"OLD LANDMARKISM"
What Is It?
CHAPTER XI.
What it is not, and what is, to be an old
Landmark Baptist—The true mission of old Landmark Baptist.
"Now I entreat you,
brethren, to watch those who are making factions and laying snares, contrary to
the teachings which you have learned; and turn away from them. For such
like ones as they, are not in subjection to our anointed Lord, but their own
appetites; and by a kind and complementary words the decedent hearts of the
unsuspecting."(Rom.16:17,18.)
"Be not a partaker and
other men’s sins: keep thyself pure" (1 Tim 5:22).
"If anyone comes to you,
and brings not this doctrine, do not receive him into your handles, nor wish him
success; for he who wishes him success partakes in his evil works" (2 John
10:11). (Translation of Emphatic Diaglott)
"Can two walk together;
except they be agreed?" (Amos 3:3).
Landmark Baptist are
continually charged by all who oppose their characteristic principles and
policy—Baptists who know better, not excepted—with many and grievous offenses,
in order to make us obnoxious to our own brethren and, and detested by all
others. It seems proper, therefore, at this point, to refute all these, by
stating, first, what Old Landmarkism is not, before making a summary of what it
is.
1. Old Landmarkism is
not the denial of spiritual regeneration to those with whom we decline to
associate ministerially or ecclesiastically.
Still we by no means feel
warranted in saying that we believe that the members of those societies, which
hold and teach that baptism is a sacrament or seal of salvation, or essential to
the remission of sins—as all Pedobaptists and Campbellite societies do hold and
teach—are Christians, or even presumptively regenerate, since they do not
require a credible evidence of regeneration as a condition of membership. They
may believe that baptism, "duly administered," confers the grace of regeneration
upon adults and infants as well, but Baptist do not, and, therefore we cannot
believe that because they are members, it is therefore probable that they
are regenerate, as we are justified in believing with respect to Baptist
Churches that require a credible profession of regeneration in every instance.
It must be true that the vast mass of Pedobaptists, and the overwhelming mass of
the membership of Campbellite societies are unregenerate, and we are not
justified in applying to them the title of brethren in Christ; for we will
thereby mis-teach them, and brethren, ecclesiastically, we know they are not.
But Landmarkism does not
pretend to sit in judgment upon the state of any man’s heart, but upon his
ecclesiastical relations only. Refusing to affiliate with them, ministerially
and ecclesiastically, is not declaring by our act that we believe their
ministers and members are unregenerate, but that they are not members
of scriptural Churches. Refusing to invite their ministers to preach for our
churches, and to accept their immersions, is no more denying their Christian
character than refusing to invite them to our communion table—Baptist know this,
and all Pedobaptists ought to know it. We mean by our refusal, to emphasize our
protest against their organizations as scriptural churches, and
consequently against their ministers as authorized to preach and to administer
the church ordinance’s. We do not recognized unbaptized and unordained men, who
are Baptists in sentiment, as scriptural ministers, and qualified to administer
Church ordinances; and why should we be expected to recognize those we regard as
disqualified, and who violently oppose our faith and practice? It is manifestly
inconsistent in Baptists to do so, and Pedobaptists know and freely admit it. In
all mere Christian duties, as private Christians, we are at liberty to
participate, but never ministerially or ecclesiastically. By no act that can
possibly be so construed, must we recognize other societies as Christian
churches, or other ministers as Scriptural ministers.
2. Landmarkism is not
the denial of the honesty and conscientiousness of Pedobaptists and Campbellites.
We concede to all the
honesty of purpose we claim for ourselves, and we accord to them equal
conscientiousness; but we, nevertheless, belief them honestly deceived, and
conscientious in the belief of unscriptural and pernicious errors; and that it
is our bounden duty to undeceive them by all possible scriptural means;
but by no word or deed of ours to confirm them in their error. It is the highest
proof of love to endeavor, even at the hazard of losing their friendship, to
correct the mistakes and errors of our friends; while to leave them unwarned of
a danger of which we are aware, is the part of an enemy.
3. Landmarkism is not a
proof of our uncharitableness.
We are charged with
manifesting a spirit uncharitable and un-Christlike. This charge is without
foundation. Christ called Himself the "truth;" He hated and opposed all error;
he failed not upon all occasions to rebuke and denounced it; He recognized only
those as His friends who were like Him in this respect.
Charity not only rejoices
in the truth, but is opposed to that which is not truth, and "hateth every false
way." Christ, nor charity, then, requires of us to surrender Christian
principle, and to be unfaithful to the teachings and requirements of duty. We
cannot hope to please Christ, by recognizing the institutions and traditions of
men, as equal to His own churches and Commandments. That is not Christian
charity, but a false liberality and treason to Christ, to surrender or
compromise that which He has committed to us to firmly hold and faithfully
teach.
Landmarkism, then, is not
opposed to the spirit of true Christian charity, but to an unscriptural and
pernicious "liberalism" which is being palmed off upon the world for
Christian charity—a spirit which is truly opposed to Christ, and is the "bane
and the curse of a pure Christianity," and daily
demonstrates itself as the very spirit of persecution itself.
4. Landmarkism is not
the denial to others the civil right, or the most perfect liberty to exist as
professed churches, or to their ministers to preach their views, as it is
falsely asserted.
We accord to all
denominations and to all "religions," Jews and Gentiles, Mohammedan and Pagan,
the same right to exist; and to their priests and teachers the same civil right
to teach and propagate their doctrines, as we claim for ourselves.
It is one of the peculiar characteristics of Baptists, which they have
maintained in every age; and viz., the absolute liberty of conscience and
belief, and the freest expression of them. We would fight as soon to vindicate
religious liberty in this country, to an idolatrous Chinese or a Jew, as to a
Baptist. We would not, had we the absolute power to do so, forbid Pedobaptists,
or Campbellites, or Mormons from preaching, and the fullest enjoyment of their
religious rights; but do most positively deny that they have any scriptural
right to exist as churches of Christ: we do deny their claims to be called or
treated as churches of Christ; we do deny the scripturalness of either their
doctrines, or other ordinances, and their authority to ordain ministers of the
gospel, precisely as we would the right of the lodge, or Young Men’s Christian
Associations, should they assume to do so. We do deny that their ministers have
any more authority to preach the gospel and administer church ordinances, than
the officers of lodges have, by virtue of their office; but, in saying this, we
make no allusion to their personal Christian characters
whatever. All the members and officers of a lodge might be true Christians,
but that would not constitute the lodge a Christian church, or is officers
Christian ministers. The only force we would bring to bear against Pedobaptists,
and Campbellites, and Mormons, to put an end to their existence as churches, or
to their ministers to arrest their preaching, is the sword of truth, wielded in
the dauntless spirit of Paul and the love of Christ. We would convert
them from the error of their ways, and bring them all, by the force of moral
suasion, into sweet subjection to the Law of Christ. We would exterminate the
isms by converting the ists.
We may as well notice here
Mark 9:28, which our would-be undenominational brethren constantly quote as
proof positive, that we should not oppose in anyway, but rather encourage all
religious teachers, of even manifest errors, to propagate their false doctrine
so long as they claim to be religious teachers and the friends and followers of
Christ. The Apostles forbade a person to cast out devils in the name of Christ,
because he did not follow them! The Protestant commentators have
generally made all possible use of this passage to support their cause as
against the pretensions of the Romish church, and Baptists have been influenced
to use it against the advocates of apostolic succession, who claim that no one
is authorized to preach unless ordained in the succession; and now "liberal
Baptists," who would recognize all sects as equally "Christian churches,"
and all the ministers of those sects as "evangelical ministers," and bid
them God-speed—quote it against Landmarkers. But the passage yields them no
encouragement to disrespect and violate the order which Christ
established, and the positive injunctions of Paul. This man, whom John and his
fellow apostles saw casting out devils, in the name of Christ, was certainly not
an enemy of Christ, and could not have been doing anything contrary to His
will or authority, or he could not have cast out devils. He was undoubtedly
either one of John’s disciples, or one of the seventy who had been authorized by
Christ Himself to do this very miracle when He sent them forth; and this man may
have continued to proclaim the mission of Jesus, and to cast out devils. He was,
most unquestionably, a disciple of Christ, though not one of the apostles,
and therefore, had been baptized. The only irregularity complained of by John
was, that he followed not Christ continually, as the apostles were required to
do, to qualify them for their work after the ascension of Christ; but it was
not required of him, nor of any other disciple of Christ, save the twelve,
to follow Christ constantly. That this man was a friend and disciple of
Christ, is established by the great faith he had in Him as Messiah or the Son of
God—greater than the Apostles themselves were at times able to exercise. (See
Matt 17:16-22). Will a Baptist, therefore, in the exercise of impartial candor,
claim that this passage warrants him in maintaining that anyone, irrespective of
baptism or church relations, or faith in the doctrine of Christ, is authorized
to go forth and preach his erroneous views in the name of Christ, and to
administer church ordinances, and that we must bid him God-speed, and thus
endorse his doctrinal errors which are subversive of true Christianity, and his
irregularities totally subversive of the church and kingdom of Christ. Let all
who desire to believe this know of a certainty that Christ never set up a
kingdom and divided it against itself, nor can it be that "the house of God,
which is the church of the living God" is divided against itself.
The following are
indisputable facts:
1. That without scriptural
baptism there can be no Christian church, and consequently no scriptural
ministers, and no scriptural ordinances.
2. That sprinkling and
pouring of water upon persons, adults, and infants, as a sacrament of salvation,
is not scriptural baptism, but as gross a perversion of it, as it is to
administer it in order to procure the remission of sins.
It is a stern and solemn
fact—
3. That we, as Baptists,
can not by our words or acts declare that Pedobaptists or Campbellites
societies are scriptural churches, or their teachers scriptural ministers, or
their ordinances scriptural, without testifying to that we know to be untrue,
and without lending all our influence to support and bid "God-speed" to their
false and pernicious teachings, and thus becoming partakers of their
wrongdoing—as guilty in the sight of God as they themselves are. (See 2 John 10:
11).
What is
the mission of Landmark Baptist?
1. As Baptists, we are to
stand for the supreme authority of the New Testament as our only and sufficient
rule of faith and practice. The New Testament, and that alone, as opposed to all
human tradition in matters, both of faith and practice, we must claim as
containing the distinguishing doctrine of our denomination—a doctrine for
which we are called earnestly to contend.
2. As Baptists, we are to
stand for the ordinances of Christ as He enjoined them upon His followers, the
same in number, and mode, and order, and in symbolic
meaning, unchanged and unchangeable till He come.
3. As Baptists, we are to
stand for a spiritual and regenerated church, and that none shall be received
into Christ’s church, or be welcomed to its ordinances, without confessing a
personal faith in Christ, and giving credible evidence of piety.
The motto on our banner is:
Christ
Before the Church, Blood Before Water.
4. To protest, and to use
all our influence against the recognition, on the part of Baptists, of human
societies as scriptural churches, by affiliation, ministerial or ecclesiastical,
or any alliance or co-operation that is susceptible of being apparently or
logically construed by our members, or theirs, or the world, into a recognition
of their ecclesiastical or ministerial equality with Baptist churches.
5. To preserve and
perpetuate the doctrine of the divine origin and sanctity of the churches of
Christ, and the unbroken continuity of Christ’s kingdom, "from the days of John
the Baptist until now," according to the express words of Christ.
6. To preserve and
perpetuate the divine, inalienable, and sole prerogatives of a
Christian church -- 1, To preach the gospel of the son of God; 2, To select and
ordain her own officers; 3, To control absolutely her own ordinances.
7. To preserve and
perpetuate the scriptural design of baptism, and its validity and recognition
only when scripturally administered by a gospel church.
8. To preserve and
perpetuate the true design and symbolism of the Lord’s Supper, as a local church
ordinance, and for but one purpose—the commemoration of the sacrificial
death of Christ—and not as a denominational ordinance, or as an act expressive
of our Christian or personal fellowship, and much less of courtesy
towards others.
9. To preserve and
perpetuate the doctrine of a divinely called and scripturally qualified and
ordained ministry, to proclaim the gospel, and to administer the ordinances, not
upon their own responsibility, but for, and under the direction of, local
churches alone.
10. To preserve and
perpetuate that primitive fealty and faithfulness to the truth, that shunned not
to declare the whole counsel of God, and to teach man to observe all things
whatsoever Christ commanded to be believed and obeyed.
Not the belief and advocacy
of one or two of these principles as the marks of the divinely patterned church,
but the cordial reception and advocacy of all of them, constitute a full "Old
Landmark Baptist."
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