteemed the true succession, for he who maintains the same doctrine of faith is partner in the same chair; but he who defends the contrary doctrine, ought, though in the chair of St. Mark, to be esteemed an adversary to it. This man, indeed, may have a nominal succession, but the other has the very thing itself, the succession in deed and in truth.
Calvins view is in harmony with this testimony; he says: I deny the succession scheme as a thing entirely without foundation. This question of being successors of the Apostles must be decided by an examination of the doctrines maintained. Zanchius gives the same view: When personal succession, alone, is boasted of, the purity of true Christian doctrine having departed, there is no legitimate ministry, seeing that both the Church and the ministry of the Church are bound not to persons, but to the word of God. Bradford, the martyr, truly said of the Church, that she is Not tied to succession, but to the word of God. And Stillingfleet says, with spirit: Let succession know its place, and learn to vaile bonnet to the Scriptures. The succession so much pleaded by the writers of the primitive Church was not a succession of persons in apostolic power, but a succession of apostolic doctrine.
On this ground it follows, that those who hold to a tangible succession of Baptist Churches down from the Apostolic Age, must prove from the Scriptures that something besides holiness and truth is an essential sign of the Church of God. The whole pseudo-apostolic scheme, from its foundation, was a creation of the hierarchy for the purposes of tyranny. The question of veracity is of vastly more moment in Baptist history than that of antiquity. Veracity accepts all truth without regard to time; gathering it up, and putting it on record exactly as it has been known through the centuries. Historic truth has many parts in harmony with each other, but the hard and fast lines of visible succession are those of a mere system and not those of true history. The Bible is the deep in which the ocean of Gospel truth lies, and all its streams must harmonize with their source, and not with a dreamy, sentimental origin. As it is not a Gospel truth that Christ has lodged the power of spiritual procreation in his Churches, so it is not true that all who come not of any given line of Church stock are alien and illegitimate.
II. OUR LORD NEVER PROMISED AN ORGANIC VISIBILITY TO HIS CHURCH IN PERPETUITY, AMONGST ANY PEOPLE OR IN ANY AGE.
He endowed his Church with immortal life when he said: The gates of hell (Hades) shall not prevail against it. But this has nothing to do with the question of a traceable or hidden existence. He gives his pledge that his Church shall not perish, and he has secured to her this stability. The forces of death have proudly dashed themselves against her a thousand times, but despite their rage, she stands firmly built on a Rock. She has been driven into the wilderness again and again, as a helpless woman, to find a home as best she could. Its fastnesses, wastes, dens and caves, have invited her to their secrecy and shelter; but though her members have been driven like chaff before the wind, she has never been destroyed. An army is not overthrown when withdrawn from the field, it is retired only to make it indestructible. A grain of wheat enswathed and hidden in a pyramid for thousands of years grows as fresh as ever when brought back to light and moisture. So Christ signally evinces his watch-care over his Church when he brings her into a secret retreat for safety, or as John expresses it, into her place prepared by God, that she may be nourished for a time, to come forth stronger than ever. Men have often thought the Church dead, first amongst this people and then that, when she was more alive than ever for her occasional invisibility. At such times her organization has been broken, her ordinances suspended, her officers slain, her members ground to powder; but she has come forth again, not in a new array of the same persons, but in the revival of old truths amongst a new people, to reproduce new and illustrious examples of faithful men. Christianity has been one web through which the golden band of truth has been visible from edge to edge at times, then a mere thread has been seen, then it has been fully covered by the warp. But anon, it has re-appeared as bright as ever, from its long invisibility.
III. CHRIST NEVER PROMISED TO HIS CHURCHES THEIR ABSOLUTE PRESERVATION FROM ERROR.
He promised his Spirit to lead his Apostles into all truth, and kept his word faithfully when they wrote and spoke as the Spirit moved them. But when he had finished the inspired rule for their guidance, he did not vouchsafe to keep them pure, nolens volens. They might mix error and false doctrine with his truth, and disgrace themselves by corrupting admixtures; but the loss and responsibility were theirs. To have pledged them unmixed purity for all time despite their own self-will was to endow them with infallibility, which is precisely the doctrine of Rome and a contradiction of all reliable history. Even in the first century there was great defection from the truth, as the Epistles show. Some of them were written, indeed, for the express purposes of correcting error, especially the latter writings of Paul and John. From the second to the fourth century, we find a rapid departure from inspired truth, with many sects, and no churches exactly after the Apostolic order. Some few men, original thinkers who followed no mans teachings, broke loose from the leadership of all. They went independently to the text of Scripture, but stood single-handed, and took with them some error from which they could not free themselves, so that they fell below their own ideal; and the original model was not restored for some length of time. Nay, more than this even is true. Those organic bodies of men who were drawn together into reformed churches, were moved by mixed motives, and in attempting a new order of things few of them came up to the New Testament standard in all respects. And the failure to reach that standard in all churches has been so marked as to render it vain to look for a visible line of succession, which constitutes the only true Church descent from Apostolic times to ours. Some churches have been faithful to one divine truth and some to another, but none have embodied all the truth and few individual men now known to us have kept all the requisitions of the gospel.
This principle of infallibility and Church succession is the central corruption of Rome, and has so polluted her faith that she scarcely holds any truth purely, both in the abstract and the concrete. She believes in the proper Deity of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit,--in the Unity and Trinity of the Godhead,--in the authenticity and inspiration of the Scriptures,--in the doctrines of incarnation and atonement,--and in eternal glory and retribution. But which of these has she not modified and perverted, under the pretense that she is endowed with Catholicity and perpetual visibility, as the rightful church Apostolic, all her defilement to the contrary? and now she makes her errors her real life. What is true of the hierarchy is equally true of most of the bodies which have protested against and shaken off her heresies. They clung to some truths which she trod underfoot, but they hugged some of her errors as closely as she hugged them, defended them as stoutly, and often persecuted unto death those who differed with them, even in minor matters.
IV. THE WORLD IS VASTLY MORE INDEBTED TO A LINE OF INDIVIDUAL MEN WHO HAVE CONTENDED FOR THE TRUTH, EACH BY HIMSELF, THAN TO ANY ORGANIC CHURCHES, WHICH CAN BE TRACED BY VISIBLE SUCCESSION FROM THE APOSTLES, UNDER ANY NAME WHATEVER.
In religion, as in other departments of life, great movements have almost always centered in one or two isolated individuals, who have become immensely influential, by first turning their eyes upon the needs of their own souls, without human aid, and generally in opposition to all organizations. External influences had little to do in shaping their powers. They were molded above and in advance of their age, and created a new life for all about them, often far outside of their native sphere. First of all they were obliged to escape from and master themselves, then they led their times into a higher and purer godliness. God wrought some grand consummation by them without the aid of any local church, under those uniform laws of truth by which Christs kingdom has ever been governed. These powerful examples, scattered through the centuries, show that not organization but regenerated manhood makes true history, as we might expect from the fact, that the foundation of Gospel obedience is laid in the deep soul-convictions of individual men.
The most marked discoveries and advancements of history have been made, not on the plans of concerted bodies, but by individual minds. Galileo seized the idea of the telescope from a casual glance at a boy holding a tube to his eye; and Newton found the law that binds the universe in a falling apple. So, the few who have been impregnated with holy purposes, saturated through and through with fidelity to Christ, have arisen in imperial strength to vindicate his truth; these are the Alpine peaks that mark the centuries. Their love to Christ held their action responsible to him, and made its final results safe. Religious systems arose out of their personal exertions, but when did a religions system create a new life, after the first century? Baptists are greater debtors to such a train of men than to any train of churches that can be named. This great law of individuality has not escaped the notice of skeptics. Matthew Arnold says, in his Introduction to Literature and Dogma: Jesus Christ, as he appears in the Gospels, and for the very reason that he is manifestly above the heads of his reporters there, is, in the jargon of modern philosophy, an absolute; we cannot explain him, cannot get behind him, and above him, cannot command him. He is, therefore, the perfection of our ideal, and it is as an ideal that the divine has its best worth and reality. The unerring and consummate felicity of Jesus, his prepossessingness, his grace and truth, are moreover at the same time the law for right performance on all great mens lines of endeavor, although the Bible deals with the line of conduct only. Goethe speaks of the person of Christ in the same strain: The life of that divine man, whom you allude to, stands in no connection with the general history of the world in his time. It was a private life; his teaching was for individuals. What has publicly befallen vast masses of people, and the minor parts which compose them, belongs to the general history of the world, the religion we have named the first. What inwardly befalls individuals, belongs to the second religion, the philosophical: such a religion was it that Christ taught and practiced so long as he went about on earth.
This tribute to Christ from such sources may be applied largely to those who have pre-eminently imbibed his spirit, were made what they were by closely following him, and who lived singly to his glory. The distinctive religious life which they introduced into their times was in advance of their day, as his life was in advance of his day. Their progress was slow, like his, because they set up a high mark and suffered for it; their patience and growth drew men to their side. and when they retired, perhaps as martyrs, their aim was reached by the world, so that that which others first scouted became necessary at last to their bliss. Some few such men drew the historic boundary lines, as a few headlands mark the entire sweep of a dim sea-coast. The truths which they insisted upon were changeless, though they were neglected under the reign of ignorance, or the sway of violence. But the king-men were not to blame for the dwarfishness of others. They gave unity to the centuries by keeping the struggle alive for the purity of eternal principles, the idea for which they suffered has interpreted its priceless value by their sufferings. Because the masses of the people were ignorant they were ferocious, for in the Middle Ages men did not seek high principle in troops; as great souls only can prefer a pure religion to one that is corrupt, one that is simple to one that is complicated, one from heaven and unstamped by earthly and grotesque intermixtures. The natural creed of the masses lodges in ceremony, mummery and external sanctity, and simple purity is too great to enlist admiration, when men prefer sophistication. Of course, where such religion is preferred there can be few men of gigantic stature.
Then, it often happens that men of high excellence rise in character far above their creed, for in historic religion creed and character do not always harmonize. When a few men rise above the character of a whole people they rise above the level of their age, and in that case they must pay a large price in suffering for the purpose of blessing their race; a price that but few are able to pay. A great mind of our day avows, That in the whole period from the sixth to the tenth century, there were not in all Europe more than three or four men who dared to think for themselves; and even they were not classed with the creators of their age. They were neither rulers nor statesmen, but quiet and unobserved suggesters, who discovered abuses and pointed out remedies which future times were proud to apply. Chiefly through this order of mind we are to trace the record of Baptist sentiments, but the name Baptist must not mislead us to enlist into our ranks men who would be unworthy of that name today, simply because they held some things in common with ourselves. Rather, we must embrace only those who cherished in full, the conception which both the New Testament Baptists and those of the nineteenth century set forth as underlying the entire kingdom of Christ. It is in the embodiment of these principles, whether in individuals or churches, that we are to look for true Baptist history. Because they are imbedded in the Bible we bow to their holy teachings, the antiquity of principles being quite another thing from the antiquity of organizations. As doctrines and practices originated in after times are late and new, we must reverence that antiquity alone which God uttered in the beginning. A system running through ages is an empty boast unless it reproduces the vital, spiritual copy of the first age.
For seventy years the Jews lost the line of the Passover, when Jerusalem lay in heaps and Israel was enslaved in Babylon, but when Hezekiah brought them back and restored the feast, the seventy missing links of festivity came with them. Two generations of their people had died and certain of their tribes were never heard of again, yet their true history as Jews was not broken nor the significancy of the Passover impaired, although they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it is written. The moment that the Temple was rebuilt, its doors opened, and its lamps relit, the old authority of the institution revived. No Jewish household now living can trace its descent to any given tribe which existed at the fall of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. All have been so scattered and intermixed amongst themselves and the Gentiles, that tribal lines are entirely obliterated; yet none will deny that they are the direct descendants of Abraham. The principles above set forth are not those which have been generally adopted in Baptist history. But the writer is persuaded that they are the only true channel through which it can be traced, and by which Baptists can be made a unit with Apostolic Churches, while visible descent and the unbroken succession of churches are not and cannot be a proper test in the matter. We enjoy the right of self-government in the United States by a regular descent of democracy from the Roman Republic, but it is impossible to trace its course by a line of democracies to which our own is the successor. But the two, separated so widely in point of time, are essentially the same in their liberties. Individuals have asserted the rights of man in every country, and bands have struggled to embody them in every government, but who will say that these have not been the true patriots of the world, because a perpetual and visible line of organized republics has not come down to us, side by side with a similar line of despotic governments?
Historical truth applies the same processes to the several streams of natural science. Certain families and tribes are found in vegetable and animal life; that is to say, a given type multiplies itself into groups, sequence being our guide; yet no scientist discards faith in the existence of a type, because he cannot trace its visible sequence, while again and again he finds its outward course strangely resumed. So we speak of a people known as Baptists, who have been substantially of one order of religious faith and practice, and have been made so by one order of religious principle. If crushed at one time, or entirely driven out of sight, others bearing the same Apostolic stamp and force have come forth to fill their places, under other names. A sunbeam is a sunbeam, no matter upon what putrescence it may fall, or with what pollution it may mingle; and by a ray of this character we thread our way from Christ down in ecclesiastical life. But the pretense that any one communion now on earth can trace it all the way down from the Apostles, in one line of fidelity and purity to New Testament teachings, is to contradict all reliable history. Dr. Abel Stevens says: Obscure communities, as the Cathari of the Novatians, the Paulicians, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, maintained the ancient faith in comparative purity from the beginning of the fourth century down. to the Reformation. These and other sects held one or more distinctive Baptist principles, but none of them were thorough Baptists, through and through. A Baptist church is a congregation, and not a denomination of congregations, and find if in what nook we may if it can trace its doctrines to the Apostles it is an Apostolic Church.
A church, says Dr. Ripley, that came into existence yesterday, in strict conformity to the New Testament principles of membership, far away from any long-existing church or company of churches and therefore unable to trace an outward lineal descent, is a true Church of Christ. While a church so-called, not standing on the Apostolic principles of faith and practice, and yet able to look back through a long line up to time immemorial, may have never belonged to that body of which Christ is the Head.
The reader of religious history must be as honest as its writer, for the one is as much exposed to bias as the other. Yet, the exact facts which are found by the truthful historian are often condemned unweighed, because they are unpalatable; and true chronicles are often buried under the abuse which they heap upon the subject. For some reason much of this unfairness crops out, with many, whenever the truths of the New Testament are under consideration. Hence a man only honors himself and the vital teachings of the Holy Spirit when he separates himself from all that is superficial in his own methods of examination. Above all people, Baptists should be content to separate their history from all questionable material, and to write and read it in the form in which facts have cast it, its complete touchstone being conformity to the Gospel. Those only have been Baptists who have conformed to this rule, from age to age, without addition or subtraction. Error must eternally remain error, and no antiquity can sanctify it into truth. For all the ends of truth merely venerable custom is weak; yet, if a supreme love of truth does not force it back, it will dominate the mind through the senses, which are captivated by the hoary. As the dykes of Holland repel the approaches of the sea, so Baptists can only reserve the fairest provinces of truth by resisting ancient custom, simply because it is ancient. Ecclesiastical custom is as mutable as its maker, and yet, when an old practice conflicts with the New Testament, many make that practice the true interpretation of Gods word without questioning its authority. Although not one jot has been added to the truth since the death of the Apostle John, the bare antiquity of a tradition enshrines it in the faith of many, especially if it came down from one of the so-called Fathers. A late able scholar of Dr. Waylands illustrated the feeling of many on this subject. He asked whether, if the doctor had lived near the time of Paul, his word would not have been weightier than that of other men. The great tutor replied, Yes, provided Paul had said in his writings, "I leave Francis Wayland my interpreter." And if not, how could he have interpreted an apostle better than any one else, without special inspiration from God? The noblest minds are often crippled by this straining after uninspired antiquity, under the notion that it must touch the divine, without reaching after Christs infallible ideal, when it stands openly before their eyes.
Baptist historians have always written against great odds. Commonly those who rejected our principles in past ages were filled with bitterness, and destroyed the best sources of exact data in the shape of treatise narrative and record. The hated party was weak, and the dominant bought its destruction. Often these helpless victims of tyranny were obliged to destroy their own documents, lest discovery should overwhelm them in calamity. We shall see also that while many of the old sects were more or less imbued with Baptist principles, each had its own class of deductions, convictions and practices. In consequence, what was a cherished faith with one was held in contempt by another, and these states of mind became a part of the men themselves. Their different stages of faith were different stages of consciousness; and it came to pass, that to oppose each other fiercely was to attain high fidelity. In the dreary weakness of human nature each man held his own sect virtuous and the other vicious, all the time forgetting that as relative bodies they modified each other, and were largely responsible for each others conduct. Then, as the Baptists had control of no national government, they could not preserve their records as did others. They managed no legislation or system of civil jurisprudence, and could keep no archives, having no legal officers whose special business it was to store up and keep facts. Necessarily, therefore, what few records they have left are fragmentary, without due continuity of register, and almost barren of vital events. The hand which carried the sword to smite this people, carried also the torch to burn up their books, and their authors were reduced to ashes by the flames of their own literature. The material for building up their chronicles is both crude and scanty. The governing life of a people, and not circumstances alone, gives value to their claim, and so we are thrown back on principle and hard generalization.
If Baptist history be peculiar, it is only because they have been a peculiar people. Their enemies have always accounted them as heretics, whose prime value was to keep a cold world warm by their use as fuel for the stake. Men have never been willing to understand them, because they never would accept them on their own showing, but have insisted on measuring them by other standards than their own. With a great price they obtained their freedom, and their radical individualism made them appear to other men as disturbing and even violent. In turn, almost every mans hand has been against them, and as a people of but one book, they have taken a fixed and sturdy character, which has made them look as if their hand was against every man. What Burke said of Americans, in another line, is true of them in their devotion to the Bible, namely: In no country, perhaps, in the world, is the law so general a study.
We see, then, that Robinson, Crosby, Irving, Orchard, Jones, Backus, Benedict, Cramp, and other Baptist historians, have written under every possible disadvantage. Still, their work shows an instinctive love of the truth for the truths sake, worthy of such veterans. Their spirituality is elevated, their piety without guile, their devotion to the Gospel ardent, and their historical acumen quite equal to that of other Church historians. In the main, their leading facts and findings have not been proven untrustworthy, and no one has attempted to show that their general conclusions are untenable. Possibly, their chief mistake has lodged in the attempt to find the stray and casual links of a certain order of churches which may, by accommodation be called Baptist. The design of this work will be, to follow certain truths through the ages, on that radical Protestant principle which professes to discard the Romish claim of catholicity and succession, and so to follow certain truths down to their chief conservators of this time, the Baptists. By this method we can best understand their battles with error and power, their defeats and victories. In general history no writer will be content to seek a succession of kings and courts, of warriors and bloody fields, but he will find truth in the social and civil life of a people, in the march of constitutional freedom, and the phenomena of human elevation.
The best service that can be rendered to the Baptists is, to trace the noiseless energy and native immortality of the doctrines which they hold, after all their conflicts, to the glory of Christ, for it is exactly here that we see their excellency as a people. If it can be shown that their churches are the most like the Apostolic that now exist, and that the elements which make them so have passed successfully through the long struggle, succession from the times of their blessed Lord gives them the noblest history that any people can crave. To procure a servile imitation of merely primitive things has never been the mission of Baptists. Their work has been to promote the living reproduction of New Testament Christians, and so to make the Christlike old, the ever delightfully, new. Their perpetually fresh appeal to the Scriptures as the only warrant for their existence at all must not be out off, in a foolish attempt to turn the weapons of the hierarchy against itself. The sword of the Spirit must still be their only arm of service, offensive and defensive. An appeal to false credentials now would not only cut them off from their old roll of honor, but it would sever them from the use of all that now remains undiscovered and unapplied in the word of God. The distinctive attribute in the kingdom of Christ is life; not an historic life, but a life supernatural, flowing eternally from Christ alone by his living truth.
Such existence does not claim the right of long possession in this soil or that, or through this or that course of time; nor is this the best title by which Baptists can prove their heirship to their fair inheritance. So far from their right to live inhering in organic ancestry by ancient descent, their right to be, in the nineteenth century, comes by their oneness with the truth given by Christ in the first century. Their present possession of that truth, is the testimony to their unity with an endless life, is their only authority for existence at any time, with or without human records, and shuts out all other considerations. The life of all Gospel churches must center in the truth which has come down unscathed from Jesus Christ; we must find it here or nowhere, and there can be no course, extreme or via media, which applies the true test of Church life but this. A human figment may serve the ends of Catholicism, but as Baptists are not Romanists, only Christ and Apostolicity as they are found in the Divine Writings can suffice for them. The spirit and outcome of these in their normal form afford the staple for genuine Baptist History.
“All men on earth feel empty from time to time, and you are right: it is always a thirst for the divine which makes us feel so.”
To the contrary, the thirst for the divine should make one feel less empty.
RECTI CULTUS PECTORA ROBORANT
Also from that same site I linked...
"The difference in meaning can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greekan entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant "rock." If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone, the Greek lithos would have been used... (For an Evangelical Protestant Greek scholars admission of this, see D. A. Carson, The Expositors Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984], Frank E. Gaebelein, ed., 8:368)."
Wrong. You're apparently unaware that scholars are increasingly coming to view Koine Greek as actually being much closer to Attic than previously thought. Further, the only uses for petra that appear in the NT are referring, either literally or figuratively, to huge slabs, cliffs, massive outcroppings, etc. Lithos certainly does NOT have to mean "small stone". Lithos is in fact used to describe the LARGE stone that was rolled in front of the door to Jesus' tomb, it is used of the prophetic stone which will fall upon the enemies of God and grind them to dust, it is used to refer to the (truly massive) stones which constituted the main bulk of the Temple, etc. Lithos is the common word for "rock, stone", which is why Jesus' play on words between petra/petros in Matthew 16:18 is actually all the MORE definitive on this point. Yes, Jesus could have called Peter a lithos, but He did not. He wanted the word picture to be clearly understood by all present, using petros, a word for "small stone" which meant ONLY that - the word does not have the "anything up to the size of a stone in the Temple wall" possibilities which lithos does. Jesus' use of petros ESPECIALLY emphasises his minimisation of Peter, and the maximisation of the petra, the statement of the truth about Christ Himself, implicit in the choice of wording in Matthew 16:18. In essence, Peter was decreased, and Christ Himself (who is the Rock upon which the churches are built) was increased.
Matthew. 16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this Rock I will build my church,shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai
Jesus said unto Peter; You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church
One method of Hermeneutical understanding of Matthew 16:18
is to do a word study of all the scriptures which were then known
as the Holy Word of G-d when Yah'shua spoke these words.
This will allow one to understand that all of the Holy Word of G-d
was inspired by YHvH; the whole counsel of G-d.
The only conclusion that one can come to unless you are
predisposed to believe in man's tradition over the Holy Word of G-d
is that Yah'shua was speaking of himself as the "Rock "
e.g.
Peter himself refers to Yah'shua as the "rock" in
Genesis 49:24 But his bow remained steady, his strong arms stayed
[Or archers will attack...will shoot...will remain...will stay] supple,
because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob,
because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,
Deuteronomy 32:3 I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock , his works are perfect, and all his ways are
just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
Deuteronomy 32:15 ..... He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Saviour.
Deuteronomy 32:30 How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten
thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless
the LORD had given them up?
Deuteronomy 32:31 For their rock is not like our Rock , as even our enemies concede
Deuteronomy 32:32 Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness.
1 Samuel 2:2 "There is no-one holy [Or no Holy One] like the LORD;
there is no-one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.
2 Samuel 22:2 He said: "The LORD is my Rock , my fortress and my deliverer;
2 Samuel 22:3 my God is my Rock , in whom I take refuge, my shield and the
horn [Horn here symbolises strength.] of my salvation.
He is my stronghold, my refuge and my saviour from violent men you save me.
2 Samuel 22:32 For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?
2 Samuel 22:47 "The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock ! Exalted be God, the Rock , my Saviour!
2 Samuel 23:3 The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me:
'When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God,
Psalm 18:31 For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?
Psalm 18:46 The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock ! Exalted be God my Saviour!
Psalm 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Psalm 42:9 I say to God my Rock , "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"
Psalm 78:35 They remembered that God was their Rock , that God Most High was their Redeemer.
Psalm 89:26 He will call out to me, `You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Saviour.'
Psalm 92:15 ..... "YHvH is upright; he is my Rock , and there is no wickedness in him."
Psalm 95:1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Psalm 144:1 Praise be to the LORD my Rock , who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
Habakkuk 1:12 O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy
One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to
execute judgment; O Rock , you have ordained them to punish.
1 Peter 2:1-10NAsbU 1 Peter 2:
1 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
3 if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
4 And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God,
5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6 For this is contained in Scripture: "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone,
AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."
7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, "THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED,
THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone,"
8 and, "A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word,
and to this doom they were also appointed.
9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION,
so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
10 for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY,
but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.
But this doesn't make much sense here. Peter just revealed something awesome and great thru the Father. I'm sorry but it just doesn't jive that Jesus would then minimize Peter after he just called him blessed and changed his name from Simon to Rock and then gives him the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Also you claim that Matthew was revealed to us in Greek. Do you have the original texts? Many scholars believe it may have been translated from Aramaic.
It makes perfect sense, because what was awesome had nothing, per se, to do with Peter, but was instead directly about Christ. John the Baptist was also greatly blessed, being the one man out of all men in history who was chosen by God to be the forerunner for His Messiah - yet John himself said "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).
Also you claim that Matthew was revealed to us in Greek. Do you have the original texts? Many scholars believe it may have been translated from Aramaic.
Nobody has the original text, which is why any statements on this question must deal with secondary evidences. And the secondary evidences all point to Matthew originally in Greek. The earliest manuscriptual evidences, including some fragments from Huleatt's collection which may be dated to as early as 50-60 AD, are uniformly in Greek. We don't find mss. evidence for Matthew in Aramaic/Syriac until the 3rd century, and their wordings strongly suggest that they were translated from Greek mother mss. The patristics from the 1st-2nd century cite Matthew in Greek, as well.
I disagree. John was humble as were the Apostles and The Virgin, but they were still great and God stated this as such in each instance. This is the model of how we should act.
Nobody has the original text, which is why any statements on this question must deal with secondary evidences. And the secondary evidences all point to Matthew originally in Greek. The earliest manuscriptual evidences, including some fragments from Huleatt's collection which may be dated to as early as 50-60 AD, are uniformly in Greek. We don't find mss. evidence for Matthew in Aramaic/Syriac until the 3rd century, and their wordings strongly suggest that they were translated from Greek mother mss. The patristics from the 1st-2nd century cite Matthew in Greek, as well.
This still doesn't take into account that Jesus spoke Aramaic as demonstrated by His words on the cross, his raising from the dead the little girl, etc... The franca-lingua of the Empire of Rome was Greek as you state but Jesus and his Apostles in the region spoke Aramaic. The Gospel of Matthew was written down in Greek translated from Jesus's words he spoke.
I'm not convinced from the arguments that you have put forth but I appreciate the conversation.
I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter what language Jesus spoke. Scripture, including Matthew's Gospel, was given by inspiration of the Spirit of God. It doesn't really matter what language Jesus spoke, since God could inspire His Word in whatever language He wanted - and all the actual, tangible evidences indicate that this was Greek. The Aramaic phrases in Matthew's Gospel are not residual artefacts of an earlier Aramaic version. Why would someone go to the trouble of translating it from Aramaic into Greek, but refuse to translate those particular instances, choosing instead to say "...which means this...."?
thanks for this posting
>>>”The only authority is the Bible, and the God-called pastor of the local church...”
I do not see how the Bible can be the authority for what the Bible says about Christ’s Church.
Further it would seem the argument above would allow virtually any church to claim apostolic succession by claiming their, or their pastor’s, interpretation is “apostolic”.
Therefore, the problem of authority, which visible Apostolic Succession specifically addresses, is not solved by this argument.
There is no problem, and there is no need for "apostolic succession". A church which was made up entirely of people who had found a Bible somewhere in their language, read it, believed what it said about Jesus and how to be saved, and organised themselves into a local New Testament church would be just as much of a church as any other on earth. "Apostolic succession" is a non-issue.
Unless, of course, what they found it to say about Jesus and His Church and Salvation was that they should join the Catholic Church with the authority of Apostolic Succession, and live a Sacramental life.
;)
Then, if they were right, you would be right - and wrong.
The authentic apostolic church of the Bible isn’t defined by a name. That is why there were so many groups in church history (Donatists, Novatians, Paulicians, Albigenses, Waldenses, Anabaptists....etc). The authentic church is defined by its doctrine.
Write down the fundamental doctrines of Independent Fundamental Baptists, then write down the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, LDS, or whoever else....then let the empirical data speak.
Deciding an eternal destination (heaven/hell) on one word (Peter) in one verse, is a really bad approach. You wouldn’t do it in any other part of your life with the stakes so high.
Hell is too hot and eternity is too long to be betting the ranch on tradition and pride.
Mat 7:20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
In such a situation, I wouldn’t be overly worried about that happening, however.
But if it can happen, then the author’s argument is false, Q.E.D.
That authority was the Spirit lead persons who were either Apostles or direct followers of the Apostles who performed signs and wonders to prove they had the Spirit within them
Once this need to prove their validity was gone, the gifts of the Spirit that had to do with outward signs was removed because they no longer needed the woutwaard signs to prove they were from God.
When the movement of Christian Churches went from nation to nation, the presence of them was announced before them in many ways, both from pagans and believers, so the new thing was no longer new. God’s written word was sufficient from that point on, to walk by faith and not by sight
No, the rock Jesus was referring to was the previous point made by Peter, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God
Peter is no rock that any church was built upon
Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the Living God is that rock
I am probably late to this dance, but I will chime in anyway...
A “church” by definition is a local body of believers. I think some folks get a bit confused using the term “church” to mean the “universal church”, which is somewhat misleading and comes from the ecuminical churches. While all believers in Christ are brothers and sisters, there is not “one church”.
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