Cont...
7. The prevalence of Baptist principles throughout the centuries as shown by scholars, proves a necessary succession of the churches, those principles formulate. Those jealously maintaining the independence of the church; the sole authority of the Scriptures as the rule of faith and practice; the spiritual character and discipline and the baptismal order of the church, must have been Baptists. The churches they constituted, must have been Baptist churches. To call them Pedobaptist churches while practicing, even suffering and dying for Baptist principles, would be a logical absurdity and a base calumny. Exceptional interpretation or observance can no more discredit their Baptist lineage and character than those of English, Scotch, German, or American Baptists. The reproaches heaped on Montainists, Donatists, Novatians, and Earlier Waldenses, are no greater, nor from more unpredjudiced sources than those heaped upon Christ and his apostles, Luther and his coadjutors, Whitfield and Wesley, our German Baptists, and all leaders of revivals. If there has been any succession of Christ's church, it must have been through the great religious bodies persecuted by Antichrist to vindicate a fictitious claim to apostolic succession. If there has been any apostolic succession, it must be traced through these great dissenting communities, or through Papacy. As no Protestant admits a succession through Papacy, it must be accepted through these Protestant bodies. But it is ascertain that these bodies were Anti-Pedobaptist-anna-Baptist, as that they were Protestant. Any succession, therefore, through them must be "Baptist Succession." If it be urged, the evidence of their Baptist character are rather meagre. We answer the evidence of their Anna-baptism are not meagre. And if Anna-Baptist, they were not Pedobaptist. Moreover, the evidences are not meagre considering they have survived the destruction of annals by Antichrist, to vindicate her rival claim to apostolic succession. Besides the facts complained of as few, are formative, and demonstrate certain order and organization. From a single bone, the naturalist determines a species of animal; from the classification of a few fossils, he constructs a Museum of Natural History; from the study of fossils in different parts of the globe he distributes the animal races in their several habitats over the earth and through successive periods.
So the candid ecclesiastical historian may find distinctive principles enough to identify and distinguish the Christian from the Anti-Christian communities through successive ages, and in different lands. The name Anna-Baptist, attributed as a reproach, has always identified Anti-Papal and Anti-Pedobaptist communities. And where we
[p. 414]
discover among them church independence, Scriptural doctrine, spiritual character, and baptismal order, we find Baptist churches. And our conclusion is based on as certain grounds as that, on which the naturalist has reared the science of zoology, and distributed the habitats of the animal races over the earth, and through different periods.
The importance as well as the fact of the succession of Apostolic, or Baptist churches, has been overlooked. Only through them has the lordship of Christ been most signally maintained against Antichrist, and the regenerating power of Christianity most conspicuously illustrated. The greatness of England and America, has arisen from the order and discipline of ten thousand independent homes. So throughout Christendom, the highest industry, thrift, contentment, social purity, charity and happiness, and the highest culture, freedom, and progress have eminated from independent Apostolic churches. The greatest, most comprehensive, and beneficent reform of the world would be the superseding of all other religious institutions, state establishments, and hierarchies, by the simple, spiritual, independent order of Apostolic, or Baptist churches. The prestige of the divine appointment and perpetuity of the apostolic order of churches, would greatly aid their restoration. The fictitious claim of Papacy, challenges the devotion of millions. The true claim of Baptists, vindicated, will inspire a more intelligent, if not a more enthusiastic devotion. Let then, our apostolic succession be more confidently claimed and celebrated. Families boast of illustrious descent. States celebrate the names of their founders. All faiths canonize their prophets. The Hebrews never ceased to reverence Abraham and Moses. Our Lord came not to abrogate the law and the prophets, but to interpret and fulfil them. He recognized the inevitable succession of prophets, and dispensations of religion. We can no more find truth without antecedent utterance than a tree without roots. A theology which has no affinities with the past, is an imposture. A church without succession, is Antichrist. The true church is not a modern institution. It has descended from the institution of the apostles, to our times. It can no more be discredited by loss of annals, than a state by inability to identify an historical succession of states from the Roman Empire, or the Hebrew commonwealth, or a family by inability to trace its descent through a succession of marriages from Paradise. In either case an essential unbroken succession is certain. That succession we may magnify though all the historical connections may not be traced.
[p. 415]
Disparagement, or neglect of a noble ancestry, savors of ignorance, or self-conceit. Men may be flattered by the reputation of having founded a new party, or championed a new sect, who lack the humility or magnaminity to honor their predecessors. If the sentiment that has honored Luther in literature, song, painting and statue, through centuries is justified, should we not celebrate the name of Humeyer, his peer in learning and logic, and his superior in Christian character and loyalty to Christ? Is ignorance of the heroic testimony and sufferings of Montainists, Donatists, Novatians, and Waldenses, through centuries hazarding their lives for the name of Jesus and the order of his church; and through whom alone the Apostolic doctrine and order of Christianity have been preserved to us, creditable either to our intelligence or our professed devotion to the truth?
=============
W. W. Everts.
Chicago.
[From Henry G. Weston, editor, The Baptist Quarterly, October, Volume XI, 1877, 409-415. Document from Google Books On-line. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
