'9^^'y Columbia (Hnitier^ttp mtl)eCttpof3Sfttit0rk LIBRARY PURCHASED FROM THE WILLIAM C. SCHERMERHORN MEMORIAL FUND Alexander Campbell's Theology Its Sources and Historical Setting By WiNPRED Ernest Garrison, Ph. D. St. Louis CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 1900 >5?- Vm"7? Copyrighted, 1900 by W. E. GARRISON NOTE The studies, the results of which are embodied in this volume, were begun in the preparation of a thesis for a degree from the University of Chicago in 1897, under the title, "The Sources of Alexander Campbell's Theology." They have been continued, and are now published, in the hope that those who are interested or may become interested in the sub- ject, may derive from them some aid in interpret- ing Mr. Campbell's work as a theologian in the light of its historical setting. It is of little conse- quence that a theologian is attacked by his enemies and defended by his friends. But it is of much im- portance that he be understood; and he cannot be understood— his strength cannot be appreciated, much less can his shortcomings be reasonably con- doned—without an acquaintance with the condi- tions under which he worked and the influences which worked upon him. It is hoped that this at- tempt to view Alexander Campbell's theology from the historical standpoint may contribute something to the understanding of it. 21 April, 1900. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction— The Historicai. Method 9 I. DEVEIvOPMENT of the PROBI.EM OF Unity 23 II. Phii^osophical Basis 77 III. THEOI.OGICAI. Heritage 117 IV. The Kingdom of God 161 V. Authority and Inspiration 185 VI. Faith And Repentance 213 VII. Baptism 229 YIII. The Holy Spirit in Conversion AND Regeneration 255 IX. The Idea of God 285 TO My First and Bkst Teacher oe Theoi^ogy and oe rewgion a seeker aeter truth an encourager oe youtheui, eeeort and a friend oe ai.i, good i^earning /HbS ifatber. INTRODUCTION THE HISTORICAL METHOD He who undertakes to estimate the in- tellectual achievements of the nineteenth century and to generalize upon the his- tory of thought in this period, cannot fail to admit that the most fruitful and far-reaching general conception which this age has brought into prominence is the idea of development. Based upon a metaphysics which finds the essence of reality to consist, not in the changeless identity of an unknowable "substance" in which all attributes inhere, but in the process by which functions are fulfilled, forms developed and new adaptations made to changing conditions, it quickly passed beyond the limits of speculative philosophy and found application in the fields of science, history, theology, and 9 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY every study which seeks a knowledge of nature, man or God. If the very essence of reality lies in development, growth and adaptation, then knowledge of any portion of reality is to be sought in the study of its process of development; i. e., in its history. In its most general application, therefore, the idea of devel- opment gives rise to what may be called the historical method of studying all phenomena. According to the historical method, it is maintained that any object of knowl- edge, whether it be an organic forma- tion, an idea or an institution, is not known as the scientific observer seeks to know it until one knows the sources from which it sprang, the processes by which it came into being, and the changes which it has undergone in adap- tation to varying conditions. The effect of the application of this conception in the various fields of thought has been little short of revolutionary. The gen- eral principle of evolution (of which the Darwinian theory of the origin of species INTRODUCTION is a mere detail) is the most notable product of the idea of development, or the historical method, as applied to the understanding of the natural world. The scientific study of an organ of an animal or a plant, viewed from this standpoint, includes not only anatomy, which studies the organ statically as a mere complex of tissues, but morphology, which inves- tigates the origin and development of the organ in the species, and physiology, which inquires how it performs its func- tions at the present time. It is not pos- sible to attain a complete scientific knowledge of any organic formation, either plant or animal, without these three elements. Applied to the study of the phenom- ena which constitute the recognized do- main of history, the idea of development has produced what is sometimes called the "new historical method. '^ It is the method which treats history as an organ- ism whose parts grew together and can not be understood separately; as a suc- cession of events causally related, the ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY ultimate essence of whicli lies in their causal connection. History is no longer a /leaj) of facts, a collection of anecdotes wliich may be told in any order without substantial loss. It is not viewed as a mere row of facts, succeeding each other in a definite order but with only a chro- nological sequence, as the old annalists represented it. It is a c/iam of facts logically linked together, and the essen- tial reality of it all lies in the fact that it represents a continuous process of de- velopment. Applied to the study of political, so- cial and religious institutions and ideas, there has been produced what may be broadly termed the historical method. An idea or an institution is a growth. As a plant grows out of a seed, so an idea de- velopes from earlier ideas. Varying con- ditions of soil, moisture, heat and light influence the growth of the plant; vary- ing local and temporary needs, individual abilities and personal adaptations deter- mine the form of the idea. Chemical and physical analyses of the condition of INTRODUCTION tlie plant at any single moment give only partial knowledge of it. To know its life, we mnst know how it springs from a seed of sucli a sort, is modified by cer- tain conditions and bears seed after its kind. Similarly, to understand a politi- cal institution, a social custom or a theo- logical idea, it is necessary to examine its origin in sources already known, in order to give it an organic connection with the general current of human history, and to study its development under the pressure of special needs and impulses. This is the historical method. If this method as heie described be ap- plied to the study of a system of theol- ogy, it will mean that for the time the critical process is laid aside and no attempt is made to determine whether or not the development which actually took place ever ought to have taken place, or to judge whether it meets the requirement and embodies the best thought of a time other than that which gave rise to it. The study will inquire into the philo- sophical presuppositions of the system, 13 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY its affinity with other systems preceding and contemporary, and the special con- ditions which influenced its leaders apart from the general current of thought which influenced all alike; but, in so far as this method is employed in its purity, it will not attempt to perform the func- tion of an apologetic or a polemic. It will orient the system in the general his- tory of Christian doctrine. It will be a study of sources and historical setting and development, but it will not profess to be either critical or constructive, al- though it is the necessary preparation for a consideration of that sort. It is the purpose of this book to pre- sent a study of Alexander Campbell's theology by the historical method. He was not a voice crying in the wilderness and having no connection with his age except to receive from its degeneracy an impulse toward reformation. Try as he would, he could not sweep aside all that men had thought during the past eight- een centuries, and lead a religious move- ment or formulate a system of Christian 14 INTRODUCTION doctrine as if a true word had not been spoken since the death of the Apostles. He was in close relation with the thought of his time, and it is that fact which gives him a definite place in the general development of Christian thought. There were, to be sure, local conditions which furnished the stimulus for his activity, but an examination of his work will show that it was not simply a reaction against these local abuses. Attention is called to the following points which must come up for consider- ation in the course of an historical and genetic study of Mr. Campbell's the- ology: First^ the problem of the reunion of Christendom, which was prominent in all of his religious thinking, was not an idea which was first conceived by him. Although unknown in the locality in which Mr. Campbell lived and worked, the idea of Christian union was one which had seldom been without an advo- cate from the time when the Protestant revolution broke the external unity of 15 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY mediaeval Romanism. But the individ- ualism which was implicit in the Refor- mation of the sixteenth century must attain a fuller development and a more adequate statement before unity could be attained without a sacrifice of liberty. To understand the significance of Mr. Cambell's plea for union, therefore, in its relation to the general history of thought, it will be necessary to trace the development of the problem of Christian union and the condition of its solution, in the development of individualism through the thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Seco7id^ in working out his views of Christian doctrine on a basis as thor- oughly Biblical as possible, he held a definite theory of the nature of man and the method by which knowledge of both natural and spiritual things must enter his mind. It is evident that this inher- itance of psychology and theory of knowledge, which he received from the system of philosophy then current, could not fail to exercise an influence upon his i6 INTRODUCTION formulation of Christian doctrine. For example, if he held (as he did) that man is so constituted that all his knowledge comes to him through sensation and re- flection, he could not hold that man is born with the idea of God or that knowl- edge of divine things is infused into him in some mysterious manner independent of all sensible means. At many other points there can be seen the influence of his philosophical presuppositions. It is necessary, therefore, in studying the sources and historical setting of the sys- tem of theology, to state briefly the char- acteristics of the philosophy then current in the circles in which Mr. Campbell moved — the philosophy of John lyocke — and to show, in the consideration of the several doctrines, how and where the in- fluence of this philosophy made itself felt. Third^ as affecting his view and use of the Bible, no conception which Mr. Campbell held was more determinative than his emphasis on the distinction be- tween the dispensations or covenants. It 2 17 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY is important to note that this idea was revived rather than originated by him, for it appeared as the distinguishing feat- ure of a theological movement which oriorinated in Holland in the seventeenth century under the leadership of Cocceius and Witsius, was transplanted into Scot- land in the eighteenth, and was adopted, in some of its features, by the Seceder Presbyterian Church, of which Mr. Campbell was a member. We must note the influence of this and other theolog- ical systems upon the one which we have under consideration. Fourth^ the special conditions which were presented by his religious training, his experiences in Glasgow among the Haldanes, the condition in which he found popular religion in America on his arrival, and his experiences in fellowship and controversy with Baptists and Pres- byterians, furnished the occasion for the development of the doctrines and in some degree determined the form in which they were cast. This material, which has already been presented in the form i8 INTRODUCTION of memoirs and narrative history of tHe Disciples of Christ, need only be touched upon from time to time. Fifths a statement must be made, as complete as may be, of the substance of Mr. Campbell's final teaching upon the several doctrines to which he attributed most importance. This will represent the outcome of the operation of the pre- ceding influences. It is scarcely necessary to add as a fur- ther warning against misconception that, in speaking of the sources of Alexander Campbell's theology, there is no implica- tion of anything derogatory to his origi- nality, in so far as originality is a virtue. To say that he had sources is only to say that he was not isolated from the cur- rents of the world's thought. We would not consider him condemned, or even discredited, if it should appear that he was indebted for valuable suggestions to Sandeman, or Arminius, or Sabellius, or Arius. The utterly ludicrous *'offshoot- of-Sandemanianism" theory, which a hostile critic promulgated as a novelty 19 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY something like half a century after it had been originally propounded and explod- ed, not only is an incomparably feeble piece of historical criticism, but mani- fests a complete failure to grasp the sig- nificance of sources in the development of doctrine. Certainly it can no longer be necessary to defend the proposition that Alexander Campbell was a theologian, and that therefore it is pertinent to make investi- gations into his theology. The old alle- gation, which used to be frequently heard, that Campbell's "Christian System'' is the creed of the Disciples of Christ, has fallen into disuse. The book is merely a statement of the author's pri- vate theological views, which are inter- esting as being the opinions of one very influential man. The present work does not profess to deal with the official and authoritative theology of the Disciples of Christ, for they have no such authorita- tive system, but, as its title indicates, only with Alexander Campbell's Theology. Chapter I The Development of the Problem of Unity DEVEI.OPMENT OF THE PROBIvEM OF UNITY I. The Probi^em — TO Combine Soi^idarity AND Individuai^ism : 1. Both elements not developed until end of XVIIIth century\ 2. Solidarity embodied in mediaeval Ro- manism. 3. Individualism implicit in the Reformation. II. Dogmatism of First Reformers : 1. Luther — Augsburg Confession, 2. Calvin — the Latin Theology Protestantized. III. Break-up of Protestantism : 1. First great revolt — Arminianism. 2. Multiplication of sects. IV. Reaction Against Sectarian Spirit : 1. Comprehension schemes — Leibnitz, Bos- suet, Spinola, Stillingfleet. 2. Toleration — Baxter, Milton, Locke. 3. Latitudinarianism — Cambridge Platonists. V. INDIVIDUAI.ISM FUEI.Y DEVEEOPED : 1. Emotional and mystical — Pietism, IMorav- ianism, Methodism. 2. Intellectual — the "Enlightenment." VI. Nineteenth Century Problem — to Tran- scend Individualism. VII. Campbeee's Solution of the Problem. THE DEVEI.OPMBNT OF THE PROBI.EM OF UNITY. During the three centuries of Protest- antism prior to the beginning of the nineteenth, century there had been many attempts to restore the unity of a divided and still dividing church. Many men of large soul and wide spiritual vision had reacted against the narrow partisanism, the hateful controversies and the bigoted exclusiveness which marred the peace of Christendom. Some of the most influen- tial men in England and on the Conti- nent had consulted and planned for the restoration of unity among Christians — between Catholics and Protestants, be- tween Lutherans and Reformed, between Anglicans and Dissenters, between Pres- byterians and Independents. But none of these attempts made more than the faintest and most fleeting impression on the religious world. Not only did they fail of the immediate accomplishment of 23 ALEXANDER CAMPBELLS THEOLOGY their purpose, but they failed even to in- augurate any important and lasting movement in that direction. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a young man without reputation, living in a remote district, far from the centers of the world's thought, made an attempt, in many respects not unlike those which had preceded, to bring about the union of Christians. The re- sult was not a spasmodic effort followed by relapse, but the beginning of an im- portant religious movement which has had for its chief mission the advocacy of Christian union. Whether or not the formation of another party in the relig- ious world is a legitimate method of advocating this reform, or one which is likely to advance the cause, is a question which does not call for discussion in this connection. The significant fact is that, whether effective or not, the attempt aroused enough interest to make it the starting-point of a movement which has continued and increased unto this day. The explanation of this phenomenon can 24 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY l)e found only in the fact that the prob- lem of unity was not fully developed and ready for solution until about the time of Mr. Campbell's attempt. The most important problem which confronted the religious world at the be- ginning of the nineteenth century was this: How is it possible to reconcile the individual's liberty of conscience and in- tellect, with that degree of unity of the church in spirit and organization which is demanded by the will of Christ and by the practical requirement for efficiency in his service? Dispensing with the idea of an unlimited ecclesiastical mon- archy exercising absolute authority over its subjects in all matters of religious faith and observance, what power shall prevent the utter disintegration of Chris- tendom into as many warring parties as there are free individuals? Obviously the full significance of this tension between individual freedom and religious solidarity could not be appreci- ated until each of the conditions had been fully developed. It was not until 25 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY the end of the eighteenth century that the conception of the free individual was completely developed. The philosophy of the Enlightenment was the most im- portant instrument in the development of this idea, and it became therefore the philosophical basis for those political movements at the close of the century which aimed to throw off all the re- straints of organized government and allow untrammeled liberty to the indi- vidual. Outbreaks like the French Rev- olution were necessary before govern- ments could know how uncompromising was the demand for popular liberty, which most modern governments have learned how to grant without precipitat- ing themselves into anarchy. Equally necessary was the chaotic condition into which the church fell as the result of the extreme development of individualism in the eighteenth century, that it might be known that any future unity of the church must be based upon a recognition of the freedom of the individual. Not until near the beginning of the nine- 26 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY teenth century was there an adequate apprehension of these two essential con- ditions of the problem — solidarity and individualism. Mediaeval Romanism furnished a com- plete and consistent embodiment of the principle of solidarity. There were reb- els, to be sure, who renounced the au- thority of the church. There were from time to time agitators whose work im- plied a demand for the recognition of the individual. But that demand was con- sistently ignored, and the church re- mained a thorough-going exponent of the idea of unity through absolutism. The theological system which had been formulated by the great Augustine in the fifth century had given the theoretical basis for this development. Man is totally depraved by his inheritance of original sin. He can do nothing to effect his own salvation, except to allow himself to be the passive recipient of di- vine saving grace. This grace is com- mitted to the church for distribution and is bestowed upon men through the sacra- 27 ALEXANDER CAMPBELLS THEOLOGY ments. All that man has to do is to put himself in communication with this sole channel of divine grace — the Holy Cath- olic Church — and be saved. The indi- vidual, as defined by modern thought, did not exist. The perfect unity which that church aimed at was not a unity of individuals, but unity through the sup- pression of individualism. In its period of Scholasticism, Romanism departed from the theology of Augustine at many points, so that a part of the work of the Reformers was to restore some neglected elements of Augustinianism. But Ro- manism never forgot that part of the doctrine of the great Bishop of Hippo which taught that man is but the incar- nation of an atom of original sin, who is indebted to the church for all the means of his salvation, and is therefore subject to the absolute authority of the church all the days of his life. The Protestant Reformation of the six- teenth century was, in the very essence of its method, a revolution. As a repu- diation of the absolute authority of the 28 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY cHurcli, which had been the sole bond of unity in Christendom, it could justify itself only by an appeal to the right of revolution. The theory which is always implicit in revolution, furnishing at once its justification and its method of operation, is that the individuals who are governed are of more value than any fixed scheme of government. In politi- cal revolutions this normally takes the form of a declaration that the right to govern belongs to the people, but its most fundamental principle is a recogni- tion of the worth of individuals. Revo- lution always marks the point where the value of individuals begins to outweigh the value of any arrangement for secur- ing unity, either political or religious, at their expense. Two hypotheses are involved, by im- plication at least, in every popular revo- lutionary movement: First, it imphes that no unifying and controlling power is legitimate which is essentially exter- nal to the individual; this immediately justifies the destructive work of repudi- 29 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY ating the old despotic authority, thereby leaving the individual free and uncon- trolled. Second, since no revolution contemplates either the establishment of a nev/ despotism or the perpetuation of anarchy, it implies that there is within the individual the possibility of a syn- thetic and constructive force sufficient for the control and unification of the social body. It is this second implica- tion which, though not apparent on the surface, is the real justification of popu- lar rebellion against unity through abso- lutism. It is safe to destroy the external bulwarks of the established order, only on the supposition that there are, or may be developed, within the individ- uals themselves, all the restraints and unifying forces needed to maintain the common life of the social body. The Renaissance in the fifteenth cen- tuty was the discovery of the individual through the media of painting, sculp- ture, popular literature and revived clas- sicism. After being for long centuries a mere unit in the mass, the individual 30 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY first came to himself by feeling as an individual in the realm of art. The aesthetic sensibilities first felt the thrill of the new life. The Reformation in the sixteenth century was the process by which that newly discovered individual began to assert himself as such in the sphere of religion. But the problem of individualism had as yet only been felt and its meaning groped after. It had been implied as the basis of important movements, but it had not yet been thought through. Its two implications mentioned above had not yet come to light. When the Reformers proceeded upon their own responsibility as free men in revolting from Rome, they acted upon the principle that no external ecclesias- tical authority is necessary. But they were not prepared to maintain this as a general principle, for they created other ecclesiastical authorities in place of that which they had discarded. Still less did they comprehend an individualism which contained within itself the ele- 31 ALEXANDER CAMPBELLS THEOLOGY ments of order and unity. Therefore we are justified in saying that in the Reformation there was involved an iiii- plicit iiidividiialis7n. Because there was individualism, there could be a revolt against established ecclesiastical abso- lutism. Because it was only implicit, the revolution must be followed by a period of servitude under new masters (the dogmatism of the Reformation the- ologies), and that in turn by a period of anarchy and extreme disunion. Of the great Reformers of the first generation, Zwingli was the only one who is free from the charge of arrant dogmatism. Both Luther and Calvin were temperamentally dogmatic, and to that fact is due much of their success in welding their followers into compact and effective bodies for the necessary war against Romanism. The Saxon reformer was endowed by nature with an impetuous spirit which could meet fearlessly the assaults of his enemies, but could not with equanimity endure opposition from his friends. He would 32 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY not hold fellowship with those whose interpretations of Scripture differed from his own. There were three principles, by no means co-ordinate, which L^uther made in different senses the basis of his movement. They were: the doctrine of justification by faith, the sole authority of Scripture, and the right of private judgment. To the first of these, which furnished the immediate occasion for the Reformation and the material content of its teaching, he clung consistently and tenaciously. The second can become effective for the liberation of men from ecclesiastical authority only in so far as it is accompanied by the third. This third he exercised to secure freedom from the control of the Roman hierar- chy and its traditions, but did not grant to others who sought freedom from the yoke of dogmatic I^utheranism by an appeal to their own interpretation of Scripture. The classic illustration of this temperament is Luther's refusal to grant Christian fellowship to Zwingli, because the latter interpreted the words 3 Z2> ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY *'hoc est meum corpus" as signifying the spiritual presence of the lyord's body in the bread of the communion. The Augsburg Confession of 1530 was the first authoritative declaration of Protes- tant belief upon a few great doctrines. Its adoption formally ushered in the age of Protestant dogmatism and it became as authoritative for Protestantism in Germany as the decrees of the Council of Trent were for Romanism. When religious peace was reached in the Em- pire in 1555, toleration was granted, under certain restrictions, to Catholics on the one hand and to adherents of the Augsburg Confession on the other. There was no toleration for dissenting Protestants. Calvin was by birth a Frenchman, by training a lawyer, and by nature a logi- cian. With that singular combination of clearness of vision and limited range of vision which is the peculiar heri- tage of his race, he saw no problem to which he could not see the solution, and was blind to every element of 34 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY knowledge or experience which could not be incorporated harmoniously into his system of thought. This character- istic, united with a genius for system- atization which has seldom if ever been equaled, produced a well-nigh perfect dogmatist. But whereas Luther's the- ology was not rigidly systematized, and left room for a time for individual differ- ences on points not explicitly defined, Calvinism was from the first a com- pletely organized system, claiming au- thority, it is true, in the name of the Scriptures rather than in its own name, but perfectly intolerant of any doctrinal deviation and exercising over its adher- ents the same intellectual tyranny which had been the mark of the Roman Church. By so much as the burning of Servetus at Geneva by the order of Calvin wa:s a more flagrant act of intol- erance than Luther's refusal to hold Christian fellowship with Zwingli, by so much was Calvinism the more rigidly dogmatic and the more inconsistent 35 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY with the principle of individualism to which it owed its existence. Henceforth the process of the enforce- ment of authority gradually lost its in- quisitorial character, by the abolition of the ecclesiasitical machinery by which submission to authority had been en- forced. Instead of forcing all men to accept the doctrinal formularies as laid down, Protestant dogmatism demanded the acceptance of them by all who sought entrance to the particular com- munion which had adopted them. Every man could accept them and come into the church, or reject them and stay out, at his option. This was true from the first of all non-established Protes- tant churches, but was arrived at by the established churches only through a gradual development which lasted through generations. The attainment of this stage marks the beginning of what may be called denominationalism in the modern sense. It is marked by a more or less reluctant acquiescence in the divided condition which Protestant- 36 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY ism begins to assume, and it indicates that the first half of the implicit indi- vidualism of the Reformation is becom- ing explicit. The cessation of persecu- tion by Protestant churches which had it in their power to persecute, indicates a realization of the fact that the division of the church is preferable to a unity maintained by the exercise of external authority for the coercion of the indi- vidual. To be sure, each division long held that salvation was impossible out- side of itself, but it was something of a gain for individual liberty to allow a man to be comfortably damned in the free exercise of his own judgment, rather than to force salvation upon him by going into the highways and byways and compelling him to come in. Almost immediately upon the formu- lation of the great dogmatic systems of Protestantism, began those movements which led to the break-up of Protes- tantism into a multitude of warring fac- tions. Passing by the disputes between the two great parties, lyUtheran and Re- 37 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY formed (Calvinistic) — disputes which were spared much of the bitterness which might have characterized them, owing to the happy circumstance of their geographical separateness — there soon began to arise dissensions within each party. lyUtheranism, owing to the comparative looseness of its organiza- tion, was the first to suffer. And as the tendency to individual doctrinal varia- tions became more pronounced after the death of the great leader of the party, orthodox I^utheranism itself was vitiated by its attempt to brace itself against impending dissolution. In the Luther- anism of the seventeenth century there is seen a lack of the nobility of spirit, the firmness of grasp, the practical earn- estness which had characterized Luther, with all his dogmatism. The Latin theology was substantially restored, the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith obscured, and the right of private judgment virtually abrogated in favor of a narrow and legalistic interpretation of 38 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY Scripture in accordance with traditional rules of exegesis. But the influences which were felt more largely in England and Scotland came from Calvinism and the systems which sprang up within and around and against it. The first great revolt against Cal- vinism as an authoritative and necessary compend of religious truth was the sys- tem of Arminianism. It was, to be sure, a system against a system, both fixed and carefully defined. Nevertheless, the rise of a combatant against the dominant Calvinism of the Reformed church, marks the real beginning of the exercise of the right of Protestant dissent. That men should dare to combat a system as rigid in its doctrines and as sulphurous in its maledictions upon all who rejected it as was Calvinism, was, without re- spect to the doctrinal merits of the two systems, a distinct advance in the his- tory of the growth of individualism. It was Arminianism, says Tulloch, which ''revived the suppressed rational side of the original Protestant movement and 39 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY for the first time organized it into a defi- nite power and assigned to it its due place both in theology and in the church." It represented, moreover, a moral, religious and emotional, as well as an intellectual, reaction, precipitating as it did a return to Bible study and a renewed declaration of allegiance to the Scriptures as the only source of religious authority. Both Luther and Calvin had accepted the main outlines of Augustin- ianism as a presupposition, and it was through this medium that they looked at and interpreted the Scriptures. The exigencies of the times, the fierce strug- gle against Romanism, had so urgently demanded the formation of a system that there was no time for a thoroughly Bib- lical reconstruction by the first genera- tion of Reformers. Arminianism was, with whatever success, an attempt at an unbiased Biblical reconstruction of Chris- tian doctrine. But Arminianism, as for- mulated in the Remonstrance of 1610, though historically the most important, was not the only theological protest 40 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY against Calvinism. In no factious spirit and with no desire or expectation of pro- ducing schism in the Reformed Church, theologians, who found themselves un- able to acquiesce in the ethical and relig- ious implications of Calvinism, exercised the right of dissent and formulated other statements of the nature of God and man and the process of man's salvation. In no case were these new systems drawn up deliberately as the constitutions of new sects, and in some cases they suc- ceeded in remaining merely schools of thought within the church. Among such may be mentioned that modifica- tion of Calvinism which was held by several successive teachers of the school of Saumur, in France. These men, among whom the best known name is that of Amy rant, taught predestination conditioned on the divine foreknowledge of each individual's faith or unbelief. This teaching remained a phase of opin- ion in the Reformed Church in France just as infralapsarian and supralapsarian 41 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY Calvinism were phases of opinion in the same church. Much more important than the school of Saumur is the so-called Federal or Covenant Theology, which sprang up about one generation after Arminianism. It was, like the latter, an embodiment of the same ethical protest against the rigors of Calvinism, its fierce conception of God and its failure to recognize the freedom of the human individual; and it was, too, an attempt to establish and put in operation a reasonable method of Biblical exegesis. So conspicuous was this latter characteristic that Cocceius, the leader of this school, has been called ^'the father of modern exegesis." Of this theology more will be said in a sub- sequent chapter, but in this connection it is noteworthy as a manifestation of dissent from Calvinism. No religious party ever crystallized about this system and it remained free to leaven the thought of the Dutch Reformed Church and to influence the development of doc- trine in Scotland, whither its influence 42 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY was carried in the eighteenth century. The development as traced thus far exhibits an increasing divergence of the- ological opinion within the Reformed Church, but no fatal break in the exter- nal unity of the body. But at the same time movements were taking place which led to the separation of one after another sect. Most of these separating bodies represented distinct disruptive tenden- cies which had existed within Roman- ism before the Reformation, and now, feeling the loosening of the bond of authority, became, by the very law of their being, separatists from Protestant- ism as well as from Romanism. Foremost among these essentially sep- arative movements was that of the Ana- baptists, who were from the beginning the representatives of a most intense in- dividualism. Their most fundamental characteristic was not, as the name would indicate, opposition to infant baptism and the practice of re-baptizing those who came to them, but insistence on a * 'regenerate church membership. ' ' This 43 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY phrase lent itself to various interpreta- tions, as it does to-day, according to the meaning that is attached to the term regeneration; but in any case the funda- mental conception is that the individ- ual's salvation depends solely upon his own personal relation with God, and not in any degree upon his association with any body of people who may be called the church. In protesting against the institutionalism which they conceived to be the failing of Protestantism even in the hands of the Reformers, the Ana- baptists entirely eliminated the idea of solidarity, the social side of Christianity, and developed an individualism which cheerfully acquiesced in the dissolution of Christendom into a multitude of sects, since they attached no value to unity. Protestantism, considered as the restora- tion of the long-obscured element of in- dividualism in religion, finds its most extreme expression in the position of the Anabaptists. That they do not rep- resent the highest type of Protestantism, is due not only to the fact that for a 44 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY time they ran into various sorts of fanat- icism, but to the much more significant fact that Protestantism, as we interpret it, means not the exclusion of the idea of solidarity, but a proper distribution of emphasis in the valuation of the indi- vidual and the united body. The Schwenkfeldians, a sect founded by a contemporary and friend of Luther, illustrated this same tendency and that, too, without obscuring the main issue by laying special stress upon one ordinance. Schwenkfeld differed from the Anabap- tists in not insisting upon immersion, but he contended that the Reformers, like the Romanists, made too much of the external and objective means of grace which are associated with the church. He appealed to the consciousness of the individual in a tone and spirit highly suggestive of the plea of the Quakers for reliance upon the "inner light.'' Socinianism, the rise of which was contemporary with the Protestant Refor- mation, not only involved an attack upon the most fundamental doctrines of 45 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY the faith, as held by both Romanists and Reformers, but exhibited a restless and lawless spirit, an impatience of all restraints which seriously threatened the efficiency of the Protestant propaganda. The burning of the Socinian Michael Servetus at Geneva, by Calvin, has already been cited as the crowning ex- hibition of Protestant intolerance. Yet it was not alone his heresy, as such, which Calvin took such extreme meas- ures to restrain. With all his theologic hatred of opposition, it is scarcely con- ceivable that Calvin would have burned James Arminius under similar circum- stances. Servetus as a Socinian repre- sented a disintegrating tendency in the ecclesiastico-political body. The dogmatic, autocratic and inconsist- ent unity which Calvin maintained, car- ried the Reformation through its period of life and death struggle with Romanism, and then disintegrating individualism, which had been in abeyance for a season, resumed its work. A state of war demands union, and even an army of rebels against 46 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY constituted authority must place them- selves under a new authority till their war for liberty is over. So Protestant- ism won its first victory by the mainte- nance of dogmatic unity under the lead- ership of the great reformers. But often the military leader of a successful strug- gle for liberty, intoxicated by the tem- porary authority which he has exercised, seeks to make himself perpetual dictator, and a new rebellion is necessary to liber- ate the people from the yoke of the lib- erator. So Protestant dogmatism tried to maintain its authority after the need of unity under it had passed. The new rebellion which thus arose raged through the seventeenth century and continued with waning intensity through the eighteenth. It is not necessary here to enumerate the sects which sprang up under this impulse. Some of them subdivided so readily that they can scarcely be said to exhibit any regard for unity of any sort. In others, the inherited demand for unity was indicated by the constant 47 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY tendency to systematize; but it was the unity of those like-minded in all points of doctrine and not unity of all Chris- tians, or even all Protestants, in a single church. The idea was that there could be no ecclesiastical unity without uni- formity of opinions. Yet every man had the right to make his opinions, to for- mulate them into a system and to ex- clude from fellowship all those who refused to comply with them. It was this condition,— the multitude of bellig- erent Protestant sects, each trying to bring the world within its fold and yet setting up its own individual fence as the boundary of the fold, — which aided in bringing to light more clearly that inherent contradiction which w^e have mentioned as furnishing the problem of Protestantism from the day when Luther nailed his theses until the present hour. In general it may be said that from our standpoint it was the function of the seventeeth century, ''that wretched cen- tury of strife,'^ as Herder calls it, to de- velop this problem in its most conspicu- THE PROBLEM OF UNITY ous, because most disagreeable, form. Already, before the end of that century there had arisen in the more enlight- ened minds a loathing of the petty con- troversies about doctrine and polity be- tween the various Protestant parties. Bossuet, in his work on The Variations of Protestantism^ had predicted that the inherent tendency to division must ulti- mately lead to its complete disintegra- tion and disappearance, and there seemed to be good ground for that be- lief. The more thoughtful Protestants became alarmed, and now there began a series of notable attempts to find some method by which this strife of religious parties could be reconciled. The vari- ous movements in this direction may be classed under the heads of comprehen- sion, toleration and latitudinarianism. Perhaps the earliest form taken by this disgust at the pettiness of theolog- ical controversy is seen in the compre- hension schemes which were formulated and promulgated in considerable number both iu England and upon the continent. 4 49 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY The best and broadest minds of that day- turned readily in this direction. George Calixtus, who was a pioneer in the de- partment of irenics, suggested that all Christians ought to be able to unite in the restoration of primitive Christianity, by which he, like Newman, meant the New Testament plus the interpretations of the first five centuries. Leibnitz and Bossuet carried on a correspondence with a view to finding a possible reconcilia- tion between the Catholic and Protestant bodies and, when this was seen to be impracticable, Leibnitz turned his atten- tion to the formulation of terms of peace between the Lutheran and Reformed branches of Protestantism with equally little avail. The Spanish monk, Spinola, labored with the same intent, zealously but ineffectually. In England, Puritanism developed men whose breadth of charity and cath- olicity of sympathies present a curious and instructive contrast to our ordinary notions of Puritan austerity. Of these, one of the most notable was Stillingfleet, 50 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY who, in his Irenicimi^ which was first published in 1659 and reprinted in 1662, uttered these sentiments, which need only to be compared with any theolog- ical writing contemporary with them, in order to see how free he was from the spirit of belligerent sectarianism which confronted him in England at the time of the Restoration: "For the church to require more than Christ himself did, or make other conditions of her com- munion than our Saviour did of disci- pleship, is wholly unwarrantable. What possible reason can be assigned or given why such things should not be sufficient for the church which are sufficient for eternal salvation? And certainly these things are sufficient for that, which are laid down as necessary duties of Chris- tianity by our I^ord and Saviour in his Word." The answer to this was the Act of Uniformity which went into effect in England in that same year, 1662, by which the Church of England cut off and cast out its most vital ele- ment — Puritanism. 51 ALEXANDER CAMPBELLS THEOLOGY Richard Baxter, who would be St. Richard if Puritanism canonized its saints, preached and pleaded for unity, early and late, in pulpit and pamphlet and prison. His treatise entitled The True and Only Way of Concord of all the Christian Churches^ was only one of the many works which he wrote in similar vein. It was Baxter who gave currency to that slogan of true Chris- tian unity, the phrase which had already been coined by Rupertus Meldenius: *'In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity." Natur- ally, these sentiments could not find official acceptation in England under the Stuart despotism, for the Stuart theory of church and State was as absolutely repressive of the individual as mediaeval Romanism had been. There could be no room for the comprehension of vary- ing individual opinions within a state church with a Stuart at its head. The comprehension schemes therefore failed, and the next resort was a plea for toler- ation. 52 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY The development of the idea of relig- ious toleration indicates a recognition of the place of individualism in religion, coupled with a scrupulous regard for the preservation of doctrinal uniformity within each sect. The established churches were not ready to take into themselves all manner of heterogeneous elements which were contained in the various dissenting bodies, but they at least came gradually to the recognition of the fact that these dissenting bodies, as the expression of religious life of sin- cere men, had a right to a more or less free existence. Dogmatic and divided Protestantism infused with the spirit of toleration, is the last step in the development of indi- vidualism considered purely as a disrup- tive force. Through the activity of the dogmatic temper and the liberty of the individual to revolt, there had grown up many warring parties. The compre- hension schemes were an attempt to re- unite the parties on some simple basis of common faith. The advocates of toler- 53 ALEXANDER CAMPBELLS THEOLOGY ation proposed to retain the parties but stop the strife. Carried out to its last limits, to the establishment of good-will and co-operation among the several par- ties, this would have fallen little short of unification. But the early advocates of toleration rather devoted their atten- tion to opposing persecution and govern- mental oppression of one sect in the interest of another. Chillingworth, with a spirit akin to that of Stillingfleet, pleaded for toleration under the early Stuarts in these words: *'Take away this persecuting, burning, cursing, damning of men for not sub- scribing to the words of men as the words of God; require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but Him only; let those leave claiming infallibility who have no title to it, and let them that in their words disclaim it, disclaim it likewise in their actions; take away tyranny and restore Christians to the first and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only, and it may well be 54 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY hoped, by God's blessing, that universal liberty, thus moderated, may quickly reduce Christendom to truth and uni- ty." Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying^ carries its purport in its title. John Milton, poet, statesman and theologian, was the fearless champion of a restoration of New Testament Chris- tianity and of complete religious tolera- tion; and John Locke, the philosopher, writing his Letters on Toleration from Utrecht, whither he had gone to escape the turmoils which immediately pre- ceded and followed the accession of James II., based his argument on the claim that ecclesiastical doctrines {e. g., the Thirty-nine Articles) were of human origin, that no man will be damned for disbelieving them, even if they are true, and that it is therefore ridiculous to per- secute those who deny them. As reason is the sole test of truth, so it should be the sole means of conversion. Under the leadership of such men as these, per- secution passed away, but the theolog- ical warfare continued with undiminished 55 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY acrimony and on more equal terms. A third movement which may be co- ordinated with the comprehension and toleration movements as reactions against the bitterness of religious par- tisanship, is latitudinarianisfn^ as rep- resented by the group of men of the latter part of the seventeenth century, who came to be called the Cambridge Platonists. Platonism emphasizes the universal element — the Idea, as Plato called it — which exists in all individuals as their basis of reality. In like man- ner, these men of Cambridge maintained that the individual man possesses, in his own reason, a manifestation of the divine mind which puts his rational con- clusions beyond the reach of criticism from any other source. The voice of reason is, even more than the Bible, the voice of God. Each man must, there- fore, in the language of Archbishop Til- lotson, an English prelate and a Platon- ist, judge every doctrine "by its accord- ance with those ideas of the divine char- acter which are implanted in man by 56 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY nature." In its practical workings, this led to a liberal emphasis on natural theology and the relegation to the back- ground of those doctrines of revealed religion which are drawn from the Bible and which, in their various interpreta- tions, are made the ground of sectarian differences. Sacrificing as it did some vital elements of Christianity, by lack of emphasis if not by denial, the latitudin- arian movement unfitted itself for mak- ing the strongest possible protest against divisive dogmatism. In view of these movements to which allusion has been made, it may obviously be said that the seventeenth century saw developed many of the painful effects of Protestant individualism and some dis- tinct reactions in the direction either of restoring unity or of removing the most objectionable features of division. But it remained for the eighteenth century to furnish a fully developed philosophical conception of the individual and to ap- ply this in a thorough-going manner to the task of forming a consistent view of 57 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY the world. There were two movements ^ begun in the seventeenth century and culminating in the eighteenth, which may be considered as developing the theory of individualism to the last de- gree and as attempting, along two oppo- site lines, to find in the individual so defined a basis for social and religious unity. The first was the series of mystical movements including Pietism, Moravianism and Wesley anism; the sec- ond was the philosophy of the Enlight- enment in its application to the problems of society, government and religion. As a result of the persecutions and strifes of the seventeenth century, the church found itself at the beginning of the eighteenth at a low ebb of spiritual vitality. Too weary with its struggles of party against party to continue the fight with any spirit, too much perturbed by attacks from without upon the very foundations of religion to derive much satisfaction from disputing about details, forced by the development of constitu- tional liberty to grant a governmental 58 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY toleration which was accompanied by no charity in the heart, too much exhausted to fight and too stubborn to make peace, the church sank from a condition of dis- graceful internecine warfare into a still more disgraceful lethargy. The crown- ing characteristic of the eighteenth cen- tury was a lack of enthusiasm. The most sincerely religious reaction against this state of affairs, which had been brought about by the divisive in- fluence of Protestant dogmatism, was seen in a general movement turning away from all dogmatism and substitu- ting for it a religion of pure feeling. Within the lyUtheran communion there arose mystics like Arndt and Jacob Boehme, whose spirit was not unlike that of Tauler and Thomas a Kempis. In France the same motive animated Mad- ame Guyon and Fenelon, to whose Cath- olic adherents the name of Quietists was applied. Following in the train of these, there arose many mystical sects within both Romanism and Protestantism, their limits being geographical rather than 59 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY dogmatic. They made little of churcli dogmas and insisted on the feeling of the individual as the sole criterion of the religious life. Many of them were degenerates in one way or another and soon ran into fanaticism. Not a few, in revolting against legalism and arti- ficial restraint, became antinomians and fell into gross immorality; but the op- probrium which attaches to these must by no means be transferred to the really great movements which were animated by the same fundamental principle, the appeal to the emotional consciousness of the individual as constituting the high- est law and the supreme revelation of God to man. The Quakers, under the leadership of George Fox, with their doctrine of the * 'inner light"; Pietism, which roused the IvUtheran Church from its stupor and led in a great revival of vital religion and good works; Moravianism, which, under the wise guidance of Count Zin- zendorf, gave to the cause of foreign missions such an impulse as it had not 60 • THE PROBLEM OF UNITY received since the days of the apostles; Methodism, which arose in the Church of England and left that communion only when it showed itself unwilling longer to contain the fervid evangelism of Wesley and Whitefield; — all of these movements owed their origin and their strength to the reaction which set in against that dogmatic sectarianism which had divided the religious world, and they were in a large measure successful in de- veloping a side of religion which, before their time, had been too little empha- sized. They all alike disregarded (rather than denied) the established dogmas, which represented the inherited opposi- tion to individualism, and made their appeal to feeling, which is something essentially individualistic. Behind them all there lay the implicit assumption that feeling is not only the most individ- ual but the most universal element of human life, and they attempted there- fore to get down to the bed-rock of essential religion by effecting a synthesis 6i ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY of the common elements of religious emotional experience. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment and its religious phase, Deism, gain a new significance when they are consid- ered as the opposite movement to that just mentioned as regards the methods which they employed, but identical with it in the end to be realized. Deism aimed to establish a universal Chris- tianity through the agency of the Phi- losophy of the Enlightenment. The warfare of religious parties, it said, is based upon differences of opinion in re- gard to mysteries whereof the mind of man can have no certain knowledge. Therefore let us cease to speak of these mysteries and dwell only upon those fundamental matters in regard to which we can have knowledge. Christianity is accordingly reduced to a religion of pure reason unassisted by revelation, natural religion takes the place of re- vealed religion, and all elements are excluded which are not common to all religious systems. Thus the essential 62 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY and true element in Christianity is reached by an appeal to the consensus of the purely intellectual judgment of men, and the dogmas and alleged his- torical revelations are at best adventi- tious and doubtful and must be elimi- nated from reasonable religion. As Pietism, Wesley anism, etc., had aimed at unity upon a common emotional ele- ment, so the Enlightenment aimed at unity through the universal reason of mankind. But the philosophical basis upon which the Enlightenment attempted to found its religion of reason was singu- larly inadequate for that purpose. Its theory of knowledge was sensationalism; i. e., that the raw material for all our knowledge enters the mind in the form of simple ideas through the avenue of the senses. The development of this philosophy from the standpoint of relig- ion is a familiar story. It was, wher- ever it was logically followed out, the temporary destruction of all religion. Aiming at a reduction of Christianity to 63 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY its essentials through a purely intellec- tual process, it eliminated the mysteri- ous element and ended by eliminating religion. In England, the movement was not carried to its logical conclusion. There Deism, through the accompanying study of nature and through the corresponding use of the physico-theological argument for the existence of God, kept a firm grip on the conception of God as a per- sonal creative intelligence. But in France the more logical development was followed, leading through panthe- ism (seen even as early as Toland in England), to hylozoism, and then by the final plunge into sheer materialism and atheism. The demand for a com- pletely clear and distinct view of the world and the determination to refuse to consider anything as true in nature or reliofion which was not clear and dis- tinct, led, not to a reduction of Chris- tianity to its essentials, which could then be made the basis for a united 64 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY churcli, but to the destruction of all Christianity and of all religion. The Enlightenment was par excel- lence the philosophy of individualism. Disastrous as were its immediate results in the Deism of England and the natural- ism of France, it served the purpose of bringing to consciousness, as had never been done before, the fact of the tre- mendous significance of the individual in every sphere of life. In its practical applications it took the form of revolt against organizations and institutions. It would not tolerate the church because the church brought down traditions from the past and tried to impose them upon the individual of the present. It fur- nished the animating thought of the French Revolution and of the succeed- ing revolutionary movements which oc- curred in the last decade of the eight- eenth century and the first decade of the nineteenth. It was productive of a dis- integrated and atomic condition of soci- ety. It therefore prepared the way for a reconstruction and furnished the com- 5 65 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY plete development of the problem of unity. The problem of Protestantism, the contradiction between the disintegrating tendency of its individualism and the unity which is required for effectiveness and for the preservation of its very ex- istence, has now come clearly to light. Through the long development which we have traced, the individual has been brought to light out of the darkness of mediaeval solidarity and has developed into an irrepressible factor of all life and an essential element in every living organization. Simultaneous with this process, has developed the series of at- tempts to bring this young giant under laws and make him subject to the re- strictions of organization. The attempts have not been completely successful. This young giant, the modern Individ- ual, stands forth in all his might, free, uncontrolled, and his power in large measure wasted for lack of effective or- ganization. It becomes the problem of the nineteenth century to effect a syn- 66 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY thesis between these two apparently con- tradictory principles, — to preserve the freedom of the individual untrammeled by useless machinery and unoppressed by musty traditions inherited from an outlived past; and at the same time to bring this individual into such working relations with his fellows as to make him most efficient. The task of philosophy in the nine- teenth century may be described in the most general terms as an attempt to transcend the individualism which was developed by the eighteenth; i. e.^ to use it, to control it, to pass beyond it to a unity which shall embody but shall not crush it. The problem of the religious world at the opening of the nineteenth century was a similar one. Protestant individ- ualism had been fully developed on the side of division and separation. That this could not be endured as a perma- nent condition was evidenced by the many unsuccessful attempts to restore unity. The conditions of the problem 67 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY and the need of a solution have now been brought clearly to light. The need of the hour was for the discovery of a principle of synthesis by which, without restricting the liberty of any man, a practical and effective union of religious forces might be obtained. The problem was to transcend religious indi- vidualism by finding a basis for religious solidarity. The whole history of Protestantism had been a continual demonstration of the impossibility of uniting on the basis of a complete theology, even a profess- edly Biblical theology. The exercise of the right of private judgment is a guar- antee that there will always be many differences of opinion as to what the Bible teaches upon certain points of doctrine. The attempt to reduce Chris- tianity to its simplest and purest form by emphasis upon the feeling of the in- dividual as the criterion of religion, had quickened and enthused the church but had contributed little to the solution of the problem of unity. Equally unsuc- 68 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY cessful, and far more disastrous, had been the opposite attempt to get at the essen- tials of Christianity by a process of pure reason, based on a theory of knowledge the foundation of which was the sense perception of the individual. The sig- nificance of Alexander Campbell's con- tribution to the question of Christian nnion is that he took the matter up just at this point and proposed another prin- ciple of union. The unity of the church is to be based, not upon a complete sys- tem of Biblical or dogmatic theology, nor upon anything which is to be found within the individual himself; but upon the authority of Christ and the terms which he has laid down as the condi- tions of salvation. Mr. Campbell frequently spoke of his movement as an attempt to secure union ''upon the Bible," but it was evident from the whole course of his thought that this did not mean union upon his interpretation of the teaching of the Bible on every point of Christian doc- trine. The latter would have been sim- 69 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL S THEOLOGY ply a reaffirmation of the old dictum that 'Hhe Bible and the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants." It was rather Mr. Campbell's idea that the Bible is to be taken as the authority for deter- mining what is essential in Christianity. But the whole Bible is not taken up with depicting original and essential Christianity. Therefore the real basis of unity is not the entire Biblical teach- ing upon all points, about many of which there would be differences of in- terpretation, but the practice of the early church under the guidance of the apostles, as representing the authority of Christ. The question to be answered is. What did the apostles, taught by Christ, consider the essentials of a church? This distinction between union on the Bible, in the sense of union on all the doctrines which each individual con- ceives to be taught in the Bible, and union on the Bible, in the sense of union on the Biblical statements regarding the essentials of Christianity, is an impor- 70 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY tant one to bear in mind, as it helps to define the position which Mr. Camp- bell's theology occupied in his general scheme of thought. His theology was his interpretation of the teaching of Scripture on a great many points, and it shows the influence of some contem- porary systems of theology and philoso- phy. But he did not make his theology his basis for union. For example, he conceived that faith, repentance and baptism were essentials of Christianity, and were therefore included in the basis of union. But his interpretation of the nature of faith, the manner in which the Holy Spirit operates in conversion, and the design of baptism in the scheme of redemption, were parts of his theology which he taught as truths but did not erect into tests of fellowship. While his whole movement was a re- volt against the results of eighteenth century individualism, as manifested in the condition of Christendom as divided into innumerable sects, Mr. Campbell revolted also no less against its method, 71 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY namely, the self-dependence of the indi- vidual in matters of religion. He con- curred with the general movement of the eighteenth century in desiring a reduc- tion of Christianity to its essential ele- ments, but he differed from it in assert- ing that Christianity could never be reduced to its essential elements through the exercise of the unaided human rea- son, or through dependence upon the emotions of man. There must be nec- essarily a return to authority for the establishment of the essential basis of religion. The unity, therefore, comes not from within, but from without. Given the individual as defined accord- ing to Ivocke's philosophy, and there can be within him no universal element to serve as a basis of unity or as a means of attaining such a basis. Stated in his own terms then, Mr. Campbell's movement would be defined as an attempt to unite Christendom by a restoration of the essential elements of primitive Christianity as defined by the Scriptures. He was strongly of the 72 THE PROBLEM OF UNITY Opinion tliat nobody before bad ever seriously attempted sucb a restoration on such a basis. All previous sects and dis- senting bodies had been built on creeds and confessions with only a nominal, or, if real, a short-lived, return to the authority of Scripture. He recognized the fact, it is true, that there had been a few scattered individuals, through the two centuries which preceded his work, who had grasped this idea, but there had never yet been any serious attempt to apply the principle to the solution of the problem. *'Not until within the present generation," says Mr. Campbell, *'did any sect or party in Christendom unite and build upon the Bible alone. Since that time the first effort known to us, to abandon the whole controversy about creeds and reformations and to re- store primitive Christianity, or to build alone upon the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself the chief corner stone, has been made." Attempts had been made, to be sure, to deduce from the Scriptures complete systems of the- 73 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY ology, and to make these the bases of successive reformations of the church. But his own movement differed from these in seeking for the authoritatively given conditions of salvation and mak- ing these alone, as the essentials of Christianity, the basis for the unity of the Church. There may be differences of theory about the facts of the Gospel, but the facts themselves are sure. There may be differences of interpre- tation in regard to many doctrines taught in the Bible, but, when all preju- dices and preconceived opinions have been set aside, there is little room for differences in regard to the few simple commands, obedience to which was the only condition of entrance to the church in the days of the apostles. Stated in a word, his method of effect- ing the reconciliation between the liber- ty of the individual and the unity of the whole body, was a return to authority for essentials and the admission of indi- vidual differences in non-essentials. 74 Chapter II The Philosophical Basis THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS. I. Descartes and Locke : 1. Descartes — clearness and distinctness as criterion of truth; doctrine of innate ideas, 2. Locke — no innate ideas; turns philosophy from metaphysics to theory of knowledge . II. Locke's Theory of Knowi^edge — Sensa- TIONAI^ISM : 1. Ideas come only through sensation and reflection. 2. Simple and complex ideas. 3. Primary qualities represent an objective reality like the impression ; secondary do not. 4. Substance is unknowable, since only quali- ties make impressions. 5. Law of causation. III. DEVEI.OPMENT AND APPWCATION OF SEN- SATIONAI^ISM : 1. In metaphysics, Berkeley's idealism ; in theory of knowledge, Hume's agnosti- cism ; reaction, Scottish philosophy. 2. Natural science : mechanical view of nature. 3. Religion : Deism. 4. Kthics : hedonism and utilitarianism. IV. CaMPBELI^'S REI.ATION TO THE LOCKIAN Phii^osophy. 76 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS The period of philosophy out of which Alexander Campbell's thought sprang may be denominated as the second pe- riod of modern philosophy. Descartes had struck the note of philosophical in- dividualism which was at once the ex- pression of the Protestant principle and the dominant feature of modern philoso- phy from Descartes to Kant. When, at the beginning of his Meditations^ Des- cartes announced his intention to cut loose from. all received and established beliefs and, starting from a doubt as nearly universal as possible, to establish everything over again for himself, or, failing in this, to reject it, he gave ex- pression to this vital essence of Protest- antism and modern philosophy. ^'Clear- ness and distinctness" was the criterion of truth which he proposed. What is clear and distinct to me I will accept as- 77 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY truth, and no authority can force me to admit anything which does not so ac- credit itself. But fearing that this com- plete individualism might destroy the claim of religious faith to universal val- idity, Descartes maintained that there are certain innate ideas which all men possess in common. These form the bond of unity between individuals which, as defined by him, have nothing else to hold them together. It was this sort of an isolated individ- ual, resolved that his world of knowl- edge should stand or fall according to the power or impotence of his own un- aided faculties, in whom Locke tried to find the basis for relations between men. But since much that Locke called "met- aphysical rubbish" had justified itself by appealing to Descartes's "innate ideas," Locke resolved to sweep these away and go to the last extreme of individualism by adding pure empiricism to the crite- rion of "clearness and distinctness." From the time of Locke, philosophy became introspective. It not only re- 78 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS jected everything which could not be made clear and distinct to the individual mind, but it turned its attention to the consideration of this individual mind as a knowing organ. I^ocke's starting point was his discovery, which seems to have come to him like a rising sun, that, before questions of metaphysics, princi- ples of morality or revealed religion could be rightly investigated, it would be necessary to discuss the nature and limitations of human knowledge. It was to this task that he set himself in his chief work, and it was this which struck the key-note for the philosophy of the following century. The dominant prob- lems of that philosophy are, "How does knowledge arise?'' "What is its possible extent?" and "What are its necessary limitations?" The theory of knowledge which was developed in answer to these questions determined the metaphysics, ethics and philosophy of religion for the period. Not infrequently does a poet of keen in- sight express the leading thought of the 79 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY contemporary philosophy, and Alexander Pope summed up this tendency of eight- eenth century thought very accurately in the couplet: " Know then thyself; presume not God to scan. The proper study of mankind is man." Only by the study of man can the ex- tent and validity of his knowing proc- esses be determined and the means discovered by which knowledge can de- fend itself against the attacks of skepti- cism. As a matter of fact, the study of man's knowing processes by Locke and his followers did not succeed in proving the validity of knowledge or in warding off the assaults of skepticism. Its failure to do this characterizes it as a destructive period, but, as destructive, it was also preparatory. For in showing the inade- quacy of the old conception of the indi- vidual and his relations to the world, it opened the way for a higher conception which would admit the possibility of the completer synthesis for which these thinkers sought in vain. 80 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS In consideration of the immense im- portance of the thought of Locke in connection with the theology which we are discussing, it will be necessary to give a brief survey of the chief features of his philosophy. In the preface to his Essay on the Hu- man Understandings Locke gives an account of the circumstances which led him to the consideration of the problems which he there discusses. In consider- ing, with a party of friends, the standard and sanctions of morality, he found him- self brought to a stand by his inadequate apprehension of the power of the human intellect to know the truth. He there- fore turned to the study of the mind as an instrument of knowledge. The prac- tical impulse which led to this discussion must be kept in mind as indicating one characteristic of Locke's thought, name- ly, its practical character and the imme- diacy of its application to questions of morals and religion. The most conspicuous and familiar feature of Locke's theory of knowledge. ALEXANDER CAMPBELLS THEOLOGY is his doctrine of the source of ideas. All knowledge comes from sensation and re- flection. There are no ideas innate in the human mind, not even the ideas of God, or the law of cause and effect, or the axioms of mathematics. Things ex- ist external to us; man has a capacity for receiving impressions and a faculty of combining and comparing these im- pressions, and he has nothing more. All knowledge comes from the reception of images of these external objects upon the blank tablet of the mind. The standard of truth is therefore entirely external. We know objects if the ideas of them which we receive through sen- sation correspond to the external reality which is the cause of the impression. The impressions which we receive, just in the form in which we receive them, give us simple ideas in which there is no admixture of anything but sensation. But by comparing, repeating and con- trasting these, we may form complex ideas; yet at the end of the process we have no more than we started with, so 82 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS far as the material of knowledge goes, for the product contains only what was given in the original impression. The validity of knowledge is therefore directly dependent upon the trustworthiness of the report which the senses bring to us regarding the external objects which stimulate them. Yet Locke admits that the senses in a measure deceive us. The greater part of our sensations are not copies at all of externally existing realities. The quali- ties which we know through sensation, are divided into two classes. There are primary qualities, such as extension, form, solidity, mobility, which are nec- essarily connected with the conception of an object and which really exist in external things just as we perceive them. But secondary qualities, like color, sound, smell, are only the ways in which cor- responding external conditions affect us. The redness, for example, is not in the object, but in the perceiving subject. There is in the object only a certain condition which produces in the subject 83 ALEXANDER CAMPBELUS THEOLOGY the sensation of redness, but which is by no means like it. Secondary quali- ties are, therefore, not really qualities at all, but sensations. In this doctrine of the subjective character of secondary qualities, we have the first premonitory hint of the skepticism which would later be developed out of the system; but Locke did not so interpret it. We get our knowledge only from sensations, but sensation does not always tell us a straight story about our experiences. It produces the impression that certain (secondary) qualities exist without and independent of us, whereas these so- called qualities are only the way in which we are affected by the object. Locke's successors ask, ''How do you know that primary qualities exist just as your sensations say they do, if you ad- mit that secondary qualities do not so exist?" The system of Locke contains no answer for this dilemma, but Locke guards himself by carefully maintaining the distinction between the two classes of qualities. 84 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS Again in his idea of substance, I